I sucked in air as the movement came to a stop. This was the moment of truth. I took the smallest half-step back and let the fabric fall in a whoosh to the floor. I stood before him, this man who demanded my all, exposed but for my lacy underwear and boots. My nipples pebbled in the cool air and from the heat in Brody’s eyes.
He drank me in, eating up every inch of skin with his gaze. “Never seen anything more beautiful. Not in a museum or on a gallery wall. Never and nowhere.”
And as he closed the distance between us, his fingers skimming over my scarred skin, I felt that beauty blooming within me. A knowledge that I would always be that in Brody’s eyes.
I stepped out of one boot and then the other. Brody tugged his Henley over his head, then the shirt beneath. I watched in fascination as his muscles bowed and flexed. Tanned skin seemed to glow under the moonlight streaming in through the window. I’d never gotten this. To watch and explore. I’d never wanted it.
He chucked one boot, then the other. His hands went to the button on his jeans, and I sucked in a sharp breath as he sprang free. No boxers or briefs, just him. The faintest thread of nerves traveled through me. It had been so long, and the one time I’d gotten up the nerve to have sex, it hadn’t been enjoyable.
But I wanted this. To experience what had been described in books and shown on movies. I moved in closer, my fingers trailing up Brody’s shaft, moving from base to tip. He hissed out a breath, and my gaze flew to his face.
There was reverence in his expression. A look I’d never seen before. “Been dreaming about your hands on me for months.”
There was power in his words. Something that made me just a little fearless. My fingers grew bold, exploring. And I took note of each reaction in Brody’s face, the set of his muscles.
His hands began an exploration. A thumb passing over my nipple through the thin lace of my bra. “Love you in this. How I can only see a hint of what’s beneath, but I can feel everything.”
I shuddered against his touch, pushing into his hand, searching for just a little bit more. Pressure. Friction. Him.
“What do you need, Shay?” His words had a slight growl to them.
“You.”
“You have me.”
In a flash, he lifted me, then tipped me back so I was flat on the bed. Brody’s jeans were gone, and all I could do was stare, drinking in every inch of his body. The man could’ve been a statue chiseled from stone, yet he had a fiery energy to him that would’ve exposed him as being alive the moment you got close.
Brody bent, reaching beneath me to unclasp my bra. He tugged it free, allowing his fingers to trail over my skin as he did. That barest touch sent sensation crackling across my skin, waking up every nerve ending with the promise of what was to come.
Brody’s thumbs hooked on the sides of my panties, dragging them down so slowly I thought I might scream. I lifted my legs as if to hurry him along, but I should’ve known that Brody wouldn’t bend to my silent demands.
“I’m taking my time. Looking my fill so I can commit this to memory. I’d paint your face just like this. Need coloring your cheeks. But I don’t want to share this view with anyone.” With one final flick of his wrist, he tossed the last bit of lace to the floor.
He pulled open the drawer in his nightstand and pulled out a small packet. I watched in fascination as he rolled the condom over himself, my stomach hollowing. Brody trailed his hands up my thighs, a finger dipping into my core. Teasing, testing. His eyes grew hotter, and my breath caught in my throat.
“I want to feel you.” The words didn’t even sound as if they belonged to me. They were from some stranger inhabiting my body. But I didn’t care one bit.
His tip bumped against my entrance. “You’re sure?”
“Please.”
He entered me in one slow stroke. My breath caught, my lungs stilling. The stretch, the fullness, the slightest bite of pain. Brody’s hand cupped my cheek. “Too much?”
“Perfect.” And it was. Everything about the feeling was what I needed to reinforce that I was alive.
As Brody slowly began moving, gliding in and out, every sensation melted, transforming into warmth and want. My legs hooked around his hips as my hands found his shoulders, his neck. Every movement I made begged for more, deeper. I wanted to feel him everywhere.
With one angle of Brody’s hips, he gave me just that. The hum that our bodies created together radiated to every muscle and synapse. I wasn’t sure I could take much more. I’d never felt this much all at once. And with a brush of his roughened thumb across my clit, I found I couldn’t.
All that sensation collapsed in on itself and then exploded out again, a shower of sparks from my very center cascading across the rest of me. Light danced across my darkened vision. And no part of me doubted that I was here. Breathing. Alive.
27
Brody
My fingers trailed up and down the bumps and ridges of Shay’s spine. I wanted to commit every piece of this moment to memory. Burn it into my brain so I’d never forget. I’d never felt Shay so relaxed, so at peace. But each second that passed, a little more tension snuck back into her muscles. As if her body were trained to revolt against any kind of true closeness. Walls that had been in place for so long took time to break down fully.
I brushed her hair away from her back, trailing my fingers down her spine again. “Want to tell me what’s going on in that head of yours?”
She didn’t pull away when I asked, and that was a victory of sorts. Instead, she seemed to burrow deeper against my chest. “How do you always know when something’s messing with my head?”
“Right now, I feel it. The slow tightening of your muscles. You were practically boneless thirty minutes ago.”
She laughed. “And I think you know why that is.”
I pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “So, tell me what’s changed.”
Shay let out a slow breath. “A million worries invading my brain.”
I moved my hands to her head, massaging her scalp as if I could clear away those worries with my fingers. “Tell me about them. Sometimes, if you give them voice, they lose their power.”
“I wish it was that easy.”
“Try.” I squeezed the back of her neck. “Tell me the biggest one right now. Go.”
“That he’ll hurt you.”
The words seemed to tumble out of Shay’s mouth before she could stop them. I froze. “That who will hurt me? Michael?”
She nodded slowly against my chest. “He’s done it before. Every time I got close to someone growing up, something bad would happen. A lot of times no one could prove it was him, but I always knew.”
“What do you mean something bad?”
Her fingers started tracing swirls on my pec. “When I was in fourth grade, and he was in third, a new girl moved to town. Jill. She and I really hit it off. We’d hang out at the playground every day after school. Michael would come with us most of the time. One day, I’d gone to get snacks from my mom, who always sat on one of the benches to read while we played. I heard a scream. We rushed back to the jungle gym, and Jill was lying beneath the monkey bars, screaming and crying. Her arm was so badly broken, the bone had pierced the skin.”