Then, deliberately, he reached up, hooked two fingers into the black fabric, and tugged it off the rest of the way.
The scars were worse in full light.There were twisted burns, skin grafts that didn’t quite match, as if the whole left side of his face and neck were a battlefield that had healed but never forgiven.He stood there and let her look.
Riley didn’t flinch.Didn’t need to.
Instead she lifted her other hand and traced the ridge along his cheekbone with the lightest touch.
“The man’s got great cheekbones,” she murmured.“And flippy hair.”
A sound escaped him that was half laugh and half groan.“Girl, I don’t know what flippy hair means.”
“Means you’ve got hair a girl wants to run her fingers through.”She demonstrated, working by touch to thread her fingers gently through the dark strands at his temple.“Like this.”
Dan closed his eyes for a second, like the touch hurt him in the best way.
When he opened them again, something had shifted.The wariness was there, but underneath it was something that was hotter.Hungrier.
“I’ll be back in a couple of hours.Lock up behind me this time.My replacement will stay sitting on the lot outside.And just in case you’re wondering, I think you’re dangerous, Riley Monroe,” he rasped, stepping back and away.Out of reach.
She let her hands fall to her sides and smiled at him, keeping it small, knowing she looked wicked.“You have no idea.”
He didn’t kiss her.Not yet.
But the way he stared at her said it was on his mind.
And she was thinking about it too.
***
Dan
Dan stepped out of the tattoo shop into the cooling night air, the door jingling shut behind him like a period at the end of a sentence he wasn’t ready to finish.The air hit him sharp and dry, carrying the faint smell of distant woodsmoke.He paused on the cracked sidewalk, rolled his shoulders, and felt the familiar sway of leather and the low-grade ache that lived in his knees these days.
Nine thirty.He’d be back at nine thirty.He’d already decided that before he’d even said it out loud.
He tied the bandana over the lower half of his face out of pure habit, it was muscle memory from years of not wanting to be looked at, then ambled over to where Rocker was sitting on his bike, feet on the handlebars.“I’ve got a couple of things left to do.She’s got a client coming in a few minutes, but I think that’s the last one.I should be back before she shuts the doors.”
“You’re welcome, Raggedy Dan,” Rocker said, nodding imperiously.“I’m happy to take my leisure here in the nighttime air.”
“Thank you, asshole.”
He swung a leg over the bike, fired it up, and let the rumble settle into his bones.The vibration and sound of the pipes was better than any therapy session he’d ever sat through.He pointed the bike towards the clubhouse.
But his mind stayed right there in that cramped room.
Riley Monroe.
He could still feel the ghost of her gloved fingers on his knuckles, the way she’d cleaned the cut like it was no big deal, like his skin wasn’t a roadmap of everything in his life that had ever gone wrong.Most women, or hell, most people would’ve hesitated.Flinched.Looked away when they saw how deep the burns had gone, how the grafts never quite matched the surrounding skin.She hadn’t.She’d met his eyes and kept talking, stayed moving, like his damage was just another thing to work around.
“Their loss.”
He’d heard bullshit lines before.
That wasn’t bullshit.Not an ounce of it.
His chest tightened at the memory of her voice.It was smoky, sure, and a little rough around the edges like good whiskey left open too long.And the way she’d gazed at the scars later, when he finally taken the bandana off all the way.No pity.No revulsion.Just curiosity.Maybe even appreciation.Like she saw the wreckage and thought, “yeah, that’s a story worth hearing.”
He hadn’t let anyone touch his face since the hospital.Not the nurses who’d tried to change his dressings, not the physical therapists who’d pushed him through pain he hadn’t thought he could survive, and surely not the handful of women who’d attempted to get close after he got home.He’d kept the bandana on, turned the lights low, made sure everything and everyone was at arm’s length.“Armor,” he’d told her.Habit, he reminded himself.