Page 37 of Steel Rain

She was so perfect, and delicious. I felt the wall I tried to erect between us cracking with a single glance of those gray eyes. It was like they shot out a missile of the same color, and it pierced my brick-and-mortar walls in a spectacular blast of heat. I felt helpless.

And holy fuck, I wanted to give in. I wanted to break my rules and take her, even if she was my subordinate. Even if she was so threaded into the mafia mob bullshit that her skin was practically crocheted from all of their weird, cultish drama. Even if all that threatened to stain me too and trap me in this world … it might be worth it.

Just for another taste. A slower, savory taste of that body beneath me … just one more time. I could do it one more time without losing myself, right?

I bit my lower lip, stepping towards her again, and she stood her ground. “Do you want me to be your secret?”

She recoiled, and I knew that I had misinterpreted something somewhere.What the fuck am I missing?

There was a heaviness in the pit of my stomach. A suspicion. A hint of what it could be, but I pushed it aside. It was too awful to think of.

“You got shot,” she said, avoiding my question as she looked down at the scar on my stomach.

I touched it with my hand, as if I was discovering it for the first time. Hell, every time was the first time. Like an old forgotten tattoo, I often forgot it was there, and was surprised to see the marks in the mirror.

The nerves had been singed. The truth was that I barely felt anything there at all anymore. A jab to my stomach, I might feel as a poke to my hip. The shit never healed right.

“So, the legend says.” I looked up at her, and didn’t miss the longing look in her eyes as those steel-gray eyes traveled down my chest, to my abs. “I thought all the Irish knew about that. That’s why I’m here, paying off a debt.”

I stepped towards her, and she stood with the mop across her as if she was using it as a spear, a barrier to keep me at arm’s length.

“I never saw your scar before,” she said, staring at my naked torso with both fascination and a slight hint of lust. A lust that I couldn’t ignore. Mybodycouldn’t ignore it.

I had seen her scar in the octagon when she fought. Was she realizing that we were two puzzle pieces, made together? Matching scars, and all? So much like yin and yang. I was black, she was white, and on our bellies was a mirror image dot of one another.

When I was close enough to take in her scent, the sweat from her workout, the power of her natural, warm musk, I took a deep inhale. I felt drunk on her natural perfume. Soap. And her.

“You would have, if you had let me take you to an actual bed.”

She shuddered. Her short hair trembled around her face, as her eyes closed, then slowly opened to me, hazy and unfocused. Was she regretting her choice to keep us in the alleyway? I did.

She put the mop back in the bucket, and it stayed upright as she lightly kicked it away. She undid the belt of her Gi and dropped it to the ground. Then she shrugged off the sleeves of her fighting top, and it fell to the floor in a loud rustle of fabric.

She turned her back, and I saw the scarring of that exit wound. It was large, like a huge burst on her back, jaggedly sewn back together. It was uncanny, really. They even tilted and grew in the same, mirrored way on our skin. White little lines like the lines of a tree root.

She looked at me from over her shoulder. Her sharp nose was even sharper in profile. Something like the snout of a wolf as it slowly approached a hunt. Beautiful. Vicious. Dangerous.

“I was wounded in the service,” she said, before she bent over and put her top back on, and it hung open to her front. “Indirect Fire. I was unlucky.”

That meant she had probably taken mortar fire and been hit by the effects of the impact.

“Looks pretty lucky to me,” I snorted. “You didn’t die.”

“Neither did you.”

She turned towards me, the open front of her blouse swinging with her movements. I reached out to touch her skin and trace the lines that existed there. She shivered.

“Now you know one of my secrets.” Her voice was breathy. Aroused.

Never had the showing of scars felt so intimate before.

“It’s like we were both marked by the same brand,” I whispered in awe of how perfect they were.

“Mirrored. Like we were branded at the same time, while we were facing one another.” She took a strand of hair and pulled it behind her ear. “Do you believe in fate?”

I stepped closer so that my bare chest could feel the heat of hers. I leaned down so that my breath grazed her ear.

“No.” At least I hadn’t until that moment. Until she was put in my path. Everything between us was so improbable that it felt like someone was driving us together on purpose. “And this wasn’t the secret I was asking about. Tell me about the scars that I can’t see.”

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