Page 115 of Painted Scars
The thought of being dressed in his clothes feels like stepping into a barricade no one can breach. Wrapped in his scent, the fabric heavy enough to lock the world out.
He’s gentle as can be, cleansing my head wounds, suturing them and bandaging me up, keeping me from cracking into a thousand pieces. No one’s ever touched me like I’ll shatter if they’re not careful.
When he finishes, he drops to his knees again, grasping the back of my calves. “You can stop holding it together, Glitter Bomb. It’s just you and me here. You don’t have to smile. You don’t have to be loud or colorful. You can break, and I’ll pick up all the pieces.”
My armor buckles, and my throat burns with oncoming tears. I curl my finger in his shirt, pulling him close, breathing him in. The strength to joke bleeds from me when he says things like that. I dip my chin, pretending I’m not two seconds from crying all over him for multiple reasons.
“I love you, Daddy.” My voice wobbles, and for the first time, I don’t care if he hears the fear behind it. Nor do I care that it’s an inopportune moment to tell him. Opening my heart again is pure power, and it pulses through me.
For a heartbeat, he doesn’t move, like my words cut him up more than a bullet. Then his hands come up, cradling my jaw like I’m the only risk he wants to take.
“You don’t know what you’re saying.” His voice is gravel now, but he doesn’t push me to take it back.
My chest squeezes with the realization of what my mouth just did. The words hang between us without any way to call them back. Underneath them glows the heat of truth that I’ve been suppressing. And it’s not just my Book Girlie or fantasy talking. I’ve flirted with danger since the night he first rescued me from Burt. This is me—reckless, diving in headfirst, no lifeline or regrets, copying the only way I know how.
Grumpy Daddy has Roman crosshairs on his back now for committing a crime in my name. We both left the scene and that makes us both fugitives. This may be our last night breathing free air if the authorities catch up with us. If I don’t say it now, I don’t want to miss my chance. May as well go out in style.
“I may have a concussion, but I know exactly what I’m saying,” I give it to him straight instead of dancing around it with jokes.
His helmet tips down. “Then you deserve to see who’s loving you back.”
He unbuckles the strap, and I hold my breath as his helmet finally comes off with a soft scrape of padding.
My heart is a drum in a parade. The room tilts. The gorgeous man staring back at me isn’t a stranger. This man wields a face I swore to bury in the past and forget. Now that’s a plot twist I didn’t see coming. And I’m the willing heroine who walked right into the trap.
CHAPTER 33 - KATE
My breath stalls. I take in every inch of him. Every line of history carved into his face. He’s exactly who I remember and nothing like the man I once knew. Older, harder, and more dangerous. Yet somehow unbearably human, with regret etched into his mouth.
Messy black curls stick flat to his head. Jaw hard and unyielding. The scar across his right cheek when one of Blackthorn’s men gave him a warning. Meeting my gaze with unblinking, sharp turquoise eyes that cut through every wall I’ve ever built. There’s something behind them. Vulnerability blended with fear. The eyes of a man who knows that once he shows his face, he can’t take it back.
This is the Cinderella moment, where the clock strikes midnight and all the magic is undone. The gown turns to rags, the glass slipper breaks, and the dark prince has secrets.
August Kelly is no prince. He stood by me just long enough to watch the cops close my case against Blackthorn, calling my assault “unsubstantiated.” We dated a few messy months after that, and he let me believe in something true. Then he left me to fend off the wolves. Disappeared with a goodbye note that saidI was safer this way. He left a wound that never closed properly. One of the reasons I glued myself together with glitter, trauma, and betrayal.
He’s also the man who’s watched me, saved me multiple times, cared for me, and looked beyond the illusion of my beaded costume. The one who stole my heart and lied to me for over two months.
“August,” I stammer, too stunned to move. “You… what… why…” I can’t get a thought out.
His voice should have been a dead giveaway. Except, the man I remember didn’t sound the same. Back then, he spoke with warmth and a little mischief when he whispered into my ear when we met up for coffee. Time hardened his voice, the softness rasped from it, leaving gritty sand shaped by water over time.
The room narrows to his face, and the undertow of memory drags me backward. A kiss that tasted of copper from the slash on his face. Our last kiss on a rooftop that smelled of tar and summer heat. Texts that didn’t come. Silence that strangled me.
“You lied to me.” Unable to look at him, I stand and push past him, wobbling out of his bathroom.
Book Girlie me wants to throw herself into his arms and say she didn’t mean any of it and to erase every word. Rational me doesn’t want to be touched, spoken to, or meet those traitorous eyes or lips.
He gives me space.
I push a hand through my flat hair. Pain splints from my forehead to my neck. Dizziness and nausea roll like a cruel tide. I need a fucking hospital but can’t go to one. They’ll apprehend me, arrest me, and throw me in jail. Vicious thoughts tumble in my head.
Leave and run. Not safe.
Get Josh.
Call Harper.
Go to Mom’s.
