Page 138 of The ARC Unit: Breach

My eyes lingered on it before I could stop them.

He took a bite of the protein bar and somewhere during that process, I stopped chewing.

His teeth were straight and unexpectedly white against the dark stubble, though not perfect enough to look artificial. One canine sat slightly sharper than the other, something I probably never would have noticed if I had not already been paying far too much attention. It was such an ordinary detail that it unsettled me more than the scar had. There was suddenly something human beneath all that black fabric, and I had spent enough time around Wolf that seeing evidence of it felt strangely private.

“Done?”

His voice sounded slightly different without fabric covering his mouth. It was still low and impatient, still unmistakably Wolf, but clearer now, and watching the words actually form on lips I had never seen gave them an intimacy I had not expected from something as ordinary as eating lunch in a parked car.

Even in the shower, when I knew he had taken it off, the curtain and the rush of water had blurred the sound enough that I had never really heard him like this before.

I looked down at my pastry. “I wasn’t doing anything.”

“You forget how to chew?”

Irritation helped.

I took another bite. “I was looking at your scar.”

His eyes narrowed slightly. “Never seen one before?”

“Not yours.”

That got a pause.

I glanced toward the uneven scar tissue disappearing beneath the mask. “I didn’t know you had it.”

He gave a small shrug, like the scar was barely worth mentioning, took another bite and looked through the windshield as though that settled the issue.

I studied the portion I could see now. The scar was wider near his jaw than I had realized, rough in a way that made it obvious whatever caused it had not been clean. Most of it was still hidden from me, including where it began, so even now I could not tell how far it traveled across his face.

“Does it hurt?”

He looked over at me. “No.”

“Did it?”

He stopped chewing for a moment.

I immediately wished I had left the question alone. “You don’t have to answer.”

“Then why ask?”

“Because I was curious.”

“You’re always curious.”

“That’s generally how questions work.”

Wolf swallowed and took a drink of coffee before answering. “It hurt.”

I waited, expecting more, but nothing came.

“That’s all I get?”

“You asked if it hurt.”

“I thought maybe you’d tell me what happened.”