Only You Read Online Free PDF

almost absent. He pressed Nick down into the bed rather than pull him up, and leaned across the expanse of Nick’s bare back. Nick’s untamable hair tried to slither down in rogue random curls that Barrett pushed out of the way with an impatient noise. “Lie still. You’ve got something back here. You didn’t go into the woods, did you? Looks like a tick.”
    “What?” Nick peeked up at Barrett, clearly baffled and showing it. “Not as far as I know, unless you count landscaping around the coliseum. A tick, really? Thought I felt something bite me earlier.” He tried to feel around his neck. “I was going to tell you, but then I forgot.”
    “So if you get Lyme disease, we can blame your libido? Stop poking at it and let me get a clear look.” He cleared the hair away from Nick’s nape.
    Not a tick, no. The diffuse light from the fire helped his eyes adjust. Not an insect at all. More like a…bruise? Strangely shaped bruise, and a stranger place for one. He couldn’t imagine what Nick might have run up against that’d make such a mark, almost patterned, almost like a—
    Barrett stopped. His hand slipped away, falling nerveless to the sheets. Oh, God . Fuck me. It’s a soulmark. A fucking soulmark.

Chapter Three
     
     
     
    “What, now?” Nick sat upright. The sheet Barrett had draped across him fell over his thigh but left his groin exposed. He touched the back of his neck. “No, seriously. Say that again.”
    No light of humor showed in Barrett’s dark eyes. He looked…flat. Almost like a stranger. “You heard me,” he said, sounding equally empty. “There’s a soulmark starting on your—”
    “The hell there is,” Nick protested. He bent his head and ran his fingers up and down, fast, scraping the back of his neck. “I don’t feel anything.”
    “Because you’re going too damn fast.” Barrett took his hand and stilled it over a spot just between vertebrae. “Here. It’s barely bigger than a dime.”
    “I still don’t feel it,” Nick said. Soulmarks were raised like brands—enough to let the bearer distinguish its pattern by feel. He couldn’t locate anything but smooth skin and tangled hair that kept slithering over his questing fingers. “I don’t feel anything.”
    Barrett made a frustrated sound and let go of Nick’s hand. “It’s still coming through, but you’re touching it. Your forefinger’s right on the center.” He brushed the back of Nick’s hand. “It’s pale. The color of weak tea.”
    Barely begun, then, if it had begun, and Nick wasn’t buying it. “The hell you say,” he grumbled as he kicked at the sheets. They tangled around his calves when he tried to slide his legs over the edge of the bed, and would have tripped him up—he wasn’t in a careful state of mind—if Barrett hadn’t given them a sharp yank to set him free. “This is Abram thinking he’s funny.”
    “Abram what?” Barrett followed in Nick’s footsteps, hard at his heels. “What does Abram have to do with anything?”
    Nick waved irritably. “I made the mistake of napping in his presence last night. He probably thought it’d be funny to draw on the back of my neck. He’s always doodling.”
    “It doesn’t look like ink to me,” Barrett said, tight and taut. “It looks like a—”
    “It isn’t.” Nick stepped over the threshold to the cottage’s small bathroom and hit the light switch with his elbow. Ow . The strong, clean light from the fixtures made him squint and his eyes watered. He flipped his hair forward, over one shoulder, but then he really couldn’t see.
    Barrett nudged his way past and plucked up a leather hair tie from the towel rack. “Don’t ask me how this got there, I don’t know, but here. You’re not explaining yourself as well as you think you are. Why would Abram do that? As far as he knows, you and I are mated.” He held up his arm, showing off the paler strip of skin on his bare wrist where he’d normally wear his cuff. “Doesn’t