Page 119 of Pretty Little Scars

No one hasever.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

TUCKER

I’m so fuckingfurious.

Someone hurt my girl. Her flesh is torn right through old scars, and the blood is running down her back, but I had to get her calmed down before I could even think about cleaning her up.

But more than that, she’s back in that place where she thinks she doesn’t deserve all the wonderful things in her life, where the fucking maniac who was supposed to protect her destroyed her spirit and her skin, and I want torage.

Instead, I keep her face in my hands and kiss her forehead, resisting the need to crush her to me and hold on tight.

“Do we understand each other?” I feel my heart break a little more when her chin wobbles as she nods solemnly. “Good. Now, I’m going to clean this blood up. You should have stitches, sweetheart.”

“Strips will hold it,” she whispers as she pulls a towel from the bar and holds it against her front. “We’ll need antiseptic, or it could get infected, and there’s not much worse than an infected whip wound. Trust me.”

I swallow thickly, my stomach in knots as I take in the ripped skin. Jesus Christ, how did she handle this by herself when she was just achild?

“Darby, I’m begging you to let me call Blake. Please, baby. He’ll come to us, and you trust him.”

“I’ve managed on my own my whole life, Tucker. We can do this. I understand if you don’t want to watch, and I can do it myself, if you’ll just leave me with?—”

“I’m not fucking leaving you,” I growl. “Not today or any day, but I think you need medical attention.”

I lean my forehead against her uninjured shoulder and let out a ragged sigh. It’s not that the wound makes me jittery, it’s that I don’t have the skills to properly take care of this. She’s a woman,mywoman, not an animal on my ranch to be tended to.

“I really need to make more salve now,” she whispers. “Because I’ll have fresh scars, and I need to work them early, so they don’t get too bad.”

I press my lips together as I methodically wipe the blood from her skin, over all of the ridges from the destruction that was done before, and my heart twists in my chest.

“I love all of your pretty little scars.” I reach over and brush her hair off her face and run my thumb over her bottom lip. “Every single one.”

“I love you too.” The words are whispered, but I hear them plain as day and hold her blue eyes with my own. “So much that it terrifies me.”

I kiss her shoulder, above her injury, on the side of her neck and then over to her lips before leaning my forehead against hers as emotion swells in me. She shows me every damn day that she cares, but hearing the words spoken so sweetly from this amazing human is ...everything.

“Say it one more time, beautiful girl.”

That brings a little smile to the corner of her plump lips, and she reaches up to brush a lock of my hair off my forehead. “I love you.”

A tear falls from her eye, and I brush it away with my thumb. “I love you, too, Duchess.”

“Can we finish in here because I’m getting cold.”

With a firm nod, I get back to work, and she walks me through putting the strips on her, so the wound closes, both on her shoulder and her arm.

This is going to hurt like a bitch for a while.

“Now your face,” I say when I’m finished with the worst of it. “You have a little gash by your eye and one hell of a shiner.”

“Just a little antiseptic and the face will be fine. Dudes dig scars, don’t you know?”

She’s trying to be funny, but I don’t see the humor in this at all. “I dig you, and that’s all that matters.”

“So possessive.” She’s watching me intently as I finish with her face, and when she’s cleaned up, she takes a breath and then stands. “I need to?—”

“If you’re about to say anything other than rest, you’re wrong.”