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“Rusty?”
Ivela narrowed her eyes and called his name. Rusty wasn’t wearing his usual greasy smile or giving her his typical suggestive looks. Instead, his eyes darted around warily, as if he expected a trap waiting for him in the room.
“Are you alone?”
“Yes. Do you have something to say to me?”
Sensing something off about Rusty’s demeanor, Ivela asked cautiously. Rusty, as if he’d been waiting for this moment, rolled his wheelchair inside.
“Rus—”
“Shh.”
He pressed a finger to his lips to silence her and glanced around again before approaching.
“I have something important to tell you.”
“What is it?”
Ivela instinctively took a step back. She knew it was bad to judge people on prejudice, but Rusty wasn’t exactly trustworthy. His mouth spewed filthy words the moment he opened it, and he often bragged about his criminal past. She’d heard he’d once served time for rape. Even in a wheelchair, his grip strength was probably the same.
“That man earlier—who is he?”
“That man? You mean Tay?”
“Tay?”
Rusty repeated the name with a snort. He licked his cracked lips, then suddenly grabbed Ivela’s wrist tightly.
“What are you doing?!”
“Ivela, listen to me carefully. I’m saying this for your own good. You must not trust—”
Knock, knock, knock.
Before Rusty could finish, someone knocked on the door. Both of them turned toward the sound: Rusty, mid-sentence, and Ivela, wincing at his grip. Tay was already leaning casually against the doorframe, watching them with a detached expression. More precisely, he was looking at Rusty’s hand gripping Ivela’s arm.
Because there had been sharp tension between Tay and Rusty earlier, Ivela nervously glanced between them. As her gaze landed on Tay, a chill ran down her spine. For a split second, his eyes were razor-sharp, like they could cut through breath itself.
“Are you done with work, Tay?”
Ivela narrowed her eyes at him. She had expected him to be late, thanks to Tasha’s obvious intentions, but his return surprised her.
She felt Rusty’s grip on her wrist weaken and slip away. The man who had been so pushy just moments ago swallowed dryly and backed off without even daring to look at Tay.
“I’m not done, but I thought I’d better stop by.”
Tay wasn’t frowning at Rusty like she expected. Instead, he smiled—like someone pleased to find a fish caught in the net they’d set on purpose.
“W-well, I’ll just get going then.”
Rusty turned around hurriedly and wheeled himself out of the room without ever meeting Tay’s eyes. Ivela reached out to stop him, but he had already disappeared.
Left staring blankly at the doorway, Ivela finally turned to Tay. He shrugged with an innocent smile.
“Since I’m here anyway, I’d like to get treated too.”
He perched casually on the edge of her desk.
“Treated for what? Are you hurt?”
“I’ve got plenty of aches. Here, here, and here. But what’s been bothering me most lately is my back.”
Tay pointed to his collarbone, shoulder, side, and thigh, then finally reached behind to touch his back. Judging by the grimace that briefly crossed his face, he wasn’t lying about the pain.
“Then take off your vest.”
Hesitant but practical, Ivela stepped closer. She didn’t know him well, but he didn’t seem like the kind to fake something like this. If something was bothering him that much during travel, it was better to treat it early.
At her instruction, Tay removed his vest and pulled his shirt over his head. The image of his body that had etched itself into her mind earlier was now fully revealed again. She had spoken without ulterior motives, but seeing his sculpted torso up close made her breath hitch involuntarily. They’d only met twice, but somehow, she’d seen him half-naked both times.
“Stay still. I’ll take a look.”
She stepped behind him and examined his muscular back. Then she froze. Near his shoulder blade, close to the teres major muscle, was a scar she instantly recognized—an irregular horizontal wound. It was a gunshot scar.
Ivela lifted her hand and traced the scar slowly from end to end with her fingertip. She leaned closer for a better look and ran her fingers along it from the opposite direction. She was so focused that she didn’t notice her breath and touch lightly grazing his skin.
Hoo… Tay let out a faint breath. His jaw tightened, and the vein below his ear bulged.
“If you ever get a lover, they’re going to be seriously frustrated.”
Tay muttered unexpectedly, still facing away.
“Why?”
Distracted by the scar, Ivela asked without thinking. She didn’t notice the silence that followed. She was pressing into the scar, estimating the bullet’s depth.
“Vel.”
Tay suddenly stood up. Ivela looked up at him, puzzled, just as he reached out. When she flinched back, he gently caught her by the waist and whispered,
“I’m not going to do anything bad. Just stay still for a moment.”
“….”
His coaxing voice made her unconsciously stop resisting. Tay could be mischievous, but he had never crossed the line with her. If he’d wanted to, he could have easily done something that day she’d dozed off in the cabin. So she widened her green eyes and waited for what he would say.
The back of his hand brushed against her cheek. His once-calm eyes now held a dark, heavy intensity. The air felt thicker. She suddenly found it hard to breathe; her lips dried up like fallen leaves.
His hand slid down from her cheek to trace along her jawline. Then, just below her lips, his fingers hooked her lower lip lightly before gripping her chin.
Her eyes widened in shock. She should push him away and demand to know what he was doing—but she couldn’t. It felt like she was caught in a web he’d spun.
His thumb rubbed her chin back and forth, then his palm glided down the curve of her neck like silk brushing over skin. A strange, fizzy sensation bloomed somewhere inside her. She lowered her gaze—and immediately regretted it, because she saw his bare chest and two sharply defined points.
Ivela squeezed her eyes shut. That only made the sensations worse, spreading like wildfire.
His delicate fingers stopped just above her cleavage. Then he leaned down and blew a warm breath against her ear.
“Hhup.”
She involuntarily held her breath. Her body stiffened, her lips clamped shut. Through the haze, his languid voice flowed into her ear:
“This is what it feels like.”
“…?”
“When you touch men’s bodies—they feel exactly like this.”
“W-what…?”
“So if you ever have a lover, they’ll go crazy with jealousy.”
Everything Tay had just done was his way of answering his earlier statement. He stepped back abruptly, like a cleanly cut arc. The trembling and strange heat that had surrounded her vanished just as quickly. Ivela realized she had been swept away by the atmosphere he created. She hadn’t even thought of stopping him when he touched her. She was stunned—and furious.
“I touch men’s bodies to treat them, not for anything indecent. If a lover saw that as something vulgar, I wouldn’t want one in the first place.”
“Oh, really?”
“What are you trying to say?”
“I’m saying the world doesn’t always work the way you want.”
He gave a wry smile and put his shirt back on.
“Why… were you shot?”
Despite the lingering awkwardness, Ivela asked what she’d been curious about the most. Tay paused briefly as he slipped his arms into his sleeves, then answered casually while buttoning up.
“There was an accident at a hunting ground. My friend and I were driving a fox from different directions. He saw movement in the bushes where I was and thought it was the fox, so he shot.”
“Oh… I see.”
“It’s fine. It just aches sometimes.”
“That sounds like a lasting injury. Since you’re here, why not see a doctor?”
“Maybe.”
He gave a half-hearted smile and left the room.
Watching his back disappear, Ivela leaned against the desk in thought. His explanation made sense, yet something about it still nagged at her. The more she got to know him, the more he seemed to fade into fog.
At first glance, he looked like someone raised in a wealthy, carefree household, but now she wasn’t so sure. He was always composed, never letting anyone get too close, charming yet quick to retreat and leave people flustered. His cheerfulness seemed deliberate. And those scars—not just on his back, but elsewhere—hinted at anything but an ordinary life.
What exactly does this man do?
After leaving the treatment room, Tay walked with his hands in his pockets. He retraced the corridor to a quiet corner, where Rusty was hiding. Before Rusty could turn his head at the sound of footsteps, Tay grabbed his wheelchair firmly.
“Ugh!”
“So this is where you were, Rusty.”
Tay’s brown eyes locked onto their target.
