Page 93 of Where Your Scars Meet Mine
Not because he’s harmless.
Because whatever he is doing to me, whatever this is, it is not simple. And that ruins everything.
At the very least, I know this much: I am not the only person in this room who understands what it means to lose ownership of your own skin.
“Don’t you have a phone call you’re supposed to be tending to?” he asks.
There’s a scoff in it. A challenge. A little contempt. He is trying to push me back toward anger because anger is easier than whatever this really is.
“What is wrong with you?” I fire back. The question tears out of me before I can soften it. “You spend weeks pretending I don’t exist, and then you think you can just come downstairs and touch me like that because what? Because you heard Kadin on the phone and suddenly got insecure?”
His mouth curves, but there’s nothing warm in it.
“Insecure?” he repeats, then, he actuallylaughs.
That laugh makes something in me snap tighter.
“You think I’m threatened by that little prick?”
He steps closer when he says it, not fast, not aggressive, just enough to make me step back without meaning to. I hate that he notices. I hate that I notice him noticing.
“Given the disgusting little claim you laid on me in that kitchen,” I say, trying to steady my breathing and failing, “yes. That’s exactly what I think.”
He tilts his head slightly, studying me with a focus that feels far too intimate for a fight.
“Did you stop me?”
The question lands low and ugly.
I stare at him.
His voice drops with the next step he takes. By the time he speaks again, the space between us has narrowed to something dangerous.
“Did you stop me,” he asks, “while he sat there on the phone listening to you come apart in my hands?”
Heat slams into me so fast it burns.
I shove him.
Or try to.
His hands catch my wrists immediately as the whole fight suddenly changes shape. My palms never make it to his chest this time. He traps me before I can put force behind it, his grip tightening just enough to stop me, not enough to hurt, though the restraint itself still sends panic and heat through me in the same breath.
“You’re drunk,” I hiss, because I need that to be the reason. “All you ever do is touch me when you’re drunk.”
The words leave me sharper than I expect. I realize too late that I sound almost wounded.
That does something to his face.
The sarcasm thins. The cruelty doesn’t disappear, but it shifts, revealing something rawer underneath. He looks tired for a second. Not sleepy. Soul-tired. The kind of tired that comes from carrying yourself like a weapon for too long.
“The liquor doesn’t make me want you,” he says quietly.
The sentence cuts through me because it isn’t what I expected.
His grip changes. Not gone. Changed.
He guides my wrists down slowly until my palms land flat against his chest. Against the scarred skin there. Against the hard, damaged heat of him.
