‘Eli,’ I began hoarsely.
He pulled off his shirt and threw it on the ground along with his jacket, and all the air in my lungs vanished.
At first I couldn’t work out what I was seeing, because it didn’t make any sense. His skin wasn’t the smooth burnished gold I remembered, all beautifully etched pecs and abs, any woman’s complete sexual fantasy of a man. It was...oh, God...it looked like his skin had melted. It was red in some places, and shiny, twisted in others and pulled tight. In other places it was white...
Scars. Massive scars. One licked up almost to his throat.
I blinked, not really taking it in, too shocked to speak.
But he wasn’t done.
His hands were at his belt, undoing it in a series of short, decisive motions, unbuckling it, pulling it out from the loops of his pants and then throwing it down with a hard click onto the white tiles. He got rid of his shoes and socks. Then he pushed down his pants, along with the black underwear he wore underneath, and kicked them away. The scars licked around his narrow waist, one on his left hip wrapping around the top of his thigh, leaving the rest of his legs untouched.
His shoulders hadn’t escaped. There was knotted scar tissue along his right one, his right bicep also shiny and twisted with scars.
His jaw was like iron, his stare dark and intense.
He stood in the middle of the white-tiled room, half of him the golden god I remembered, the other half a mass of shiny skin and scar tissue.
It looked as though he’d been embraced by fire.
He didn’t look away from me. He didn’t try to hide. The light of the bathroom was merciless and a very deep part of me wanted to go to him and wrap one of those thick, fluffy robes around him, hide him away. And not because the sight of his scars was distasteful to me, but because I could see that they hurt him.
My eyes filled with helpless tears.
His mouth twisted and it wasn’t a smile. It was something much harder, almost a sneer.
‘I know I’m not pretty for you any more, Vee, but there’s nothing to cry about.’ The roughness of his voice echoed in the small space, and the change in it suddenly made sense now, as did the bitterness that wound through it. ‘And you can probably guess why I didn’t tell you who I was.’
‘What...?’ I stopped, struggling to make my voice work. ‘What happened to you?’
He gave a laugh that had nothing to do with amusement. ‘A little run-in with a fire.’
This was more than a run-in.
He’d been burned and very, very badly.
‘Eli...’ My voice sounded small and pathetic, shocked. ‘If you’re worried about the scars—’
‘I’m not worried about the damn scars. It’s the complications that come along with them. I make sure my partners are blindfolded so they don’t have to see them. So they don’t ask any fucking questions about them. So I don’t have to go into any long and involved explanations as to what happened and why, and do they hurt, and can I touch them, and how did you survive—?’
He broke off abruptly, biting off the words as if they hurt him. ‘Because it’s not about them. It’s about me and what I want. And what I want is to fuck. So now you know. Now you can guess what happened. And now you understand why it’s best if you leave and we never speak of this again.’
I blinked fiercely, staring into those brilliant hazel eyes gone so dark. ‘Why?’
He gave a rough laugh. ‘Why what? Why do I want you to leave?’
‘No, why didn’t you tell me who you were the moment I walked into the room?’
His jaw hardened again, a muscle leaping in it.
He should have looked vulnerable standing naked with all those terrible scars on show. But he didn’t. He looked like a man who’d literally walked through fire and come out the other side even stronger. Harder too, that much was obvious, and in some ways bigger as well. More muscled.
I couldn’t deny it. He had a big, compelling presence. Much more so than the man he’d been years ago. And I couldn’t think why. Perhaps it was that harder edge. It was mesmerising.
‘Why do you think?’ he said eventually. ‘Because I decided I wanted you.’
That shivered down my spine in a glorious burst of heat. I leaned against the door frame and looked at him, letting my gaze drift down his body, along those terrible, terrible scars, and further down to where he was still semi-hard. There were no scars there...
The heat inside me twisted and turned, coiling and hot.
He was beautiful there, long and thick and hard, and the way he stood, all scarred and terrible and dark, made him compelling to me in a way I couldn’t describe.
I managed to find my voice from somewhere. ‘I didn’t think you felt that way about me.’
‘I didn’t think I did, either. Yet my cock seems to think otherwise.’
‘Eli...’
‘You want to know where these fucking scars come from? I’ll tell you. I didn’t want to have this conversation, but you took off that goddamned mask and here we are.’
I swallowed, my throat closing. I wanted to apologise yet again, but something inside me wouldn’t let me. He was angry and hurt, I got that, and from the looks of those scars he had every reason to be. But I hadn’t done anything except take off the blindfold because I wanted to see him.
‘You can probably guess why I did,’ I said. ‘I wanted to see you. I’ve been thinking about you for so long. Thinking about you, wondering about you...’ I let out a breath and went on, because why not? I’d told him everything else. ‘Fantasising about you too. And I...wanted to see you. I wanted to look into your eyes, see your face...’
‘So you could see why I sound different? Why I act different?’
‘No. So I could see you.’ I wasn’t looking at his scars any more, or even at the evidence of his desire for me. I looked into his eyes instead, trying to see the gold and green, the life and warmth that used to live inside him. ‘I’ve missed you so much, Eli.’
His expression became even more forbidding, but I rushed on, heedless.
‘It’s been so long. And you won’t return my calls or my texts or even my damn emails.’ I pushed myself away from the door frame, taking a few steps into the bathroom, coming towards him, before I could stop myself. ‘I only wanted to make sure you were okay. That I hadn’t done anything—’
‘You didn’t do anything.’ He cut me off harshly, a flicker of emerald glinting deep in his eyes. ‘I didn’t want to see you.’
That hurt. It hurt a lot. It shouldn’t, but it did.
‘Why?’ I sounded bewildered. ‘If I didn’t do anything...’
‘Because I didn’t want to talk about this to anyone, least of all you.’
The hurt deepened.
I stared up into his perfect face, ignoring the mass of scar tissue that was the rest of his body. The dichotomy of it would have intrigued me at a different time, but I wasn’t thinking about that now. I could only see him—the man I’d loved for so long, I couldn’t remember what it was like not to love him. Could only see the anger and bitterness in his eyes, the hard steel where before there had been laughter and easy-going smiles.
Not all the time, though. You know that, right?
Yeah, maybe I did. The smiles I’d got later hadn’t been so easy and they hadn’t lasted as long. They’d started to look...forced.
‘Why not me?’
‘You’d want to know what happened. You’d want me to talk about it. You’d want to know every fucking thing, and you wouldn’t take no for an answer because you never, ever fucking do.’ The harshness of his voice felt like sandpaper, abrading my skin, the low growl in it making me shiver the way it had done when I’d first walked into the room. A good shiver. ‘And I didn’t want to talk about it. I still don’t. And I don’t want you looking at me the way you’re doing now, like you
r precious family heirloom just got shattered.’
‘I... I’m not.’
‘Aren’t you? Aren’t you looking at me right now, thinking of me the way I was? Thinking about how different I am now? About how ruined I am—?’
‘No.’ This time it was my turn to interrupt him, my own anger starting to stir in response to his, because he was certainly angry. I could see it in the flicker of green in his eyes and in the tension that rolled off him. ‘You really want to know what I’m thinking? I’m thinking about how much that must have hurt. How much agony you must have been in. And how strong you must have been to recover.’
He stared back, searching my face as if he didn’t believe me, so tall and so broad and still so powerful even with all those scars. I could feel the heat he gave off; it was as though that fire had crawled inside him and was still burning.
‘Full-thickness burns over forty percent of my body,’ he said roughly. ‘Countless surgeries and skin grafts. Took me nearly two years to recover.’
I had to look away then, had to drop my gaze to the lick of that scar up his throat so he wouldn’t see the sadness in my eyes. The sympathy I couldn’t quite hide. And, as I knew he wouldn’t want it, I lifted my hand and reached out hesitantly, wanting to touch the red, shiny skin of his chest.
He tensed but didn’t move away and, as I touched him, I heard his breath hiss out.
Instantly I lifted my fingers. ‘I’m sorry. Does it hurt?’
‘No. I...don’t feel anything.’
I let my fingers descend again, his skin warm to my touch but bumpy and tight. ‘Not this?’ I stroked along his chest to where there was a join in the scar tissue, obviously the edges between skin grafts. It had created a kind of patchwork effect.
‘No.’ The roughness in his voice became more pronounced, a note in it sounding like regret. ‘There was nerve damage.’
I lifted my gaze and found him looking down at me, his eyes full of angry emerald fire. The light from above him had turned the tips of his short hair to gold and had done the same thing to his eyelashes, outlining the planes and angles of his face. His features were still so beautiful and yet...
A ruined heirloom. Was that how he saw himself? Ruined? But of course he did. He’d been an athlete. His body and the way it functioned had been his entire career.
It struck me then, forcibly, that this must be why he’d suddenly disappeared at the height of his fame. Rumours had circulated that he’d taken off overseas after his last disastrous game, when he’d been benched for an injury and his team had lost, his glittering future in ruins. But that hadn’t been the case, had it? He’d been terribly injured and had spent years recovering.
No wonder he was angry. One lost game, one lost season, was serious, but he might have been able to come back from it. Except after the years this would have taken from his life...no. There would have been no coming back from that.
‘There’s an art form in Japan,’ I said quietly. ‘It’s called kintsugi or kintsukuroi. When something is broken, usually a plate or a bowl, they put it back together again with liquid gold.’ I gently touched the seams of the scars, following the joins. ‘It takes something shattered and turns it into something unique. It creates a work of art. The scars become features, creating beauty.’
He’d stilled beneath my hand, his chest rising and falling a little faster than it had before. ‘There’s nothing beautiful about this.’
‘Isn’t there, though?’ My fingers skimmed over a smooth, shiny piece of scar tissue. ‘Isn’t there something beautiful about survival? About living?’
Something flickered in his gaze, but I couldn’t tell what it was. Then his fingers closed around my wrist and held on. ‘If you’re going to touch me, touch me where I can feel it.’
My breath caught and he pushed my hand down over his scarred chest and stomach, where I could still feel the steel of his muscles beneath, and down further to where he wasn’t scarred. Where his skin was smooth as velvet and very hot, and where he was as hard as an iron bar.
His hand was over mine, closing my fingers around his cock, applying pressure.
I looked up into his face. ‘Can you feel that?’
And there it was, a flicker of gold.
‘Yes,’ he growled. ‘Question is, what are you going to do about it?’
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Elias
HER FINGERS WERE cool around my aching dick, but the look in those deep-midnight eyes was anything but. The same look she’d given me back when she was sixteen and she unwrapped the present I’d given her, shy yet hopeful, and a little hungry.
Or, no. The expression in her eyes now was more adult than that, the hunger more pronounced, making it clear that the presence of my ruined torso didn’t bother her.
I might have thought she was faking it if she hadn’t traced all those scars with her fingers, a look of concentration on her pointed face. Hadn’t talked about broken bowls repaired with gold becoming works of art, their scars making them unique.
I didn’t want that to matter quite as much as it did now, when I’d made peace with my scars long ago.
Have you, though?
I ignored that thought, just as I’d ignored how her eyes had filled with tears after I’d taken off my shirt, along with shock and sympathy and pain. And part of me regretted that. Regretted that I’d caused her yet more hurt.
But there was nothing to be done about it. Better that she should know the truth, that it wasn’t only about not wanting to answer questions or talk. That there was something real behind all of this. I owed her that much.
I didn’t know why she was still here, though. Why she’d come into the bathroom instead of backing away. Why she’d touched me and talked to me about scars made of gold instead of turning round and leaving. I wasn’t the handsome, patient, successful friend any more. Her big brother surrogate. I was scarred and surly and I didn’t give a fuck, and yet still she was here. Still she’d touched me, when no other woman had ever done so, not after I’d come out of hospital.
And now she had her fingers around my cock, and my heart was in my throat, and if she walked away now, I didn’t know what I’d do.
Back then she’d been the only one who’d seemed to care about the person I was beneath the football star. The only one who’d ever asked me what it was that I wanted from my life. Not what my dad, my mom, my coach or my fans wanted. I remember being surprised at the question, because I hadn’t even known. I’d never been given the chance to find out.
Not that any of that mattered right now. Not with her fingers around my aching cock, ink-blue eyes finally looking up into mine, lit with heat and hunger.
And she was looking at me. Not Eli Hart, football superstar. Not even Elias Hart, CEO of Howard and Hart, one of the US’s fastest-rising security and defence companies. She was looking at me, the man I was beneath those two personas.
And who is that?
But I didn’t want to think about that, not when her hand was around me, and the hunger for her to which I’d been trying not to pay any attention had me riveted.
She smelled good, of sex and sweetness, and I was done talking. And if she was touching me then it seemed as if she was done talking as well.
‘What do you want me to do?’ Her gaze fell to my mouth and stayed there. ‘I’ll do anything you want, just tell me.’
Who could resist a husky, desperate offer like that? Not me. She’d seen how damaged I was, and yet she was still here, so what the hell?
I squeezed her hand around my dick, letting her get the feel of me. ‘You think you can handle that?’
Her lashes, long and thick and black, framed those pretty, pretty eyes. ‘Yes. Let me.’
‘What would you do if I said no?’ A tease and a test.
The necklace I’d given her glittered in the light as she swallowed. ‘I don’t know. Probably
cry.’
Her mouth quirked but I knew that she was only half joking; and the fact that she was desperate for me only made my cock ache all the more.
It was wrong to keep going, to take more from her when I knew her crush on me hadn’t abated. When tonight was all I had to give her. But I was a selfish, selfish man and, if she wanted me, who was I to argue?
‘You want to suck me, little girl?’ I asked, my voice rasping.
She gave a jerky nod, her breath catching, obviously turned on by the thought.
‘Good.’ I grabbed a towel from the nearby rail and handed it to her. ‘Then it’s time to get comfortable. Put this on the floor and kneel.’ The white tiles wouldn’t be easy to kneel on and I didn’t want her distracted.
She did as she was told, letting go of my cock as she arranged the towel and then knelt on it. ‘I haven’t done this before,’ she said, as if I wasn’t already aware of just how inexperienced she was. ‘So you might have to tell me what to do.’ She gave me a naughty glance from underneath her lashes. ‘I’m assuming you won’t have a problem with that.’
Sexy, sexy Vee.
I liked her being flirty. It made me want to flirt in return. But I was so fucking rusty, I didn’t think I’d be much fun.
‘You’d assume correctly.’ I gestured. ‘Take your dress off.’
She didn’t hesitate, pulling the fabric up and off, then tossing it onto the floor, leaving her kneeling in front of me, naked and gorgeous. Her blue gaze had darkened, her red lips parting in anticipation as I stepped up to her. She stared at me as if she was starving and I was something delicious to eat.
‘Give me your hand.’ I held out mine and she reached for it without hesitation.
Her long, slender fingers were cool, the dark blue nail polish gleaming like liquid midnight in the light of the bathroom. Slowly I drew her hand to my cock. ‘Feel free to explore,’ I murmured. ‘Use your hand, and you can use your mouth too. I’ll tell you if there’s something I’m not enjoying.’
‘You promise?’ She was breathing very fast and I could see the flash of anxiety in her eyes. ‘I want this to be good for you, Eli.’
In the Dark--A Sexy Billionaire Romance Page 12
