Page 25 of Stranded
“Too bad.”
I bit my bottom lip and watched him run the soap over his pecs. Before, I’d been too hazed with lust, desperate for as much pleasure as I could get before dying to appreciate what he must have suffered from his last tour with the Marine Corps.
The scars from the burn he’d received stood out stark against his skin, a map of warped, uneven texture that caught the light differently than the rest of him. Pale in some places, darker in others, they stretched across his chest in irregular patches. He didn’t hide them as he dragged the soap lower, completely unbothered, like they were just another part of him.
I stepped closer and gently took the soap from his hand before he could continue. Jackson’s brows pulled together slightly, confusion flickering across his face as water streamed over his shoulders and down the hard lines of his body.
“Aiden…”
“Let me do it.”
His grip loosened slowly, like he wasn’t entirely sure what I meant. Or maybe he did know and didn’t trust how I would react to touching him. As if I hadn’t already touched him when we had sex. But this was different. My vision wasn’t hazy with lust like the other times.
I thought about the way he carried himself in public, or even at home with Mom. He always tried to keep the unscarred part of his face hidden in side profile. The woman who’d vowed to love and accept him for the rest of their lives treated him with revulsion. Strangers stared at him in public in the same way. Or with pity.
I hated that anyone ever looked at him that way, especially her. He was a man who fought for our country, watched friends die, and almost didn’t make it out alive.
Emotions welled up in my throat.
I worked the soap between my hands until it foamed before sliding my palms carefully over his chest. The skin beneath my touch changed from place to place. Some areas were smooth and tight from healing, others ridged and uneven where the burns had been worst. None of it made me want to touch him less. If anything, it made my chest ache with how much pain he must’ve endured and survived.
Jackson went quiet beneath my hands. Not tense, exactly, but watchful. Like he was waiting for me to hesitate.
“You don’t have to do that,” he murmured after a moment, his voice rougher now.
“I know.” I looked up at him through the steam curling around us. “I want to.”
The guardedness in his eyes eased, and his body visibly relaxed; his shoulders loosening, and his lips softening instead of the thin, tight line they’d been in earlier.
I moved lower, washing over the hard planes of his stomach before following the scars disappearing down his hip and leg. The explosion had left its mark there too, pale patches stretching over powerful muscle that still carried him through the world.
Jackson’s fingers brushed lightly through my wet hair. “Aiden, don’t pity me.”
“Pity?” I laughed softly. “That’s the last thing I feel when I look at you. I think you’re strong, brave, and so fucking hot. How am I going to keep my hands off you when we return home? How do I hide the way I feel about you?”
I went down on my knees and took his erection into my soapy palms. A hiss erupted from him as I used the opportunity of washing him to stroke his cock. True to his word, he was a man of control, and his hips only stuttered once, but the tension in his legs wasn’t back.
But this kind of tension I knew well how to handle.
I slipped one hand lower to lather his balls with soap while I continued slowly caressing him.
“Aiden, I thought we were going to shower first, then dinner,” he said hoarsely.
“Yes, but I can get started on the appetizer, right?”
I urged him back under the showerhead to wash the soap off. “Turn around. There are other places I still need to reach.”
“Hmm.”
But he turned his back on me. I rose to my feet and made a quick task of washing his back just so I could get back on my knees. His ass was perfect, tight, and muscular. I ran my soapy fingers between his cheeks, washing him there, paying extra attention to his hole. Usually, I was on the other end of a rim job, but a hunger to taste him—to know him this way—overcame me.
“Jackson—”
“Hmm?”
“Can I lick you right here?” I spread his cheeks, baring his tightly clenched hole, thatched with curly hair, to my view.
“Just lick, right? Nothing else?”
