Lovecraft

Chapter 9: The Lines We Cross

His mouth was everywhere.

On her lips, her throat, the curve of her shoulder where the oversized shirt had slipped down. Kael kissed like a man drowning, like she was air and he'd been holding his breath for years. Mila's back hit the mattress, and he followed her down, his body a solid weight pinning her to the sheets.

"I've wanted this," he murmured against her skin, the words rough, torn from somewhere deep. "Since the moment you walked through my door. Wet. Scared. Looking at me like I was the devil."

"Maybe you are," she breathed.

He lifted his head, those frozen blue eyes boring into hers. In the dim light, they weren't cold anymore. They were burning.

"Then you're going to hell with me."

He pulled the shirt over her head in one fluid motion, and then she was bare beneath him, and the way he looked at her made her feel powerful and terrified all at once. His hands were rough, calloused, the hands of a man who'd spent his life holding weapons. But they traced her skin with something close to reverence.

Then she reached for his shirt, and he stilled.

"Mila."

"I want to see you."

"I know what I look like."

"I don't care."

She pulled the fabric up, and he let her. The scars were worse in the low light. Angrier. She sat up, tracing them with her fingertips, following the map of his survival. The bullet wounds on his shoulder. The long s***h across his ribs. The puckered line near his hip.

"Who did this to you?" she whispered.

"Different people. Different wars." His voice was tight. "You don't have to—"

She leaned forward and pressed her lips to the scar on his ribs.

He sucked in a breath. His hand came up, fisting in her hair, not pulling, just holding.

She kissed each scar. Each wound. Each mark that told the story of how he'd survived. By the time she reached his lips again, his eyes were closed, his jaw clenched tight.

"Look at me," she said softly.

He opened his eyes. There was something raw there. Something he'd never shown anyone.

"I'm not afraid of you," she said.

And then she kissed him, and he came undone.