Fury, deep and dark, surged. The longer Rhys stared at the wound, the more he wanted to find the bastard and envelop him in dragon fire. Nothing burned as hot as a dragon’s fire.
Rhys ran his hand along the scar. He knew the answer, but he asked, “Who did this to you?”
“Someone I trusted. Someone I gave my love to. A boyfriend I lived with.”
Rhys was about to zip up her dress when he spotted something else on her back. He gently moved aside the dress from her right shoulder and saw more scars. They were thin, white, indicating they were older.
His hands shook from the ferocity of his wrath. “He did all of this?”
“Yes.”
“With what?”
Lily took a deep breath. “The largest scar was from a fire poker. The others were from whatever was in reach. Sometimes his pocket knife, sometimes his cigarettes.”
Rhys finished unzipping her dress and got the full view of her back. It was riddled with scars. Some burns, as she said from the ends of a cigarette, and others cuts.
“Only your back?” he asked around the emotion thickening his throat. He couldn’t understand why someone would want to hurt a person as sweet and beautiful as Lily.
Lily stepped away before she faced him. She let the dress drop. “He made sure never to hurt me where others could see.”
In all his eons of years, the only time Rhys had ever felt such outrage was when he had sent his dragons away. Now, as he looked at Lily’s stomach, as scarred as her back, he couldn’t comprehend anyone doing something so heinous.
The amount of courage it took her to show him was staggering. When Rhys asked his question, he wasn’t sure what he would show her. Now he knew. Now there was no doubt what he would let her see.
Rhys took off his jacket and carefully folded it to lay it across the stool next to him. Then he unbuttoned his shirt and removed it. He didn’t take his eyes from Lily’s face, so he was able to see her lips part and a look of awe fall over her face.
Lily couldn’t stop herself from closing the distance and putting her hands on such an amazing piece of artwork. The dragon, a curious mix of black and red ink, was intricate, the shading masterful.
She was mesmerized by the tattoo, running the pads of her fingers along it. The head of the dragon was on Rhys’s right pec. The body of the dragon stretched across Rhys’s impressive chest almost as if it were lying down with its wings tucked. The tail however, went over Rhys’s left shoulder and then wrapped around his left arm, stopping at his elbow. The planning and drawing of such art must have taken months, not to mention the time it took to get the tattoo.
Lily lifted her gaze to Rhys’s blue eyes. “This is … I don’t have adequate words. I’ve never seen such beautifully elegant, and yet fiercely intense work. Still, I can’t be the only one to see this.”
Though she hated to admit it, Lily knew Rhys had bedded other women. They had to have seen the tattoo.
“I doona willingly show this.”
“Why?” she asked in disbelief. “It’s gorgeous.”
Rhys shrugged. “I have my reasons. When I take a woman to my bed, it’s either too dark for her to see, or I take her from behind.”
Lily returned her gaze to the dragon, but that’s not what she saw. She indulged herself in the perfection that was Rhys. Hard sinew, flawless and impeccably shaped, warmed beneath her palms from his thick shoulders to the washboard stomach to his narrow waist.
She slid her hand along the bulging muscles of his arm where the dragon tail was and imagined those arms around her, holding her close. Not so long ago that dream had been reality. It was a fleeting moment in time, but it was branded upon her mind for all eternity.
“If others have seen this, it wasna because I wanted to show it,” Rhys said in a low voice.
“This art was meant to be seen. Why would you get this and then hide it?” she asked and tilted her head back to look at him.
Rhys’s chest expanded as he drew in a breath. “It’s … complicated.”
“I show you scars. You show me beauty.”
“Those scars are part of you. They tell a story of your courage and strength.”
Lily felt her eyes sting with unshed tears. “It took me years to get up the nerve to leave him.”
“But leave him you did.”
“Yes.” If only she’d found someone like Rhys—no, if only she’d found Rhys—instead of Dennis, how different her life would be. “I walked away from my family for him.”
“Focus on the part where you left him.”
It was good advice, because the last person Lily wanted to think about being so close to Rhys was Dennis. The bastard had no place in her life in any way, shape, or form.
Rhys’s gaze intensified as he stared down at her. “It takes a special kind of bravery to do what you’ve done.”
“If I was as strong as you think, I’d take what I really want.”