Page 97 of Property of Scar

Her mouth curves just enough to register before I slam my lips back to hers, the moment snapping tight again, the space between us gone, replaced with heat, contact, and the kind of momentum that doesn’t slow once it starts.

Her nails find my back again, this time with nothing in the way, and the sensation hits sharper now, dragging me right back into it. I shift, just enough to break the line of her mouth, not pulling away, just changing the angle, finding the hinge of her jaw instead. My lips follow the line down, slower now, tracking the shape of her neck until I feel it… her pulse.

Fast.

Strong.

Alive.

It hits against my mouth like a second rhythm layered over everything else, louder than anything in the world right now.

I pause there for half a second.

It is not hesitation, it’s acknowledgment.

Then my teeth press lightly against her throat.

Not breaking skin.

Not taking.

But just enough for her to feel it.

Just enough for her to understand exactly what she is to me in this moment, and exactly how close that line is.

She arches into it, her hands tightening in my hair, pulling me harder against her throat, and the low sound she makes travels through my chest like a current finding ground. I lift my head and look at her, really look at her, bare skin pale and luminous under the starlight, the flush spreading across her chest and up her throat, her dark eyes watching me with nothing left in them that is performing anything. The hunter is gone, the armor is gone, and in its place, there is just Cali, breathing hard, looking at me like I am both the threat and the answer, and something in me that has been locked for centuries simply decides.

I am done being careful with this.

“You have no idea…” I say, my voice dropped low enough that it belongs only to her, “… how long I’ve wanted to do this.”

She tips her chin up, unimpressed even now, even here, her fingers curling at the waistband of my jeans. “Less talking, old man.”

The audacity of her nearly makes me smile. Instead, I catch both her wrists in one hand and pin them above her head against the rooftop, and watch her eyes flare, not with fear, never with fear. This woman doesn’t know how to fear me. And that is the single most intoxicating thing about her, with something bright and challenging that says, ‘there you are,’ like she’s been waiting for me to stop being gentle about it.

“Old man,” I repeat quietly, holding her gaze, and I tighten my grip just enough to make the point. “Let’s revisit that.”

She smiles, sharp-edged and daring, and says, “Make me.”

So, I do.

I start at her throat, and I take my time with it, dragging my lips along the line of her pulse, feeling it hammer against my mouth, alive and insistent, the most honest thing about her. She tips her head back despite herself. That small surrender does more to me than anything deliberate could, and I file it carefully alongside everything else I am learning tonight about what Calypso looks like when she stops performing.

I trace the column of her throat downward, pressing my lips to the hollow at its base, then lower, following the line of her ribcage, her stomach, learning the contours of her with my mouth, methodically, without rushing, because this is worth mapping properly. She inhales sharply when I reach the soft skin below her navel, and I feel the muscles of her stomach contract beneath my lips, her whole body drawing tight in anticipation.

My hands find the waistband of her jeans, fingers working the button loose, and she makes a sound that is not quite protest and not quite encouragement, somewhere in the territory of I’m watching you, and I glance up at her from the line of her hip.

“Problem?” I ask.

“None whatsoever,” she says in a tone that is attempting composure and not fully achieving it, and I decide that I enjoy that particular tone enormously.

I peel the denim down her legs, dragging my palms against the outside of her thighs as I go because I can, because she is warm, real, and she has been at an arm’s length for weeks, and I am done with arm’s length.

She kicks the jeans free herself, which is very Cali—even now she’s handling the logistics— and I hook my fingers into the thin fabric of her underwear and draw that down, too, and then she is bare under the open sky. I take a moment to look at her. All that fierce capability lay open, watching me watch her with dark eyes that are still hunting for answers even now, still sharp, still alert, still her.

“You going to stare all night?” she asks.

“Possibly,” I reply, and I mean it, but I drop my head anyway because she is not the only one who has been waiting.