Page 29 of Flame
“My father ran shit for him,” he admits, wincing in pain. “Drugs. Getaway driving. Worse. You name it, I’m sure he did it all for good old uncle Shen. When he tried to get out? Shen cut him off, and—big surprise—the bastard, couldn’t hold a stable job. He left my mother to come crawling back to his brother on her hands and knees just to get by.”
“So what?” I ask softly. “You follow in his footsteps?”
His eyes blaze, warning I’ve crossed a line. “What else am I going to fucking do?”
“What you want,” I suggest.
He scoffs. “Like you’re the expert on that subject?”
But I’m not him. Brave and powerful, armed with an undeniable talent.
“I bet you could make more doing tattoos,” I add, observing the flames licking down the length of the arm I’m treating. “You know,legally?”
“Is that a dare, bunny?”
I purse my lips, making up my mind on the spot. “You said you owe me? Well, that’s how you’ll pay me back.”
“I thought you were supposed to be working forme?” His lip quirks into a genuine smile I’m unprepared for. Crooked and faint, it softens him despite the blood and bruises. He could be a different person—at least until he grits his teeth, closing up once more. “Unless you want to find another way to pay me back?”
Innuendo seeps from his tone. Hunting for a distraction, I peel back the towel, satisfied by the wound's depth once most of the blood is wiped away. “Your arm has stopped bleeding,” I deduce, rearing back to meet his gaze. “You’ll live. I guess you don’t need stitches after all—”
“Shit, your neck.” He lashes out, tugging aside the neckline of my shirt. I don’t even notice at first what has him so upset—reddened skin quickly turning purple, marred by tiny imprints left by raking nails.
“I know that fucker at the warehouse didn’t touch you,” he says, scanning my face like a shark catching a whiff of blood. “Your turn for honesty, bunny. What the fuck happened?”
“He found me,” I confess, tugging the collar back into place. I don’t feel any pain, but Rafe is persistent, running his fingers along my throat.
“Fuck… Why didn’t you come here—”
“The door was locked.”
He growls and practically tugs me onto the couch beside him. My shirt is off in seconds, his hands spanning my back in its place. “What the fuck did he do?”
“Nothing, but…”
The words won’t come, too twisted to voice out loud. His threat. His ultimatum. The fact that despite his deadline looming over my head, the prospect of going back feels as viable an option as learning how to breathe underwater. Impossible.
“He threatened you, didn’t he?” Rafe deduces. His fingers slip through my hair and find my chin, urging me to face him. “That motherfucker. What did he want? For you to come back?”
I nod.
“But that’s not all,” he suspects as though reading my mind. His fingers part through my hair and form a fist, using the handful to tug me further against him. This way, his mouth has easier access to my ear, and his lips brush the lobe, imparting a taste of his heat. “He did something. Said something he knew would make you consider hopping right back to him, scared.”
He waits for a reaction, but all I do is go limp, resting my weight against his uninjured side.
“I don’t want to think about him,” I confess. “Call it what you want. You hate pain, and I—”
“You hate facing him,” he says with a dry chuckle. “I’ll call that what it is, bunny—you’re human. But if you get to make little demands, then so do I.”
His expression is carefully blank, leaving me no clue as to his intentions. “What kind of demands?”
He takes my hand in his, lacing our fingers together before lifting them both for inspection. In a way, we almost resemble some twisted representation of a flame—a golden core with glimpses of ivory peeking through.
“You want me to make some money ‘legally’?” He makes the idea sound like a cross between outrageous and amusing. “Fine. But in the meantime, I want you to tell me everything. Everything he’s done to you from the very beginning. Your words. Your way. I want you to write it. Every last fucking thing.”
He manipulates our fingers, encasing mine within his. “That sounds like a boring story,” I say.
“Yourstory,” he counters. “Give it to me. That’s what I want.”
