12
IRINA
The eyes staring down at me were so dark they were almost black, midnight gems twinkling in a face twisted with savagery that left me with no doubt.
He would kill whoever hurt me.
I swallowed back my tears, pinching my lips together to fight back the urge to tremble in his grip. His face was so close, his lips so near mine that we were only a breath away from kissing again. The night had gotten off-track, so far from the gentle coaxing I’d first intended when I started to tease him.
I’d never expected his reaction to the scars. Most men never even noticed them, and if they did, they certainly didn’t stop what they were doing long enough to ask, let alone demand, answers. The scotch sloshed in my stomach, feeling weighted in the face of his intensity.
I didn’t answer, couldn’t seem to find my voice as he gritted his teeth and his jaw clenched. “Who the fuck hurt you?” he said, his voice so deep it was almost inaudible. Like something only other monsters could hear, other demons who came hunting in the night for the prey they claimed as theirs.
“I did,” I said, squeezing my eyes closed tightly and pulling back from his grip. His fingers slipped along my throat, a moment of shock loosening his hold on me as his eyes widened. His face wrinkled with confusion, before he shook it off and wrapped that hand around the back of my neck.
“What do you mean you did?” he asked. “Why?”
“That’s none of your business,” I warned, tugging back against his grip. The robe was still clutched in my hands, just waiting to cover me in a moment that no longer felt intimate.
When I was no longer running the show.
He tightened his grip, his lips peeling back to reveal his teeth in something that felt like a snarl—animalistic and brutal. “Let’s get one thing straight, Butterfly,” he said, walking me back toward the sofa until the backs of my knees bumped into the edge. “When you’re with me, I’m in control.”
He released me, placing a hand on my naked shoulder and pushing until I fell, tumbling back onto the sofa. I landed in a moment of surprise, staring up at him as he panted over me. I watched his dark eyes narrow, watched him fight to control whatever was surging inside him when his gaze dropped to the scars on my thighs.
So close to where I wanted his attention, and yet so far all the same.
His arm dropped to his side, his fingers barely coasting over the edges of the faint lines. “Why?” he asked again, studying them not like they were a nuisance or something ugly, but as if they intrigued him.
The raised white scars on his hands seemed all too natural next to mine. Like two halves of one whole, a picture that simply belonged.
“Because I needed to,” I said vaguely, not giving away the storm in my head. The nightmare that it was to live with emotions I couldn’t control. With highs and lows and fears and dreams that always seemed out of reach until the moment they arrived and threw me off the axis of stability.
“Because you needed to?” he asked, tilting his head to the side. His nostrils flared as he slid his fingers to the inside of my thigh, as if he was smelling me and the hints of my lingering arousal. Even with his hands on my throat, I’d wanted him. Even with his invasive questions, I wanted him still.
There was nothing Scar could do to make me not desire the feel of those inked, scarred hands on me.
He pressed my legs out, spreading them on the couch when I didn’t fight. When I submitted to what he wanted without resistance, he stared down at the place between my thighs, his attention addictive and heady.
He looked at me like I was the only star shining in the sky. The only butterfly fluttering through the field of flowers. Like I was something rare, someone who mattered, for more than what she could do for other people.
Like I was a person and not a means to an end.
“Touch yourself,” he grunted, raising those dark eyes back to mine. Moving cautiously, I did as he said and slipped my right hand between my legs until it covered me from his view. “You heard me, Butterfly. You wanted to tease me. Now I want to see you play with that pretty little pussy.”
His fingers pressed down on my scars as he said the words, that bit of pressure against the skin that had become so sensitive over the years making me jolt. He eyed it with interest, something churning in his gaze as he watched me.
As he waited for me to comply.
“What happens if I don’t?” I asked, shifting my leg further out to give me more room to maneuver. He stepped between my legs with his broad body and he shoved them even wider and stared down at me.
He was so damn tall. So enormous that he seemed to envelope the entire room, to suck the oxygen from it as those dark eyes glared down at me. “You aren’t ready for that yet, Little Butterfly,” he murmured.
The word he’d tacked onto the end of the sentence seemed so purposeful. Like a promise, but at the same time he delayed me. He wouldn’t touch me, yet, but one day, I’d know what it was to have his hands on me.
“Tell me,” I said, needing the truth. Being with a man like Scar could mean anything. It could be simple, fleeting passion, or it could turn my world on its axis, shifting everything I thought I knew.
He drew his hand away from me to grasp the button of his slacks, jerking it through the hole until the waistband gaped open. His fingers grasped his fly, sliding it down slowly while I watched, unable to take my eyes off of him.
“Then I’ll fuck you until you forget how to keep secrets from me. Until I know each and every thought inside that pretty little head of yours,” he answered, reaching into the boxer briefs inside his pants. He pulled himself free, the length of him more than filling his hand. He stroked it from root to tip, watching my face for a reaction as my mouth fell open.
“What’s wrong, Butterfly? You don’t seem to be feeling quite so brave now,” he said, his words mocking but his tone amused. He was huge, somehow proportionate to his height in spite of the odds. There was just no way it was physically possible for that to fit inside a woman.
Definitely not me.
His hand covered the base, but every now and then when he shifted his grip, thin scars were visible at the top of his shaft. I kept from commenting, not wanting him to feel uncomfortable in the same way I had when he’d paid attention to mine, but the questions raced through my head regardless. The more he stroked himself, the more I noticed the slightly uneven texture of his skin where it stretched tight around his rigid cock.
One day, I’d find the answer for myself. I didn’t want to think about what I’d do with that information.
“You’re off your damn rocker if you think that thing is fitting inside me,” I said instead, lifting my hands to cover my mouth as soon as I did.
He chuckled, stroking it faster and nodding down to my pussy that was wide open to his intrusive stare. “Then I guess you better get your fingers in that fucking pussy before I fill you with my cock instead.”
I swallowed, dropping my hand back to rest between my legs. I ground the heel of my palm against my clit, giving a light touch while I watched him.
“Uh uh,” he scolded, shaking his head at me. “I want to see how you touch yourself when you think about me in your bed at night, knowing I’m out there watching your apartment and protecting you from all the things that go bump in the night. Do you play with your greedy little clit? Or do you stuff yourself so full of your fingers that you can pretend it’s my cock driving inside you?”
Fuck.
Who the hell was he, and when did he get so filthy?