When he fell silent again, my fingertips walked down his chest to a hideous scar just under the collar of his t-shirt; the ridges felt like an awful stab wound or something terrible that had probably almost killed him. I murmured, “I’m guessing you didn’t get this at some hoity-toity boarding school, though?’
The corner of his mouth turned up and his hazel gaze found me even in the dim light. “You’d be right. I still went to the hoity-toity boarding school. I did everything they wanted me to. I played along. I tried to help my mother when I could, but the grandparents were very controlling. When she died...”
His voice trailed off and he took another deep breath. I waited, working my fingers into the hair at the back of his neck. He rotated his head so I could reach a particular spot, and I smiled against his chest as I obliged. And I waited.
The silence stretched until I feared he wouldn’t go on, that he would just let it end there.
Dodge’s eyes closed and his voice went rusty once more. “When my mother died, none of it really mattered. I wasn’t there with her. I wasn’t able to protect her from their hatred and their money. I vowed I would live and escape from their clutches, that I would find some way to – make it up to her.”
He shrugged, irritated, and I stilled. Dodge shook his head and stared past me at the ceiling. “Walking into the first boarding school as a ten year old wolf shifter who’d grown up in a city neighborhood that was still up-and-coming turned my world on its fucking head. I’d just lost my father. I didn’t know why everyone thought my mother was a criminal, and I didn’t know why the fuck my grandparents claimed they wanted me but immediately sent me to England to some fucking hotbed of abuse and inbred elitist classist bullshit. And I hated the uniforms. That turned my universe around, Persephone. I thought I was lost. I thought I wouldn’t survive, that I wouldn’t be able to control myself orbemyself ever again.”
I couldn’t imagine him as a lost ten year old kid, missing his mother and grieving his father, thrown into a foreign environment. My chest ached for him and my throat tightened. “It must have – sucked.”
The corner of his mouth quirked up. “That was one word for it.” He still watched me as he tugged on my hair once again, making sure my attention was all the way on him. “But the point of this, Persephone, was not to induce you to rub all over me and play with my hair.”
My cheeks heated but I refused to react more than a simple aggravated huff. Heknewthat wasn’t what happened, and even though I’d certainly been tempted to... grind when he’d lifted his hips in invitation, I’d restrained myself. It damn near took a year off my life to resist the urge.
Dodge smiled more. “The point is that I survived. I was drowning and I eventually found a life-line. The earth kept turning and the sun rose in the morning, and no matter how hard it was, I got up and went about my life. It was the same thing every time I went home for summer breaks and I had to be around thosepeopleand pretend to play by their rules. I pretended I gave a shit about fish knives and marrow spoons and grape scissors. I didn’t have the opportunity to do what I wanted and get away, so I had to accept the world as it was for a little while and gear up for the big move when I made it.”
I pondered his words. He wasn’t wrong, exactly. I couldn’t just curl up under my bed and pretend that the day had never happened. I had to figure out what I thought about the wolf-man and Deidre and guys who chopped up bodies. At least I had someone there to – kind of – help me. Dodge wouldn’t let anyone kill me, or he’d at least do his best to stop it.
I frowned as I rested my chin on his chest and studied him as closely as I dared, feeling rather vulnerable and exposed despite thathewas the one who’d shared a deeply personal story. Dodge patted my butt and arched an eyebrow at me. “Well? You see what I mean?”
I nodded, though I still frowned, and when I didn’t speak, he exhaled a gust. Both his hands settled on my waist and squeezed me. “Persephone....”
“One question.” I tapped on his chest, like I struggled with an intense, existential conflict. “One really important question, though.”
Dodge braced himself; I could see that he expected something ridiculous or impossible. His expression grew guarded. “Okay.”
I gnawed my lower lip and fixed him with a serious look. “What the hell are grape scissors?”
Dodge just looked at me.
I pushed up on my elbows and tapped my chin. “I mean, do you use them to cut the grapes themselves? Or the stems? Why not just pluck the grape, or –“
“You wretch,” he muttered, and his hands abruptly slid up my sides in a tickling frenzy that had me howling and squirming to get away. “How dare you mock my cutlery heritage?”
Breathless, I flailed and gasped and tried to wiggle free. He was like a solid wall of muscle with half a dozen hands all teasing the most ticklish spots on me. I almost kneed him in the junk but managed to deflect so I only got his thigh. Dodge grunted at the close call before tossing me to the mattress and looming over me to pin me down.
I panted and struggled to breathe as he kept sliding his fingers along my sides, around my throat and shoulder and into the tender spot behind my ear, down to the back of my knee. Dodge was relentless; he had an intensity that would have been intimidating, if he hadn’t been chuckling and teasing and occasionally paused to brush a kiss across my lips or cheek or shoulder.
“Grape scissors,” he muttered, shaking his head and stretching over me as he pinned my wrists above my head. “You cut the stems, by the way.”
My brain short circuited as his knee pressed into the mattress between mine, nudging to part my thighs. I searched for a clever response. All I came up with was, “But can’t you just pluck them?”
His nose bumped mine as his head lowered, and I held my breath as his free hand teased the waist of my pants. “Plucking... gets the fingers messy.”
Oh shit.
Dodge took my earlobe in his teeth and gently tugged. His body settled on me, pressing me into the mattress with a comforting weight. He felt solid, warm... present.There. Unmovable. He felt more real than any other guy I’d been with.
My thighs relaxed, almost an invitation, and his eyes shone as they locked on mine. Something ignited between us. I wanted him. I really, really wanted to feel more of him against me. I wanted to know what other scars he had, whether his muscles were as impressive all over or just his shoulders, if he had any of his own ticklish spots.
He ran his fingers over my collarbone where my t-shirt had pulled down, and kissed the side of my throat. Then he sighed, rolled off me, and shoved to his feet. “You should get some sleep.”
I stared after him as he slid through the bedroom door and shut it firmly behind him.
What. The. Fuck?
