Page 84 of Dark Surrender

And why do I not care that he watches me sleep?

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Iris

The mattress dips, and a large, muscular body curls behind me. The tickle of his breath flutters across the back of my neck as a covered erection cuddles my rear.

Lips brush my bare shoulder.

Still half asleep, my gasp is sharp as goosebumps sprout everywhere he touches.

“Tell me to leave, sweetheart,” Dark whispers before he peppers a line of kisses up the side of my neck to the space behind my ear.

I don’t say a thing.

Sure, I’ve slept in bed with marks before, but not like this. Never like this.

Skating his lips across the top of my back, Dark abruptly stops and hisses. “Iris, what the fuck are these scars?”

Oh. Right. Those.

“He beat me.”

“Who did?”

“My father.”

Dark’s grumbled inhale, and the sudden shift of the bed expresses far more than words ever could.

They’re ugly, I get it.

One of the many chapters of my old life, of my childhood, when I was taken into the woods and beaten for not doing as I was told. For not being good enough. Violent enough. For enabling Dee to be a girl and have a heart. I did what I could. A killer, I am not. Not unless provoked. Not unless it’s necessary.

A finger hooks under the thin strap of my tank top and slowly trails down my arm. I flatten my stomach to the bed and bury my face in the pillow as Dark exposes my back in the safety of my moonlit bedroom.

And I let him.

As tears stain my pillow, I give this piece of myself to someone else.

Nobody beyond Dee has seen them like this. I always wear shirts that cover my back. Even my tank tops are wide enough to keep everything hidden except for those I wear to bed. Just like this one, that Dark rolls down, so it’s nothing more than a band around my waist.

Gentle fingertips trail across the faded scars.

“He’s dead. Right?”

Swallowing down the lump in my throat, I nod into the pillow.

“What a fuckin’ monster.”

Yes. He was.

“I’d never do anything like this to my kids.”

I rest my cheek on the cotton, facing away from him. “You would if you stole them to raise as your soldiers, and when the oldest didn’t comply.”

“What the hell do you mean, stole you?”

“He wasn’t my real father. Or Dee’s,” I confess to the first person ever, freeing a secret into a world I never planned to tell anyone.