Red. (Den of Mercenaries #1)(27)

“Sorry, I—”

“It’s fine. You didn’t really hurt me.” But she didn’t try and touch his scar again.

Gradually, he sat up, rubbing at his eyes as he sighed heavily. All too quickly he went from one extreme to a look of sadness that made her ache for him.

What did he dream about that put that expression on his face?

They didn’t ask a lot of personal questions when they were together, though she had learned a few more things about him this time around as opposed to the last.

But this…this she hoped he would share, if only so she could ease that storm she saw behind his eyes.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

He didn’t respond for at least a minute, but he turned back towards her, the emotions she had seen replaced with darker ones, but at least she was more familiar with the way he was looking at her now.

“Help me forget,” he said as he pushed off the headboard, pulling her into him.

She looked into those fathomless blue eyes of his and asked the one question she wanted the answer to. “What are you trying to forget?”

Carefully, his fingers drifted beneath the edge of her panties, deftly pulling them down and off, tossing them over the side of the bed. Her bra quickly followed and without them, she was naked before his gaze while he remained clothed.

Now that she thought about it…there was never a time when she had seen him fully naked. And at that moment, as she thought about the way he held her arms pinned to the bed, she couldn’t remember what his skin felt like.

But tonight, whatever had caused the change in him had his shirt coming off, revealing ropes of muscle that flexed with the movement. To say that he was a work of art was an understatement. From the indentations at his waist, to the sharp lines that made up his abdomen, it was quite clear that he was cut. Yet, he wasn’t physically perfect.

He had scars, lots of them, some of which she was finally seeing and not just where the two stars were inked into his chest. Another looked like someone had slashed across his stomach with a knife, and even one that looked suspiciously like a bite mark.

Whatever life he had come from, it hadn’t been an easy one.

And she had never seen them, not until after he had crawled off her, going over to his bag to grab a condom that she saw his back for the first time.

And the scars that were all over it.

She gasped, unable to contain the sound, not even as her hand lifted to her mouth as she stared.

Jagged, vertical lines stretched nearly across the entirety of his back, some bigger than others, and a few that even looked like they were still painful to the touch.

How had he even gotten them?

Her minds ran wild with possibilities, each one worse than the last, and she was so caught up in her thoughts that she hadn’t noticed Niklaus moving back towards her until he was right back between her legs, but his expression was different now.

Less lust.

More…something.

He held her face in his hands, far gentler than she was expecting. “It was a long time ago.”

“But—”

“No, I don’t want you to worry yourself with this. Because right now,” he said then paused, as though considering his next words, “when I’m with you, I don’t think about them.”

She didn’t know who or why the scars had been embedded into his skin, but she wanted to erase them, eradicate the pain that she knew would have been excruciating for him.

Reagan didn’t realize there were tears in her eyes before one slipped free, spilling down her face.

Very carefully, he used his thumb to brush it away, bringing his lips to her cheek as though she were the one in need of comfort instead of him.

“Can I…”

She was almost afraid to finish that question, not sure whether for him or for her. She didn’t want to bring up bad memories for him, but she wanted to touch them, to offer him comfort when he quite obviously hadn’t had it then.

Reagan didn’t have to finish her question for him to understand what she was asking. Though his motions were stiff, he did turn, offering her an unobstructed view of what she wanted to see, and now that he was close, they only made her hurt more.

The scars didn’t seem to be made in any discernible pattern, but it was quite obvious that whoever had left the marks on him had wanted him to hurt. Badly.

Hesitantly, she reached out, careful to let her fingers ghost over one of the lines that was a shade lighter than the rest of his skin. With the way that the scars looked, she had expected to feel something when she touched them, but it was just as smooth as the rest of him.

Though healed, those scars remained with him.

“You got the others covered up,” she said after some time, tracing the length of another line. “Why not these?”

“I wanted the reminder,” he said, glancing back at her over his shoulder, his expression unreadable.

“Of what? Pain?”

“No, that I won’t break.”

She was readying to go on, to offer him comfort in the form of words, but he shushed her with a kiss, almost making her forget what she was questioning him about.

This time felt different.

It wasn’t like they hadn’t ever touched before, that they had never explored each other’s bodies, but as her fingers drifted up his spine, feeling the grooves, but also over the scars the decorated his skin, she felt like she was feeling him for the first time.