Chapter 15 #2
“I have scars.” She swallowed hard. “Not just on my face.”
“So do I.”
“I might push you away when I’m scared.”
“I’ll stay anyway.”
She made a sound that was half laugh, half sob. “You don’t know what you’re signing up for.”
“Yes, I do. I’m signing up for you. All of you.
The fierce operative who takes my blaster without asking.
The woman who navigates in complete darkness and knows Brakken weaknesses.
The person who sits with me in a communal eating hall and tells me about being sorted at six years old.
” I brought her hand to my lips, pressing a kiss to her scarred knuckles.
“I see you, Iris. And I want all of it.”
Her eyes shone in the dim light. “I want you too. It scares the hell out of me, but I do.”
Then she kissed me again.
This kiss was different from the first. That one had been desperate, grateful, urgent. This one was a choice. A decision. An opening of doors that had been locked for too long.
I cupped her face in my hands, feeling the smooth skin on one side and the slightly textured scar tissue on the other. She was perfect. My thumb traced her cheekbone as I deepened the kiss, tasting her properly this time.
She made a soft sound in the back of her throat that drove me wild. Her hands fisted in my shirt, pulling me closer. I obliged, shifting on the bench to angle my body toward hers.
Her mouth was warm and demanding. When her tongue swept against mine, my skin lit up. I kissed along her jaw, down to her neck. She tilted her head back, giving me access, and I took full advantage. Her pulse fluttered under my lips. She smelled so amazingly, uniquely her.
My hands moved to the fastenings at her neckline. The black bodysuit had a series of small closures running from her throat downward. I worked them open one by one, kissing the skin I revealed.
Collarbone. Shoulder. The swell of her breast.
She froze. Her hands went to the luminescent sleeves and began pulling them back down to cast us into darkness.
I stilled her with a hand on hers. “Iris, leave the light,” I ground out. “I want to see you.”
I felt it instantly. The way her body went rigid. Her breathing changed.
I pulled back immediately. “What’s wrong?”
Her face was a mask again. That neutral expression she wore like armor. But I saw the vulnerability underneath it now. The fear.
“I told you I have scars,” she said quietly.
“I remember.”
She looked at me for a long moment. Then, with movements that seemed to cost her something, she reached for the fastenings I’d started and continued opening them. She pulled the top of her bodysuit down to her waist, revealing a thin undershirt.
“Chemical burn,” she said flatly. “One of my first assignments. The doctors fixed my face but the scarring on my shoulder and upper arm and chest is worse.” She hitched up the undershirt too, her movements almost defiant now.
“I never bothered with the follow-up procedures. They’re painful and I didn’t see the point. ”
I held up the glowing sleeve, which was no longer filled with Iris’ arm, and looked at the scars properly.
They covered her left shoulder and upper arm, stretching down to curve across part of her chest. They spread over the upper swell of her breast, but ended before her nipple, which was still covered by the edge of the undershirt.
The skin was mottled, uneven. Some areas were shiny and tight.
Others had a different texture entirely.
I could imagine the pain. The burning. How young she must have been when it happened.
“You must have endured incredible pain,” I said softly.
Her jaw clenched. “It was a long time ago.”
I leaned forward and pressed a kiss to the scarred skin on her shoulder. She sucked in a sharp breath. I kissed along the edge of the burn, gentle and reverent, following the path it had carved across her body.
When I reached the scar that curved over her chest, she made a sound that was half sob, half exhale. Like she’d been holding her breath for years and finally let it out.
I pulled back to look at her face. Tears tracked through the dust on her cheeks.
“You’re beautiful,” I said. “Every part of you.” I touched the scarred skin gently. “This is just part of your story.”
She wiped at her eyes impatiently. “You’re just saying that.”
“I never just say things.” I reached for the hem of my own shirt and pulled it off over my head. “We’re both scarred by our past, Iris.”
I showed her the ragged scar that ran across my abdomen. A Brakken plasma blast had torn through my midsection during the war. I’d nearly bled out on the deck of my Sola before a healer managed to stitch me back together.
“It’s ugly,” I said matter-of-factly. “And it reminds me of the worst cycle of my life. But it also reminds me I survived. That I’m still here. Still fighting. Still hoping for better things.”
She traced the scar with gentle fingers. “Does it hurt?”
“Not anymore. Sometimes it aches when I’m very cold.” I caught her hand, pressing it flat against my chest where my heart beat steadily. “We’re warriors, Iris. We both bear the marks of our battles. There’s no shame in that.”
She looked up at me, and something in her expression shifted. Softened. “I was so worried you’d be repulsed.”
“Never.”
“I don’t know how to do this,” she whispered. “How to be vulnerable.”
“You’re doing it right now.”
Then she kissed me again, and this time there was no hesitation. No holding back. Her hands moved over my chest, tracing the muscles and the scar with equal attention. I pulled her closer, skin to skin, feeling the warmth of her against me.
My hands mapped her back, her sides, learning the shape of her. She was lean and strong, all coiled muscle and resilience. When I kissed down her throat again, she arched into me.
We moved together, and I pulled her undershirt down, over her arms, until it pooled around her waist with the top half of her bodysuit. My hands shook, but not from fear. From anticipation. From the rightness of this moment in this ancient room where time had stopped over a thousand sun cycles ago.
She was bare before me, and I took a moment just to look. To appreciate. The scars, yes, but also the strength in her limbs, the firm swell of her breasts, and the curve of her hip. The way her breath came faster.
“You’re staring,” she said, but there was no real reproach in it.
“I’m memorizing.” I pulled her down to the bench beside me, then into my lap. “Every detail. So I never forget this moment.”
She straddled me, her hands on my shoulders, and kissed me with a passion that made my colors flare brilliant gold.
I slid my hand between our bodies, cupping the heat of her through the bottom half of her clothes.
She moaned and ground her sex against my hand.
We would not join our bodies tonight. I didn’t need to say it.
We both knew our first time together would not be in a dusty room with the enemy lurking above us.
But we needed to touch and be touched. We needed to connect. Resisting that would be impossible.
I felt the heat of her through my palm and my cock swelled, pressing against my pants and into the back of my hand.
This female had thoroughly rocked my life in the short time I’d known her.
Now, she was the most important thing in it.
I pulsed my hand against her, eliciting gasps, which made me clench my teeth.
With my other hand, I cupped her breast. The slight weight of it made me groan, as did the tight nipple that pressed into my palm.
I leaned forward and drew the stiff peak into my mouth, skimming my teeth over it.
I wanted to see her come apart for me. I wanted to push her to feel things she didn’t know possible.
This beautiful female was mine, and I wanted to give her all the pleasure she could take. And then give her some more.
“Lie back,” I growled, shifting us both so her back was on the bench and I leaned over her. “And try to relax.”