He shakes his head, but then his fingers wrap around the broken mask, and he pulls it off his face. He drops his chin to his chest, hiding his face from me.
“I guess there’s no use for this thing then.” He looks at the broken mask in his hand and then tears it further apart, splitting it in half. “Now you know what I look like.”
He looks like he’s having a rough time.
Biting my lip, I lean in and try to look at him, but he averts his eyes and turns his face away from me.
“Let me look at you,” I say.
“No. You’ve already seen enough ugliness in your life.”
“Ugly? You’re not …”
His head lifts and with a terrible, heartbreaking gaze, he looks me in the eye. “Tell me what I look like then.”
Shattered.
Broken.
Like the mask … only worse.
In the light of day, and without anything between us, I can finally see the man in front of me for who he is.
Hurt. On the inside and outside.
His burns run all the way from his eye down to his neck and across the left side of his body, covering him in scars. I don’t know the pain he had to endure, but I can still see it in his eyes. He’s drowning in it. But what he doesn’t realize is that his outside isn’t what I see.
What I see is the man on the inside … the man who’s trying to hide from the world.
Who thinks he’s too ugly to be seen.
I can’t blame him for thinking that way.
I’ve thought the same way about myself for years.
Who’d ever want a homeless girl? A girl who sells her body on the streets?
No one.
Except maybe someone like him.
Someone just as broken as I am.
It’s not pity or guilt that drives me to smile.
It’s because I see the beauty in our fucked-up world … It’s right here, where we’re sitting.
“You’re just a man.”
“A man,” he repeats, narrowing his eyes.
“I don’t see anything different about you than any other man …”
He cocks his head as if he doesn’t believe me.
“Except maybe the fact that this man”—I tap his chest with one finger—“saved my ass.”
A smile appears on his face, and it’s the most beautiful smile I’ve seen in a very long time. A genuine one. Not one of a man who enjoyed me fucking him … It’s a smile of a man who feels proud.
“I know you’re trying to make me feel better, and I appreciate that, but it doesn’t make these scars disappear.”
I sigh. Then I lift my hand and bring it to the left side of his face. He flinches at first, but as my hand rests on his face, he calms under my touch.
“Why aren’t you scared?” he asks.
I lick my lips as I softly brush my thumb across his skin. “I’ve seen worse things in my life. Men. They can be much scarier than any scar.”
His laugh comes from deep in his throat, but it dampens as he looks at me intently, his blue eyes so fucking beautiful I could drown in them.
I could almost …
“Thank you,” I murmur, “for saving me.”
He leans into my hand, closer, his eyes boring into mine. My body draws toward him like a magnet as he leans in to grab my face. His fingers are coarse as they gently caress my cheek.
“You’re welcome,” he says, his low voice sounding more attractive as the seconds pass. “I don’t understand, though … Why did you come back here?”
“I couldn’t leave you there after what you did,” I say.
“You could’ve escaped, but instead, you helped me. I don’t deserve you,” he says, shaking his head but still inching closer.
“Oh, just shut up already,” I say, lowering my hand to his chest.
But then he grabs my face with both hands and kisses me on the lips.
I freeze but melt into a puddle almost right after. His mouth is … heaven.
He kisses me like he owns me, taking my breath away.
He kisses me like it’s his last kiss on Earth.
And I let him … because I like it.
I actually fucking like it.
The man behind the monster is kissing me … and he’s so fucking good at this that it almost pisses me off. Why? Because he has me. He fucking has me.
Not just against my will.
He has me because I want more.
But then someone clears their throat and Viktor tears his lips away from mine, turning his head.
Only when I open my eyes do I realize he didn’t make the sound, it was Winston.
And he caught us kissing.
Fuck.
Chapter 11
Viktor
Gramps interrupts my kiss, and I don’t like it one bit.
“Sorry. I didn’t know I was bothering anyone … I wasn’t expecting this,” Winston says as he holds up a tray with hot tea. “I just thought I’d bring some tea and then I find you here … kissing.”