Page 43 of Shadow Secrets
His jaw tightened. She could see the resistance—the instinct to hide, to deflect, to make a dry comment about threat assessments and walk past her into the room.
This scar had to be the most private thing about him. More private than his family, his grief, his carefully maintained isolation. This was the evidence written on his body that the worst day of his life had been real.
And her brother had put it there.
She reached out. He drew back. A small movement, reflexive—his abs tightening, his torso angling away from her hand. It was the same flinch she recognized in herself when someone got too close to the things she’d buried. He didn’t show this to anyone—she was sure of it.
She didn’t withdraw her hand. She held it there, palm open, an inch from the scar. A question.
His blue eyes locked on that hand. She searched his face, not sure what she was looking for—permission, refusal, acceptance?
She lowered her hand but didn’t move away. His chest was well defined, his biceps, too. Everything was sculpted, almost brutally so, as if he punished himself daily with extreme exercise to keep the demons in his head at bay.
She knew those demons, had named a few of them. What she couldn’t name was the emotion rising in her chest like a tide.
He blew out a sigh through his lips. “I should get back to my research.”
“Yes,” she said, but she didn’t mean it. “Research.” She picked up his shirt and cradled it to her chest. It smelled like him. Like safety. “Thank you.”
His eyes lifted. “For what?”
He knew what; it was just an automatic response. “For not turning your back on me when I needed your help. You could have. I’m the sister of the man who nearly killed you. I hated you, and I made no bones about it. You should have left me in the cold to handle my problem.”
He held her gaze for a long moment. “That’s not who I am.”
“I know that now.” The words felt thick in her throat. Her pulse was racing. “I’m grateful for who you are. That you didn’t turn me away.”
“Me, too,” he said softly.
She handed him his shirt. He took it but didn’t put it on. She inched even closer, never breaking eye contact. Her fingertips slowly, carefully rose to his arm, stopping to rest there for a moment. “You’re incredible,” she said. “You should never hide who you are, scars and all.”
He sucked in a breath. His gaze dropped to her lips.
She licked them, and he pressed his eyes closed, as if the sight was too much. Her hand trailed up to his biceps, across his collarbone. He opened his eyes and tracked it, his breathing coming faster.
Her fingers skimmed his hard pecs, his ribs. She paused before she touched the scar.
He didn’t flinch away this time. Didn’t tell her to stop.
The skin was warm beneath her fingers. She expected it to feel different—damaged, fragile, the way scar tissue should feel. But it was just skin, raised and ridged, rougher than the surrounding area, but warm. Alive. The body beneath it expanded with each breath, his chest rising and falling under her touch.
She traced the entry wound first. The starburst pattern, no bigger than a quarter. Then the lines radiating outward from the center where the bullet had entered.
Her index finger followed the ridge of the largest ray. Sebastian’s stomach muscles contracted. A shiver ran through him. She circled to his side, her hand moving with her. She touched the exit wound. The complete journey of the round Penn had fired.
For six years, she’d carried Penn’s legacy like a stone in her chest—the anger, the grief, the shame of sharing blood with someone who’d done this.
But standing here touching Sebastian’s scar, she wasn’t touching the wound her brother had caused. She was touching the man who’d survived it. The man who’d come through the other side of that bullet, through the hospital bed, through the congressional hearings, through the media circus.
He’d lost everything—his career, his anonymity, his family’s respect—and he’d rebuilt himself into someone who stood in doorways and slept on floors and put his body between danger and the people behind him.
He’d done it for Ginger. Today, he’d done it for her.
Returning to face him, she flattened her hand against the scar, palm resting on the raised tissue.
“Sutton.” His voice was rough. Raw. “I don’t let?—”
“I know.”
