Page 294 of Eternal
I gasped. “You idiot!”
He pulled back with a devilish smile, utterly unfazed by it. “What? Let a man enjoy leaving his mark on his partner.”
“Oh, I’m gonna mark you so bad next time, you’ll have to walk around in turtlenecks all your life.”
He smirked. “Maybe you already did.” He turned away slightly, then reached back and ran his hand down his shoulder blade.
I caught a glimpse of the red streaks down his back. My fingernails, my doing, the same ones that made him groan against my mouth last night like he couldn’t decide if he wanted to kiss me or devour me.
But just as I was about to grin in satisfaction, I saw it.
Just beneath the towel of his hair, revealed only now that he was bare from the waist up, a tattoo, small and subtle, black ink faded slightly, right at the nape of his neck.
Eyes. Not any eyes.Myeyes.
The linework was imperfect, like it had been sketched from memory, not photograph, but I knew. The curve of the brow. The slant. One lighter, one darker.
My breath hitched. “What the actual hell did you do…”
He glanced at me over his shoulder. “What?”
I pointed. “You obsessive psycho, why the fuck do you have my eyes tattooed on your neck?”
He blinked. Then, calm as ever, turned around and raised a brow. “Oh.That?”
I nodded, still stunned. “Yeah! That.”
“I got it,” he said casually, “when I started the mission.”
The words sank in.
I stared at him, lips parting, something hard cracking open inside me. “You weren’t lying,” I said quietly. “That day you said you started losing yourself...”
His smile was slower this time.Sadder. Warmer.
“I saw the most beautiful eyes I’d ever seen. Watching you. From rooftops, surveillance footage, shitty grainy cameras.” His voice dipped. “I didn’t know your name yet. Didn’t know anything about you, except that you were a dangerous threat,and that your stare felt like home and a warning at once. So I put it on me to have them forever.”
I stared at him, jaw slack. “That’s scary.”
He smirked. “That’s romantic.”
“That’sobsessive.”
“It’s foreshadowing,partner.”
I didn’t know whether to kiss him or deck him. My chest felt full, too full.
“Our fight isn’t done. I’m still mad at you,” I said, half under my breath, half lying through my teeth.
He looked at me from the kitchen chair like he knew, like he saw straight through the cracked-glass version of me I used to be.
Hair wet, short slung dangerously low, skin still flushed from the shower. He was lounging like sin, utterly unbothered, a cocky smile hanging lazy at the edge of his mouth.
“Mm,” he hummed, raising a brow. “Should I be asking for forgiveness, then?”
I tilted my chin. “Depends. What are the options?”
He didn’t answer with words. He hooked the leg of my chair with his foot, dragged me toward him with a scrape that made my pulse spike. And then, before I could even form a sentence, he was reaching for me. Hands at my waist, grip confident and warm, pulling me onto his lap like I’d always belonged there.
