Scars He Gave Me - Nicole Fox

Prologue

The thing they never tell you about rekindling lost love is that heartbreak hurts just as bad the second time around.

Worse, even. Because you’ve been down this road before. You know where it leads.

Ten years ago, I walked down this road—the same one I’m on right now. In so many ways, it’s like we’re the kids we once were. Two teenagers with eyes and hearts for no one but each other.

I’m looking at Tommy and he’s looking back at me.

But in the biggest ways, the most important ways… the kids we once were are dead. Long gone. Dust in the wind.

There’s stubble on his face where there wasn’t before. Scars where there was once tanned, beautiful skin. A distance, a violence, a darkness in his eyes that consumes me every time I look at it.

He’s changed. Hardened.

But when he touches me…

I lose control. Just like I always have.

He grabs the back of my neck and yanks me towards him. Our lips meet in a hot, clashing kiss. Hips grinding. His length hardening against my thigh. Our hands scrabble against each other. Desperate. Hungry.

He rips my clothes off. Buttons go flying.

I gasp. “I liked that shirt!”

“Shut up,” he growls.

It’s as rough and primal as it always has been. But it feels right somehow. This is our language—two bodies colliding. Sweat. Moans. Lust in its purest form.

I want to tell him I’m frightened. I want to tell him that this is so right and so wrong at the same time.

But I don’t know how to form those words, and I don’t have time anyways, before he’s grabbing me and flipping me onto my back on the desk and plunging into me. My body knows his. It craves his. As he fucks into me, it still wants more, more, more.

Tonight, we’re the people we were once upon a time. We’re two lonely, passionate souls who want each other so bad that words won’t do it justice. Only our bodies can. The world is on the outside tonight. The way it used to be. There’s nothing that matters except for the next kiss, the next touch, the next groaning, shuddering orgasm.

“Fuck me, Tommy,” I beg.

He gives me what I need—for tonight.

But I know that, when the dawn comes… the things I’ve spent ten years hiding will be revealed in the morning light.

1

Tomas

Something about night surveillance makes me feel alive.

All my senses are on high alert. The smell of the city fading into the odor of the dock. The streetlights erasing shadows along the edge of the water. Knowing that at any minute, it can all break down, and life and death becomes a choice only I can make.

Next to me, the click of Aleksey sliding bullets into the gun clip is like music. It’s much better than the tune he’s whistling—something that reminds me of the county fairs and Ferris wheels of my youth. Days I’d rather forget.

“Jesus, Alek, shut the fuck up.”

He doesn’t blink or miss a single note, because he’s Aleksey Romanov, my friend and brother-in-arms since the day I found my father. When the clip he’s loading is full, he just moves on to another, and I have no choice but to tune out the shrill, upbeat tune of his song.

Smug bastard.

Outside the car, two men emerge from behind the storage bin way off to my left. One moves under his own power. The other lands with a thud on his chest, head bouncing off the concrete. Dead as a fucking doornail.

The killer steps out after the man and fires an extremely unnecessary shot into the poor bastard’s back. Then he turns to see if anyone else is watching. It’s just enough that his face catches a distant streetlight and I can finally see him clearly.

Tall, gaunt, pale, face tattooed with a trail of tears. His cheap gold necklace reflects the moonlight.

Albanian for sure.

Alek sits up straighter to get a good look, then, after a moment, falls back against the seat. “Not our guy.”

I nod in agreement. We’re looking for Italians, but this guy is too pale, too sneaky. This is low-level gang shit spilling into our turf. Tonight, that’s not our concern.

We stay put as the Albanian tucks his gun into the back of his sweatpants and disappears into the shadows.

The man he killed is growing colder by the second, blood pooling underneath him. The back of his jacket says Port Authority. I curse under my breath at the sight of it and hope like hell that none of the man’s