Surviving Ice (Burying Water #4)(75)

It actually helps.

“Thanks,” I mutter, wiping my cheeks. I pull away from my little nest against his chest and cringe, streaks of black mascara and eyeliner smeared all over the front of his white T-shirt. I can only imagine what my face looks like.

He doesn’t even flinch, though, his jaw working against itself, taut. The short beard that’s normally so well kept shows signs of disarray, like he didn’t have time to trim and edge it today.

“You look like you didn’t sleep last night,” I say.

“I didn’t. But I’ll be fine.”

What kind of errands would keep him up all night?

“Don’t look so worried.” He sighs and stretches his long legs out in front of him. We’re practically sitting on the floor, him on my mattress; me, on him. The muscles in his arms are cording, probably after holding me in this position for so long.

I try to move, to relieve him of that, but he squeezes, trapping me.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” I warn him.

“Neither do I,” he fires back with a smirk. “But do you feel a bit better now?”

I nod slowly, because I do.

He opens his mouth but hesitates. “I told you about those three good friends I lost in the war?”

“Yeah.” The ones he watched die.

His Adam’s apple bobs with a hard swallow. “It doesn’t really sink in for a while. Weeks, sometimes months.”

Is that what this is? Is it finally sinking in? I thought it already had, back in the shop the day I finished Bobby’s tattoo. It would make sense, this utterly wretched sadness taking over. But then there’s that news from Bobby today.

I fill Sebastian in on everything I learned before he got there. He simply listens, his thumb rubbing back and forth over my thigh casually. Affectionately.

“What do you think it means?” Can Sebastian hear the shake in my voice? The twinge of fear?

He sighs, pushing my hair off my face, his gaze drifting along my features. “I think it means your uncle got involved with people you want nothing to do with.”

“I just wish I could remember something useful about that night. I keep hoping I’m just going to be hit with a detail that I somehow overlooked. Something that will help catch them.”

“You can’t put that pressure on yourself. You aren’t responsible for what happened. It had nothing to do with you.”

“But what if they come back? What if—”

He cuts my question off with a deep kiss, surprising me. With a slow roll, I suddenly find myself lying on the mattress, with Sebastian’s arm crooked beneath my neck and his mouth on my neck, his scruff scratching my skin but in the most seductive way—half ticklish, half torturous.

“I won’t let anything happen to you. Just listen to me next time.” His voice is low and gravelly, much like last night. I can feel him growing hard against my thigh.

And I’m overcome with relief that he’s not mad at me anymore. That I haven’t completely screwed everything up with him today, being so mule-headed.

“Because you’re a ninja?” My fingers tug at his soft T-shirt until it bunches in my hands.

I catch the smirk on his face as he lifts himself up enough to pull it over his head, uncovering that body I’ve come to love so much. “No, because I know how to keep people alive.”

“Don’t forget that I’m not paying you.”

His smirk widens into a full smile, watching me as I slide my own shirt up over my head. “Don’t worry, I haven’t.” He’s already zoned in on the front clasp of my bra. He pushes the button and the material springs off.

He’s resting on an elbow now, peering down at my bare upper half, his index finger trailing over my arm. “What do these mean?”

“A lot of things.”

Dark eyes flash to me. “Like what?”

“Like . . .” Do I want to tell him? I’ve been asked that question by many people before, including Amber, and I’ve never given the complete truth to anyone.

He looms over me, waiting.

“Like that one there.” I nod to the one he has his finger on—a classic weight scale with a tiny woman perched on one side, raised high while the empty side hangs low. “It means I’m nobody’s burden. I can take care of myself.”

A flicker of softness catches his eyes. “That’s important to you, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. And this one”—I tap the mask that Ian did for me last year in Ireland—“is my mask, that I like to wear to keep people from seeing how I’m feeling.”

“And this one?” One by one, I describe each and every piece of ink on my arm. It’s been a seven-year process beginning on my eighteenth birthday. Well planned out, each component my own design that I handed to a trusted artist—there are very few of them—to etch into my skin.

Each piece deeply personal to me.

“This one?” Sebastian’s strong, large hands sweep over the beautiful woodland fairy that dances along my rib cage on my right side.

“That’s Iridessa, my fairy godmother. Ned used to tell me that she’d watch over me while I was sleeping. For years, I believed him.” That was one of my first pieces. Ned did it for me.

Sebastian’s long fingers trail along the bramble of ivy and sharp thorns that runs along my pelvis. “And this?”