Chapter 28
Hew was lost.
Lost in the feel of Sabrina’s hands tangling in his hair, pulling him closer.
Lost in the way her lithe body pressed tight to his, her nipples scraping his chest, her hips rolling in a slow, needy rhythm.
Lost in the sweet, breathless heat of her mouth as she licked and laved, sucked and stroked, tasting him like she was starving and he was an all-you-can-eat buffet.
Her hunger was contagious. Ball-tightening. Desperate.
Too desperate?
Like she needed it fast and furious because if they slowed down, even for a second, there’d be room for doubt? For fear? For her demons to come clawing back in?
No.
He didn’t want it to be like this.
He wanted her. Fully present. Fully aware. Fully willing—not just in body, but in heart and mind, too.
He wanted to claim her. Of course he did. Wanted to make her tremble and moan and cry out his name. But more than that, he wanted to help her heal. Wanted to take away every memory that had ever made her flinch and replace it with something that would make her sigh.
But Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, she’s hot as hell.
She tasted like strawberry yogurt and sugared coffee. And it took every ounce of inner strength he possessed—truly, were there medals for this sort of thing?—to gently curl his hands around her upper arms and ease her back.
“Wha—?” she breathed. Eyes heavy-lidded. Lips already kiss-swollen.
He swallowed hard. Told himself to focus, ya dumbass.
Easier said than done with her sweet little nipples poking through the fabric of her bra.
“We gotta slow down, sweetheart.” His voice sounded like it had been dragged behind an Abrams tank down twenty miles of bad road.
“Why?” She blinked in confusion.
He didn’t have the words to explain why a quick, hard fuck wasn’t what she needed. So he said the only thing that mattered.
“Trust me.”
Her breath released in a shaky sigh. “Okay.”
Lacing their fingers together, he led her to the bed.
But he didn’t lay her down. Not yet.
Instead, he turned her to face him and reached for the hair tie holding her messy bun atop her head. Pulling it free, he watched, awestruck, as a waterfall of dark hair tumbled over her shoulders.
A sound of appreciation rumbled in his throat. “So beautiful,” he murmured.
“It’s brown.” She wrinkled her nose.
“No.” He shook his head. “It’s milk chocolate and midnight. Shiny as sea glass. Soft as velvet.”
He buried his fingers near her scalp, loving the contrast of warm skin and cool strands.
His mouth tugged into a smirk as he held her gaze. “I’ve dreamed about it, ya know. Dreamed of what it would look like spread out over my chest.” She blinked. “Over my lap.”
Her lips parted. “You dreamed of me?”
“More nights than I ought to admit.”
“I dreamed of you, too,” she conceded, the hot look in her eyes making his cock twitch behind his fly.
“What did ya dream?” He traced a fingertip over her injured cheek, down her jaw, pausing on the fluttering pulse in her throat.
“I dreamed of you kissing me.”
He bent and replaced his fingertip with his lips, opening his mouth to press the tip of his tongue to her hammering heartbeat. Her hand cupped the back of his head, holding him close, silently asking for more.
He gave her more. Sucked gently. Savored the way she shivered.
“What else?” He knew the words were hot against her skin. “What else did ya dream of me doin’?”
“Touching me,” she whispered.
“Where?”
“Everywhere.”
His mouth curved into a victorious smile.
“I like your dreams.”
He straightened and pulled his shirt over his head, tossing it into the chair atop the discarded lobster.
His hair stuck up in all directions, but she wasn’t looking at that. Her eyes were locked on his chest. On his scars.
He wasn’t shy, not by nature. His body was solid and hard-packed with muscle from years of training and flying and…yeah…fucking. Still, when her eyes traced the roadmap of old wounds across his skin, he felt exposed in a way that had nothing to do with nakedness.
“You’re gorgeous,” she breathed, her hands landing lightly on his chest, making his stomach muscles contract.
Her fingers were cool, erotic as she traced the lines of his pecs, brushed his ribs, stroked his abs like she was memorizing him.
He’d been called hot plenty of times. Sexy was the adjective he was most used to hearing out of a lover’s mouth. But gorgeous? Never.
He was too big and battle-scarred to be gorgeous.
She wasn’t blowing smoke up his ass, though. Sabrina looked at him and saw beauty. And that was more sensual than any dirty talk he’d ever heard.
“What happened here?” She pressed a finger to a round mark on his flank.
“Spent six months in a foster home with a woman who smoked,” he admitted, although it was hard to think with her hands on him. “She made use of the old-fashioned cigarette lighter in her sedan.”
Sadness flickered in her gaze, but she didn’t offer hollow sympathy. He appreciated that more than he could say.
She moved on to the long scar slicing up his side. “And this?”
“I’d just turned sixteen,” he admitted. “By that point, I was an old hand at the game of foster care roulette. I could size up a new house within two minutes of walkin’ through the front door with my trash bag full of worldly possessions slung over my shoulder.”
Even now, all these years later, he could still remember the tang in the air from the prayer candles, the prurient gleam in the man’s eyes when he’d let his gaze roam over Hew’s form.
“Folks who were willin’ to take on a teenager were usually either religious nuts or perverts who wanted to shove their hands down my pants,” he went on, his tone devoid of emotion because he’d worked through that trauma and could now view it with the disgust and derision it deserved.
“That particular place was both. So I turned and ran. Caught myself on their barbed wire fence and nearly spilled my guts into their yard.”
Her hand stilled. “Jesus, Hew.”
“Mmm.” He nodded. “My social worker was more pissed that I ruined a perfectly good placement than anything else. Didn’t even take me in for stitches. Just patched me up with butterfly bandages.”
He glanced down at the mess of poorly healed skin and shrugged. “Ain’t pretty, but it did the job.”
Her chin trembled. Her eyes shimmered.
It wasn’t exactly pillow talk. But maybe talking about his scars, his old hurts, helped her to forget about hers for a minute. Maybe showing her how he’d survived what happened to him helped her believe she could fully recover, too.
She touched the clean white scar beneath his right pec but didn’t ask the question.
He answered anyway. “Stab wound. Africa. 2019. Dropped in to extract my team. Got overrun by rebels. It was messy as hell.”
Her gaze moved to the ragged line cutting through the meaty part of his right shoulder.
“Colombia. Firefight. Dodged when I should’ve ducked.”
“Hew.” There was a catch in her throat. “I—”
“Shh.” He cupped her face in his hands, careful of her injured cheek. “It’s okay. Bodies heal. So do heads and hearts.”
She nodded, knowing he wasn’t talking about himself anymore.
He caught the single tear that spilled over her cheek before it could drip from her chin.
“I’m gonna take off my pants now,” he told her quietly.
She blinked, startled by the sudden change in topic.
“We need to make sure you’re comfortable with me bein’ naked. I know the last time ya saw a man’s…” He left the sentence unfinished. “I should be the vulnerable one. If ya want me to stop, say the word.”
He made fast work of his boots and the buttons on his fly. After stepping out of his tactical cargos and boxer briefs, he straightened and let her see exactly what she’d signed on for.
Hair spread in a mat across his chest, arrowed down the centerline of his stomach, and spread out again at his groin. He was tall and muscular and…male. His erection was long and thick, standing proudly from his body.
She’d been hurt by someone who was all of that. Abused and assaulted. Had had her autonomy stripped from her.
He was fully prepared for the sight of his naked body, particularly the sight of his aroused naked body, to be triggering.
She stepped back slightly, fixing her gaze on the part of him that would either make or break this experiment. The part of him that promised pleasure but might remind her of too much pain.
“Holy shit.” Her voice was husky. “Do you get lightheaded when you get hard?”
He blinked. Then he laughed as relief rushed through him.
Laughing caused his cock to bounce. She reached for him, her face filled with fascination, and he immediately sobered.
“No.” He caught her wrist before her fingers wrapped around him. “Not yet.”
“When?” She pouted.
“When you’re ready.”
“I’m ready.”
“Well, I’m not.”
She gave him the side-eye. “You look pretty ready to me.”
“Sabrina.” His tone was beseeching.
“Hew.” Her tone was seductive.
“You’re goin’ to kill me, woman.”
Her eyes bounced around to his various scars. “I won’t be the first to try. I think you can handle it.”
He dropped his head back and groaned.
Jesus. He’d known it would be like this. Sweet, sensual… damn seductive. But somehow it was even better than the fantasies that had tormented him. Because she was still her. Still his friend. Still teasing and taunting, making him laugh between throbs of unspeakable lust.
When he looked at her again, she caught her bottom lip between her teeth. He wanted to do those honors.
But first…
“Can I undress ya?”
Her eyes took another trip down his length, stopping at his dick. It flexed as if she’d touched it, and her grin was positively feline.
“Seems only fair,” she purred.
He took his time peeling her T-shirt over her head. Her skin was so pale and perfect. Her belly button was pierced. And her waist tucked in tightly before flaring at her hips.
Woman.
In every sense of the word.
He slid a finger beneath the strap of her bra and used his thumb to trace the delicate lace at the edge of the cup that covered her bruised breast.
He was determined to replace her pain with pleasure. Determined to make her forget any heavy hand that had ever touched her.
“You’re so goddamned beautiful.” His words were barely above a whisper.
She shook her head. “My boobs are too small.”
“Fuck that.” He snapped the front clasp of her bra open, quick and sure, then tossed it aside.
When she moved to cover herself, he caught her wrists and pinned them at her sides. “Let me look.”
And look, he did.
Truth was, he could have stared at her small, plump breasts—those perfect molasses-colored peaks—for the rest of his natural life and still not gotten his fill.
Too small? In what world?
They fit her lean form perfectly. Two gorgeous, round globes rising above her ribs. Smooth. Firm. Mouthwatering.
“Flawless,” he hissed and used both hands to prove it.
Cupping her gently, he flicked his thumbs across her nipples and watched them pucker and pinch. Her body was so responsive. And seeing her react to his touch was all it took to have a hot drop of precum beading on the tip of his cock.
“God, Hew.” She sucked in a ragged breath. “That feels good.”
“That’s the name of the game, sweetheart. Makin’ ya feel good.”
He could’ve spent a week worshiping her breasts. Could’ve made a home there, happy as a clam. But he had another plan in mind for this first time. An undertaking he hoped would give her everything she needed, everything she wanted, while resurrecting none of her old ghosts.
His fingers slipped down to the button of her jeans.
“Yes,” she whispered, and he quickly decided that was his favorite word. Especially when she said it.
He worked slowly, not just to avoid spooking her but because…hell, this was like Christmas morning. Half the pleasure was in the unwrapping.
Goddamn teasing toes, he thought when she stepped out of the pool of jeans and panties he’d left at her feet.
After straightening, he allowed himself the honor of seeing her.
All of her.
All her delicate curves. All her pale, perfect skin. The little triangle of hair at the top of her sex. The small mole on her right hip and the tiny scar on her left thigh.
Her breath caught when he touched it.
“Caught it on a nail on the dock of our neighborhood swimming hole,” she whispered. “I was eight.”
“Mmm,” he hummed, stepping into her space. Not stopping until they were skin to skin.
Her breasts brushed his chest, nipples dragging in the most delicious way. Her cool belly cradled the hot, aching length of him. And when he slid his thigh between hers…
Christ.
She was wet. Slick. Ready.
He groaned, deep and helpless.
She did, too, when he kissed her with determined precision, stealing the air from her lungs and replacing it with his own.
She rose up on tiptoe, fisting one hand in his hair, tugging him close like she never wanted to let go.
He let go. Just a little. Let the reins on his restraint slip just enough to teeter there on the edge. Testing his limits.
And hers.
She didn’t flinch when he deepened the kiss, charting her mouth with long, languid strokes of his tongue. She didn’t pull away when he ground his thigh into her damp heat, holding her hip in one big palm so he could guide her sex in tight little circles.
That keening moan she gave him? Oh, it threatened to undo him.
Mine, growled the part of him that had no patience, manners, or mercy. My woman.
It begged him to lift her, to seat himself inside her, to let all that wetness and softness and warmth swallow him whole before he thrust and thrust and thrust until she clamped around him. Until she spasmed with pleasure. Until she went limp and sated in his arms.
He bridled it just in time. Just before reason was torn to shreds and instinct took over.
She whimpered at the loss when he stepped back.
“I’ll get ya there, sweetheart,” he promised.
Then he yanked back the covers, propped the pillows against the headboard, and sat down.
“C’mere, Sabrina.” He patted his chest in invitation. “Let me hold you. Touch you. Edge ya ’til you scream.”