Page 80 of Take Me Away
He opens one eye, regarding me with a sleepy smirk. ‘What exactly are you overthinking at’—he glances at the bedside clock—‘six thirty-seven in the morning?’
Everything. Us. Last night. What happens next.
‘Nothing important,’ I say.
Both eyes open now, his gaze sharpening. ‘Liar.’
I’ve forgotten this – how easily he reads me, how readily he calls me on my bullshit. It’s both comforting and terrifying.
‘I was thinking,’ I admit, tracing a finger along the scar on his collarbone, ‘that I don’t know how you got this.’
He catches my hand, presses it flat against his chest where I can feel his heartbeat, steady and strong. ‘Fishing accident. Four years ago. Hook caught, line snapped under tension. Could’ve been worse.’
‘What about this one?’ I touch a small, puckered mark near his ribs.
‘RNLI rescue. Got slammed against rocks pulling out a stupid tourist who’d ignored the warning flags.’
I wince. ‘Hazards of heroism.’
‘Not heroism,’ he corrects. ‘Just the job.’
There’s no false modesty in his tone, just matter-of-fact acceptance of risk as part of life. It’s so quintessentially Kit that my heart squeezes painfully in my chest.
His hand slides up my arm, leaving goosebumps in its wake. ‘Your turn,’ he says, fingers finding the thin white line on my shoulder. ‘This one’s new.’
‘I smashed into some shatterproof Perspex during a scene. Turns out it wasn’t shatterproof. Prop master’s nightmare. Twenty stitches and a production delay that cost the studio half a million.’
His eyebrows rise. ‘Just another day at the office?’
‘Something like that.’ I try for nonchalance, but it’s hard to maintain when his touch is trailing lower, across my collarbone, along the curve of my breast, flitting over my belly button and setting off butterfly wings that flame heat along my insides.
‘And this?’ His thumb brushes over a small mark above my hip.
My breath catches. ‘Appendix scar. Two years ago. Emergency surgery in the middle of a press tour.’
‘Who was with you?’ he asks, voice casual, eyes anything but.
‘My assistant. Piper.’ I swallow, remembering the sterile hospital room, the flowers from cast and crew, the distinct absence of anyone who loved me simply for being me. ‘She’s good in a crisis. Although she’s been suspiciously quiet the last couple of days, which doesn’t bode well.’
Something shadows his expression, gone before I can identify it. His hand continues its exploration, sliding over my stomach, across my hip.
‘And these?’ His fingers trace the silvery stretch marks on my lower abdomen, barely visible in the morning light.
‘Weight fluctuation for a role,’ I answer, surprised he noticed them. ‘I gained twenty pounds, then lost thirty.’
‘That sounds unhealthy.’
I laugh, but the sound is brittle. ‘Welcome to Hollywood.’
He frowns, and I brace for judgement. Instead, he leans down and presses his lips to the marks, the gesture so tender it steals my breath.
‘Beautiful,’ he murmurs against my skin. ‘All of you. The marks. The scars. The history.’
Something breaks open inside me – a dam of emotion I’ve held back since the moment I returned to Sea Salt Bay. Since before that, maybe – since the day I left, since I learned to package my feelings into soundbites and camera-ready expressions.
Since I knew that I could never come back because I’d have hated for Kit to see what I’d become. Since I stopped calling my grandmother because I knew she could hear the lies in my voice.
And I couldn’t come back, because I was trapped. Trapped in a gilded cage that wouldn’t set me free until too much time had passed and it was too late.
