I breathed harder, my chest rising and falling in invitation.

But he didn’t crack. He’d buried himself deep within discipline. His gaze slipped over my hardened nipples, his tone snowy and detached. “Some painters use pasties.” He followed the curve of my breast. “I don’t as I dislike the way it wrinkles the skin and brings more attention to the area than if they were left bare. Do you have a problem with that?”

He kept his stare resolutely on my flesh, as if my body didn’t hurt him as much as my eyes.

I’d never felt so naked or so vulnerable.

Never been so confused.

I fought the urge to cover myself. “That’s fine.”

“Good.” Swallowing hard, he commanded, “Now...turn around. I need to know what I’m working with.”

Dressed in new goosebumps, I did as he asked.

Secrets or no secrets.

Job or no job.

I couldn’t hide my flaws anymore.

For a moment, there was nothing. Then, an explosive curse. “Holy shit.” His voice slipped from detached to drenched in shock. “O...”

My knees buckled. How could one little letter echo with lifetimes of love?

Tears sprang to my eyes. I gasped as he climbed the podium behind me, and a fingertip traced the torn and tattered flesh of my back. “Wh-what happened?” A delicate question. A dangerous question. His voice was bare of all shields and tempers, annihilated into caring. His touch continued to trace, following the ink on top of scars. “What is this?”

I flinched as his breath skated over the lines and designs down my left side.

Staring at the floor, I murmured, “It’s a tattoo.”

“Why? Why did you not tell me?”

My heart clawed to go to him, recognising the catch in his voice as pain for not knowing. For tossing me to the side without a backward look. For casting me out where accidents had found me instead.

I wanted to tell him everything. I trembled with the pressure. The need to spill it all. The elation of being chosen to work for the London Dance Company. The joy of dancing every day and night. The horror of the moment when it was all taken away. The loneliness of not having anyone to lean on.

But...I had my pride. I had my stupid ego. I didn’t want to give him all of me. Not now, not yet. Some part of him missed me, maybe even still wanted me, but if he wasn’t brave enough to put down the barriers he’d erected, then I wasn’t either.

“I know I should’ve told you yesterday. I wasn’t honest in my interview.”

He tore his hand away, laughing brokenly. “That’s how you want to play this?”

Yes.

No.

I nodded.

Inhaling hard, he clipped, “In that case, as my canvas, I expected you to be in pristine condition.” His voice scratched with sandpaper. “How can I paint you when you’re already scribbled on?”

My chin came up. I’d chosen this path. I would defend it. “It’s not a scribble.”

“What is it?”

“Something very meaningful.” I wanted to twist and look at what he saw. Whenever someone saw my tattoo for the first time, I craved to see it from their point of view. To study it close and appreciate the talent of the artist I’d chosen.

My tattoo wasn’t a vanity thing.

It wasn’t an impulsive dare.

It was needed—to heal my broken pieces. To cover up the mess left behind.

I’d hated those scars. Hated me. Hated life itself.

Without ‘scribbling’ on myself, I doubted I’d be whole enough to go to battle with Gilbert Clark. I would’ve chosen to check out of trying and sink into my mind where I could still dance, still be happy.

His body cast shockwaves of fury and frustration behind me. He touched me again, gingerly, tenderly, tracing the filigree lines and lacework that convened into a large geometric pattern before bleeding into a realism piece of an owl. Imbedded in the owl’s feathers were as many creatures as I could name all starting with O.

For me.

Olin.

I shivered as he touched every blemish I knew well.

Would he understand? Would he see just how pathetic I was?

Back at school, I’d surrounded myself with friends. I’d looked after my fellow students because my parents didn’t look after me. I earned their gratefulness and friendships but they never patched up the holes inside me.

Until Gil had chosen me for his own.

Until he’d traded his secrets for mine and, in return, stole every piece of my heart.

It’d been a month into our tentative relationship.

A month of hurried smiles and hesitant hellos before he used the first nickname.

He’d always said my name was odd. That he didn’t know anyone else called Olin.

I’d said that was a good thing. It meant he would always remember me.

He’d said the letter O was just as unique as my name. Therefore, any animal beginning with O was just as special.

A few days later, he’d passed me my backpack after class. Whispered under his breath so the other kids couldn’t hear—a melodic rasp of secrecy. “Otter, don’t forget your bag.”

The next week, he’d called me owl by the gym, then octopus in the cafeteria.

I’d fallen in love with him after that.

Tumbled and tripped, rolled and cartwheeled, loving him more than I’d loved anybody.

Ocelot, orangutan, ostrich...

They were all there, peeking in the feathers, turning ugly scars into special uniqueness.

Gil sucked in a pained breath, a strangled grunt escaping his lips.

I twisted to look at him, studying the sudden grief painting his eyes and the regret sketching his mouth.

It was enough to make my knees turn week and my arms beg to hold him.

“You used us to cover your scars.” His voice vibrated with something I couldn’t decipher. His eyes snapped shut, a visible cloak of cruelty smothering his features. When he opened his eyes again, he was back to being a blizzard king. “How am I supposed to hide ink and scars, Olin?”

I swallowed hard.

When the accident happened, I’d forgotten who I was.

I’d been alone in the hospital and alone in rehab and alone in the months after with my dreams shattered by my feet.

I’d searched for something to make me feel worthy again—to stop the aching wasteland my chest had become.

I’d turned to Google, searching chat rooms for advice on moving on from severe accidents and tips on how to turn bad into survivable. I’d learned about the miracle of tattoos. From women with breast cancer to men with missing limbs—they all turned to the undeniable superpower of turning grotesque memories into fresh beginnings, and I’d designed the piece myself.

The day I’d scrimped up enough cash to sit the three full days in the tattooist chair was the happiest I’d been since Gil made me his. I’d found myself—my real self—as I embraced the discomfort of needles and pigment, covering the nasty red scars with something pretty.

I loved that piece more than anything.

I refused to let Gil ruin it. “I don’t know, but you can cover it somehow.”

“It marks half your back.”

“It was needed.”

He stopped touching me, stepping from the podium as if everything between us shot him with a thousand arrows. “What happened?”

It was a question free from ice. A question that demanded to know.

I didn’t give him what he wanted.

He stopped below me, his gaze tearing into mine as if he could yank out my memories, desperate to uncover the ones where he hadn’t been there.

His eyes always had the power to bend my will to his.

I’d been weak and totally his to command whenever I’d caught him staring at me as if his love couldn’t be contained.

He wasn’t allowed to look at me like that anymore.

I wasn’t his.

He wasn’t mine.

This is no us.

Yet I was trapped in him. Caged by his vexation and prisoner to so many childhood connections.

He swallowed hard as heat and history prickled between us, hissing with past need and a love that hadn’t had the chance to die. It had been torn in two. Ripped down the middle the moment he’d left, two ends unable to heal because the knots tying us together refused to let go.