He rolled me onto my belly and pulled me toward the foot of the bed until my legs hung over the edge.

I tried to push myself over or off the bed, but that proved too difficult. When he saw my attempt, he snickered.

“You want to see my face?” he asked, his voice quiet.

He came around to where I lay, my right cheek pressed against the bed.

“I guess it doesn’t matter.”

He seemed to say that more to himself than to me. He squatted down so he came to eye level.

“Will it make any difference for you?”

He brushed a wet strand of hair off my forehead, the touch of his finger making me shiver.

“For me?”

His voice, his tone—it sounded so utterly hopeless, as if truly, it made no difference at all. As if nothing mattered at all.

“No, not really, not for you. And not really for me.” He reached up to tug the mask off his head.

I watched, my eyes widening, and gasped.

Short dark-blond hair stood on end, static taking hold of it, making me think of a kid with a balloon, a boy giggling as his hair fanned out in all directions.

What had I expected? A monster. A terrible, horribly scarred monster. Maybe some deformity? What?

Whatever it was, it wasn’t this.

Certainly not this.

He was…beautiful. Beyond beautiful. His face—it belied an innocence that did not belong to him. That I knew in my gut had never belonged to him.

Blue-gray eyes the color of coldest steel softened by the thickest lashes were set in the face of an angel carved in solid, unbending stone. Too beautiful. Too unbearably beautiful. Thick, blond scruff darker than his hair and spotted with gray dusted his hard, square jaw. His lips were full, as if swollen from kissing.

Kissing.

He had the face of a man who’d just stepped out of a magazine. But it wasn’t only that—that cool, easy, deceptive beauty. There was more. So much more. And it hid behind his eyes, in that bottomless abyss of blue-gray. Looking at them now sent a shiver racing down my spine, making every hair on my body stand on end. He had the eyes of a man who’d taken more and who’d lost more than any one human being should. A man who’d learned terrible things. Who’d seen the worst mankind had to offer one another. A man who’d hurt.

No. Much more than hurt.

A man who’d done unspeakable evil.

I shuddered.

And he smiled.