Page 131 of The Chase

All the way to his heart.

And he had the best mouth. Firm yet soft. Seductive. Sonia wanted to trace the shape of it with her fingertip, maybe wake him up with a kiss. He’d earned his sleep, though, with that third round. She wouldn’t disturb him.

The Hook glinted in the ambient light on the nightstand. It had seemed rude to look closely at it when Nate was awake, but Sonia got up to examine it now. She touched the cold steel with a fingertip, knowing he thought of it as just a tool, then fingered the little sock that he wore over the stump to pad it. It was soft and thick. Sweeping her hair back, Sonia bent down to look at his arm.

It was pretty much the way she would have expected. Nate had no right hand and just above the point where the wrist had been, his arm ended in a rounded stump. She could barely see the line of a healed scar on the lower edge. She took a closer look at the tattoo she’d noticed on his forearm in the shower.

The tattoo was a pair of overlapping hearts with the wordsLove is Foreverabove them. The bottom of the hearts were cut off by the scar of an incision, leaving just the end flourish of a letter. There must have been a name beneath the heart.

Sonia stared at it for a moment. Nate had loved someone forever. But where was that person? Was that loss the reason why he didn’t want to have a relationship?

She leaned closer, trying to guess what first letter would have left a tail like the one she could see. Maybe a T. When she tried to get a better look, Sonia’s hair spilled over her shoulder, brushing against Nate’s upper arm, and she froze.

He lifted one brow without opening his eyes. “No freak show,” he warned in a low growl. His breathing hadn’t changed and neither had his posture.

He’d known all along that she was looking.

“I’m curious.”

“Kind of a thing with you.”

“The scar is part of you,” she said. “I’m looking at it the same way I look at your mouth or your eyes.”

“You look at my mouth.” Nate sounded skeptical and his eyes opened a slit.

“I do.” Sonia reached out and touched the tip of her finger to his lips. She felt the jolt of his surprise. “I always did,” she confessed quietly. She traced the outline of his mouth, her gaze fixed upon her finger. “You sleep on your back.”

“Guilty as charged.”

“Naked.”

“Rain or shine.”

“Confident,” she said, her fingertip making another circuit.

Nate caught her hand in his. “Don’t mess with me, Sonia.” His voice was a low growl, a sexy one, and she belatedly realized the effect of her touch on him. There was an interesting shadow beneath the sheets, which gave her an idea.

“I’m not.” She eased down to sit back on the bed, her hip pressed against his. Nate didn’t move away, probably because there wasn’t anywhere to go. He was between her and the wall on the narrow bed and still holding her hand.

“Does it hurt?”

Nate frowned. “Not now. It hurt like hell at the time.”

“Does it feel different?”

He considered the question for a moment. “Yes and no. Obviously, I can’t feel things with a part of my body that isn’t there anymore, but sometimes I feel like I can. They tell me it’s a memory or a phantom impression, and is pretty common. Most of the time, it just feels like my hand is gone or numb.” He shrugged. “Not reporting to home base.”

“Don’t they make mechanical hands with fingers that move?”

“Oh yeah.” He sighed with obvious yearning. “Myoelectric prostheses are seriously cool. It makes you look like a bionic man, with new powers, too.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Some of them can be programmed to move based on small motions in the residual limb.”

“Why don’t you have one of those?”

Nate laughed a little. “There are fifty or sixty thousand reasons why. I’m saving my pennies.”