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I wait for it. I feel his nose dip and his top lip graze where his bottom lip had been. I know his eyes are following, and there isn’t a damn thing I can do about it.
More tears fall, and I don’t bother wiping them away either.
“What…? Jesus,” he whispers as his fingers trace the wide, puckered slashes. “Phoebe, what happened to you?”
“It’s nothing.” I keep my eyes plastered to the ceiling, counting the dots in the molding.
“Bullshit. This isn’t nothing. Talk to me.”
Wrestling out from underneath him, I drag myself to the opposite side of the bed and search the floor for my dress—until I remember he ripped it off me last night. Jerking the sheet off the bed, I cocoon myself in it and try to look anywhere but at him.
Julian sits on the edge of the mattress, stark-ass naked and not giving a damn.
“Look,” I begin, waving a hand in the air. “Last night was fun, right? We got carried away. So, we’re good. No strings.” Clearing my throat, I attempt to pull myself together. “I’m going to fix my dress and call Gage. I don’t think I should get in a taxi like this.”
“Stop.”
I freeze at his sharp command.
“Really, you don’t— “
“I said stop. Stop everything, right now.”
“I’m not what you want, Julian.” I clutch the sheet tighter. “There are things you don’t know—horrible, nasty things.”
His eyes narrow as if remembering something. “Is this about your father?”
Bitch-ass reporter.
“Julian, why do you have to push so hard all the time?” I ask, quietly.
“Because it’s fucking impossible to walk away from you, that’s why!” he roars, causing me to wince. “So there are things I don’t know. There are things you don’t know too. People have secrets. Shit happens.”
“You don’t understand.”
“No, you don’t understand, princess.”
“I can’t deal with this right now,” I announce, moving to the edge of the bed.
“Phoebe, you’re not going any-fucking-where.” Grabbing the back of the sheet, he pulls me easily across the middle of the bed. Once I’m underneath him, he untangles the sheet and rips it off, exposing me.
Trapped, I stare at the ceiling again as the tears roll. “Are you happy now? Get your eyeful?”
I feel his fingertip gently trace the first scar on my hipbone. It was the second wound, and I remember it feeling like a swarm of bees stinging all at once. Lifting his finger, he moves it directly above my belly button and traces the longer one. That was the third one—the one that brought me to my knees. The one that nicked a branch of my superior mesenteric artery. The one that almost made me bleed out next to my shitty gold Chevy Malibu.
“They’re beautiful.”
I let out a strangled cry. “Shut up, Julian. You already fucked me. You don’t have to work for it anymore, all right?”
He lowers his mouth and kisses each one, making sure he doesn’t miss a single scar. Seven in all. Seven ugly, white, ripped shards of skin from my navel to my pelvis. Reminders of the night everything was taken from me. They’ve been my cross to bear—literally and figuratively.
“I have to go.”
“Not yet,” he says, moving lower. His kisses become impatient, raining down while his hands trail behind him.
My skin ignites for him without my permission. His lips move to my hip, and he kisses the first scar he touched once more. I hold my breath as he moves lower…
And lower…
