Pieces of Us (Confessions of the Heart, #3)(41)

I got him all the way to the end of the hall, to the double doors sitting there as if they were asking for permission for passage.

A disorder blew through, the air too thin, too deep, too profound.

Gathering my strength, I reached out and turned the knob. The door swung open to a big room.

Modern and redone like the rest of his house.

Masculine and sexy.

My heart panged.

I ignored it, ignored the forgotten dreams and his massive bed and his scent that was hitting me from all sides. I led him into the attached bathroom where I flicked on the light.

He squinted beneath the harshness, and I gasped again when his wounds were illuminated this way. “Oh, God, Maxon . . . what did they do to you? You should be at the hospital.”

“Don’t want to.”

A frown pulled at my face. “You don’t have to be the tough one all the time.”

He stumbled over a choked laugh. “Not so tough tonight.”

I released a breath. “Four men got to you?”

“Four punk kids. I should . . . I should have . . .” He trailed off in some kind of agony. I could feel it. All the things from earlier.

“Izzy . . . I’m so sorry.” He was slurring more, and I was shushing him, whispering, “We’ll talk about it later.”

“You came.”

“Yeah.”

“For me?” Vulnerability tumbled out with his question. A band pulled tight, right through the middle of me.

The part that wanted to promise that I’d be there for him forever and the other that hated him for what he’d done.

“I figured you and I had more things we needed to say to each other.”

“So many things,” he mumbled.

“Let’s save it for when you feel better, why don’t we?” I pled, sure my heart couldn’t handle a thing he would say.

Maybe I should have listened to my mama when she said we both needed time to clear our heads. She was right. We needed it. But that would have meant I wouldn’t have been here for him this way. And tonight . . . just for tonight, I wanted to be.

“Fuckin’ hurts.” His face twisted.

My stomach did the same, hating that he was in pain.

“I know,” I told him, trying to soothe him. Because it did. It hurt so bad. And I wasn’t sure if that would ever go away.

He reached out, and his fingertips brushed my cheek. “So pretty.”

Redness flushed. I bit my bottom lip, ignoring it, knowing he wouldn’t be sayin’ it if his restraint wasn’t dulled.

If the reality wasn’t marred and distorted by the trauma of the night.

“Come on, let’s get you cleaned up.”

I stepped back a little so I could gather the hem of his shirt in my hands. Maxon stared down at me.

Blue eyes roiled, fierce and uncontrolled, air coming in harsh breaths from his nose.

I tore my attention away, unable to stay standing beneath the weight of it all.

“I’m going to need to take your shirt off. Is that okay?”

He grunted his approval, and I started pulling it up, over those rows of perfectly chiseled abs he’d been teasing me with a few days ago.

I tried not to look. Not to let my mouth water or my body trip into need.

I tried all the harder not to cry when I saw the purples and blues rising under the red scrapes, some of them pitted with tiny rocks where his shirt had torn, a big scrape over the scar that remained on his side. One that I would never, ever forget.

And I was picturing him a ball on the ground.

People hurtin’ him. I hated it. Hated it so much.

“Oh, God, Maxon.”

“It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not. I hate that this happened to you.”

“Deserve it. Deserve it all.”

“Please, don’t say that,” I begged as I lifted his shirt higher.

It exposed his chest, and I was struggling for air.

Fighting my senses.

The sorrow at him being hurt this way. The love that had refused to die. The arousal that stirred just being in his space.

I wanted to reach out. Touch him. Caress his flesh. Kiss it better the way Pete had implied.

The man was magnificent. Wide, bristling strength. Solid muscle carved from a stony cliff. Jagged and hard, destruction below if you didn’t hold on tight enough.

But it was the wounds covering almost every inch of him that shook me to the core.

“Tell me these assholes got arrested?” I peeked up at him, praying he couldn’t read everything I was thinking. “I can’t believe what they did to you.”

He gave me a grim shake of his head, and his body slumped a little to the left. “No. I’ll get ’em. Don’t be scared, Izzy. Won’t let nothin’ happen to you. Never.”

I didn’t want to point out that he’d hurt me worst of all.

Swallowing down all the confliction, I peeled his shirt the rest of the way over his head, careful of the gashes on his face. I tugged it free, dropped it to the floor.

My eyes drifted.

Catching.

Hooking.

It pulled a gasp out with it, and I tried not to gape, tried to keep my eyes from racing to take in every inch of his bare shoulders and upper arms. The designs he’d marked there.

The man a hardbound book.