Page 39 of Echo: Burn
I reach for his shirt, pulling it over his head. More scars come into view—burn tissue across his ribs, a puckered bullet wound near his shoulder, evidence of a life lived in violence.
I trace the burns with gentle fingers. "Do they hurt?"
"Not anymore." His breath catches. "Nerve damage. Most of the sensation is gone."
"Most?"
"Some places still feel." His hand catches mine, guiding it lower. "Some places feel everything."
Heat floods through me. I lean up, kissing him again while my hands explore. He's all hard muscle and battle scars, evidence of a body that's survived what should have killed it.
His hands find the hem of my shirt. "Can I?"
"Yes."
He pulls it over my head, tossing it aside. His eyes track over me with an intensity that makes my breath catch. Not clinical assessment. Not the way doctors look at patients. This is pure want, pure need, pure hunger barely held in check.
"Beautiful," he says quietly. "I knew you would be."
My hands find his belt. "Your turn."
We shed the rest of our clothes with fumbling urgency, each piece of fabric another barrier removed. By the time we're skin to skin, I'm shaking—not from fear, but from want so intense it almost hurts.
Kane lifts me easily, carrying me to the bed. I wrap my legs around his waist, feeling him against me, hard and ready and wanting this as much as I do.
"Willa." My name on his lips sounds like a prayer as he sets me on my feet. "Tell me if you want to stop. Anytime. For any reason."
"I don't want to stop." I pull him down for another kiss. "I want everything."
His mouth finds my neck, my collarbone, my breasts. Each touch sends electricity through my nervous system. It's been so long—six years since anyone touched me with gentleness instead of violence. Six years since I felt safe enough to be vulnerable.
And I realize I'm done fighting this. Done pretending I don't feel it. He's not safe. Never was. Never will be. And I don’t care.
The kiss deepens, his mouth demanding against mine, inviting me to give everything. His hands slide from my jaw into my hair, fingers tangling in strands until he closes his fist around it. He tastes like danger and determination and something uniquely him that makes my knees weak.
When we finally break apart, both breathing hard, his eyes are dark with desire that mirrors my own.
"Tell me to stop," he says, voice rough. "Last chance, Willa."
"Don't you dare."
Those words shatter something in him. I see it happen—the moment the iron control I've watched him maintain since he first tumbled into my life finally fractures and the man beneath breaks through.
His mouth crashes into mine again, harder this time. Claiming. When my palms flatten against his bare chest, I can't stop the sharp intake of breath. The scars are worse than I imagined—burn damage stretching from shoulder to hip on his left side, puckered and twisted where skin melted and reformed. Shrapnel scars across his ribs. A road map of violence carved into flesh.
My fingers trace each mark, following the twisted path of scar tissue from his collarbone down to his obliques. The touch is reverent, exploratory, and I feel him shudder beneath my hands.
"Beautiful," I whisper, meaning it.
"They're not...”
"They're proof you survived." I look up at him, letting him see the truth in my eyes. "Proof you're still here. Still breathing. Still capable of this."
I lean forward and press my lips to the worst of the burn scars—the place where fire tried to claim him and failed. His breath catches, and I feel his hands tighten in my hair.
I move lower, kissing another scar, then another. The shrapnel mark below his ribs. The bullet graze across his shoulder. The knife wound I can only guess the origin of. I map each mark of violence with my mouth, my tongue, wanting him to know I see all of it and want him anyway.
His hands fist in my hair, not pulling, just holding on while I kiss every piece of damage he's tried to hide.
