Blade returned the smile, adding a nod. “Sugar sweet, that’s us.”

  ***

  Jenn

  She curled her legs up beside her on the couch, leaning back and studying Blade’s face. “You’re kinda scaring me,” she admitted, struggling to keep her voice even. He’d called a half an hour ago and asked if they could talk. The words sounded so much like a lead-in to the dreaded brush-off that it was all her mind would let her focus on. Now that he was here, the tension in his expression was palpable.

  “I didn’t. I didn’t mean to, Jenn.” Brow furrowed, he shook his head. “I got something. I need to tell you.” Sentences broken and staccato, he told her a little more about the seriousness of whatever topic this was supposed to be with every word. “Shoulda already.”

  “I’m here.” She slid her hand towards him, palm down on the cushions. “I’m listening.”

  He reached out almost desperately, covering her hand with his own and clutching tightly at her fingers.

  “I’m not one to talk. Not much about my feelings.” His gaze searched her face, settling on her lips, and she gave him a shaky smile he returned. “But between Monk and my therapist, they convinced. They convinced me to talk to you.”

  A therapist? She managed to keep the words in her head, only barely, giving him a shallow nod of encouragement.

  “I was in a wreck. I wrecked out. On the bike.” Blade closed his eyes, and a muscle in his jaw clenched. “A drunk hit me and nearly. She nearly killed me.”

  “Oh my God.” Jenn’s reaction was soft, the words breathed in shock. “When?”

  “Not long ago. A while, but I’m still recovering.” That muscle in his jaw muscle flexed and shook. “I have problems with my head. My head and my mouth. Math. Reading. Speaking.” His fingers squeezed hers in a slow rhythm. Tighten, relax. “My words don’t work all the time.”

  Jenn flashed back to a few statements he’d made through their time together, slowly beginning to piece together the self-deprecating cut-downs he’d applied to himself. Shifting closer to him, she reached up with the hand he hadn’t claimed and trailed her fingertips along his cheek. She threaded them through his hair, navigating by feel until she came to the ridged scar behind his ear that he’d avoided talking about. Until now. “This.” She leaned closer, holding still until he opened his eyes. She saw the flare of his pupils, then the heat she’d come to expect whenever they were together. “This is from that accident, isn’t it? This scar?”

  “Brain surgery number two.” His lips pursed on the final word, and she darted forwards to place a kiss against them, liking how he showed her his surprise with a quick indrawn breath. “I was so busted up, Jenn. You wouldn’t have. Wouldn’t have recognized me. Hell, Monk has photos from the first days. I don’t recognize myself. Tubes everywhere. Face so swollen my eyes wouldn’t open even if I’d been awake.”

  “You were in a coma?” Even with the effort she put into steadying her voice, the final word broke a little, and he winced. “Blade. Nate. You’re okay now, right?”

  “Some things are good.” He shrugged and moved closer, his thigh against her legs when he turned to face her. “Some things are as good as they’re gonna get. My mouth.” His lips clamped shut and his mouth twisted to the side. “My mouth comes and goes. The words. The nightmares. Those are better when I’m with you. But what you see is what you get.”

  “Well…” She straightened her spine, staring at him. “You had brain surgery. More than one. I think the fact you’re walking and talking at all is a miracle.” She traced along the scar again, glad he was letting her touch him like this. “The fact I get to have you, to hold you—that’s another miracle, Nate.”

  “I’m always going to struggle. There’s a lot that can’t be fixed.”

  “I don’t think you need to be fixed, Nathanael. I like you just the way you are.” Jenn angled her head to touch his, foreheads pressed together. “My miracle man.”

  “Jesus, Jenn. Do you even know how special you are?”

  “Do I get to keep you? Are you mine?” He nodded, but she noted he was careful not to break that contact between them. “If you’re mine, then that’s all that matters.”

  Twelve

  Jenn

  Purse in hand, Jenn tossed a wave over her shoulder to Rose as she made her way out through the door. She normally worked days, but one of the other waitresses had called in sick, so the manager had asked Jenn to fill in. As the door closed behind her, Jenn shivered. It was one of the few nights a week the diner was open until midnight, capturing traffic from a couple of bars near the county line. The parking lot was dark, and the shadows cast by the shed and cars turned everything unfamiliar and somehow menacing.

  She glanced down as she dug for her keys, startled when a voice called out from the shadows next to the shed. She looked up, searching the darkness. “Hello?” She didn’t see anyone, no movement, and the sound didn’t repeat, so she hurried to her car, clicking the fob as she reached the door.

  Sliding behind the wheel, she breathed a heavy sigh of relief. That was creepy. The car started easily, and she pulled out of the parking lot, heading home and sending a silent thanks to Blade’s friend Wolf. He’d worked on her car three times now, each at his insistence, pointing out things that were likely to become problems and cutting her a deep discount to have the repairs done.

  In town, she made a stop at the local grocery store. Factories in town meant they kept hours convenient to shift workers, which was a boon on a night like tonight. A quick turn through the fruits and vegetables with basket in hand, then the dairy section for more cream, and a stop at an endcap touting a special, and she was back at the front checking out.

  Back in the store’s parking lot, she looked around, confused. She’d exited the store and angled directly to where she always parked—and certainly had just done so—but her car was nowhere to be seen. Jenn stumbled to a stop as she fumbled with her purse and bags, retrieving her keys. A click of the fob had her head jerking to the side as a car’s horn beeped in response. On the opposite side of the lot, her car was backed into a lined slot against a neighboring business.

  Jenn approached the car cautiously; she knew she hadn’t parked here. It required backing, and that was a maneuver she tried to avoid. She crowded close to the wall as she sidled towards the car, angling her head to look into the shadowy back seat to find it empty, as was the front.

  “Very funny.” She looked around, expecting to see someone jump out with an announcement that she’d been punked, but there was no one. Glancing over her shoulder, she opened the back door and placed her groceries on the floor. They were flimsy, reusable bags, and one of them tipped over, spilling the contents, glass jars of pasta sauce clinking against the jug of creamer. “Dammit.”

  When she stood up from straightening the mess and looked around again, she yelped aloud because there was a motorcycle parked in front of her car, wheel pointed towards her bumper. Panicked, she took a moment to recognize the rider, and air whooshed out of her when she saw it was Blade. “Oh, God. You scared me.”

  He dismounted, leaning the bike on the kickstand before walking to her. The smile on his face wasn’t gleeful, not as if he’d played a prank on her by moving the car. The expression on his face was soft and sweet, one that said seeing her was a welcome surprise. “Hey.” He crowded close and dipped his head to brush his lips against hers. “I didn’t expect to find you here.”

  Heart still pounding, she lifted to her toes to chase his mouth, rewarded with a deep chuckle and a deeper kiss. “I’m headed home.” She leaned against his chest when he wrapped his arms around her, letting his strength support her. “Wanna come for a visit?”

  The heat in his eyes was instant, and a surge of need rippled through her belly, zinging between her legs. His breathing changed, deepening, and she saw his focus shift to her mouth. “Yeah,” he said, voice low and guttural. “I want.”

  He followed her home, pulled the bike up next to the house, and met her at the car door to load up his hands with the grocery bags. Jenn protested, unsuccessfully, and quickly resigned herself to opening doors instead of carrying food.

  Putting away the groceries was a different kind of exercise with Blade helping. Different didn’t mean bad. Not at all. He quickly commandeered retrieval of each item, and when he would pass it to her, he would hold tight until she paid his self-proclaimed kiss tariff. Each kiss was sweeter than the last, hotter, wet and deep, until she found herself crowded against the countertop, Blade plastered to her front, his hands buried in her hair. She angled her chin up, opening herself for exploration from his mouth. Her breath caught in her throat as he mouthed her neck, his teeth, lips, and the burn of his scruff ratcheting up her desire to fever pitch.

  “Let’s move this to the bedroom.” His arms were tight around her, holding her in place, and she didn’t try to escape. Something about Blade’s ability to make her want him fractured her control, short-circuiting any semblance of self-preservation, until all she could think of was him owning her body, him inside, him with her.

  “Yes.” Jenn was shocked at the sound of her own voice, rough and needy, but Blade didn’t seem to mind if the pleased rumble in his chest was any indication.

  “Kiss me,” he demanded as he scooped her up, arms banded around her upper thighs and back, holding her to his chest. She wrapped her arms around his neck, offering her mouth, and he swooped down the tiny distance separating them, tongue sweeping in and tangling with hers.

  He laid her gently on the bed, then pounced, making her giggle as she bounced when he landed on all fours over her. Moving slowly, he stretched out over her, blanketing her with heat and pressure, his weight enough to make her ribs strain to pull in a full breath. Then he kissed her again, and she was short of breath for another reason, his hand on her breast a caress pulling strings connecting to her core, making her hips jerk up. His rigid cock, trapped behind the zipper of his jeans, still branded her like an ember. Fingers tightened in her hair as Blade moved his mouth to her throat, her shoulder, her breast over the clothing she still wore. He held her in place, and Jenn felt ravished in all the best ways, his open desire for her an aphrodisiac she hadn’t expected.

  “Jenn.” He groaned her name, mouth pressed to the skin above her shirt, lips and teeth making her quiver under him. “Clothes off, yeah?”

  “Yeah.” When he rose up on stiffened arms, she went for the fastening on his jeans, careful with the zipper as she shoved them halfway down his thighs, until his cock bounced free.

  “Jenn.” This was a roughened whisper, and she dragged her gaze from where she’d wrapped her hand around his cock and up to his face. Eyes closed, he had his bottom lip caught in a savage grip between his teeth, face twisted in a ferocious snarl. “Goddammit, woman.”

  Wondering how far he’d let her go, she looked back to where she held him as she stroked down, then back up, tightening her grip around the sensitive crown, feeling the pebbled ridge as it passed over her fingers. She swiped across the head, not surprised to find slippery fluid leaking from his slit. His hips jerked and plunged, cock fucking through her hand, and she stroked down and up again.

  Blade shifted suddenly, hips retreating until her hand was empty, and she glanced up to see the snarl had been replaced by an expression of such intensity it froze the air in her lungs. Blade was focused on her, unblinking, looking nearly feral.

  “Gonna. Gotta be in you.” He stripped her quickly, then shucked the rest of his clothes, until they were both naked. He moved over her again, that heated blanket she could learn to love. “You on the pill?”

  Jenn nodded. “Yeah. Injections, but yeah, I’m covered with birth control.”

  He groaned and dropped his mouth to her chest, his lips unerringly finding and latching onto a nipple, alternating sucking hard with the torment of tiny bites. “I’m tested.”

  She knew what he wanted. Something she’d never done with a partner before. I’ve never felt like this before. With that reasoning in mind, Jenn very deliberately spread her legs in an invitation he couldn’t mistake. Blade didn’t disappoint. He fell into the cradle created for him with a lithe twist of his hips. Another shift of position had his cock poised at her entrance, and Jenn held her breath, waiting.

  Lips pressed to hers, he thrust his tongue into her mouth at the same time he slid inside. His back arched under her palms, and she rolled her hips up to take him deep. Whispering his name when he was seated inside as far as he could go, she held still, muscles quivering as she grazed a gentle touch up his arms, curling around his shoulders and up his neck, tangling in his hair. “Nate. Baby, move.”

  “Oh, God.” His groan echoed through the air, and he moved.

  They came together in a crash of flesh, sweat coating their skin to create a slippery canvas painted by their fingertips. She gasped to the symphony of the sounds of his cock plunging deep and pulling back, thrusting inside hard and fast. When she came, it surprised her, the buildup fast and hard, bowing her back as she scrabbled for a hold on his skin, his flesh, his body—his being. He seemed to understand what she was waiting for, and mouth to her ear, he set her free to fly. “Go, baby. Take what you need. Come all over me. I got you. I’ll always, always have you. Go. Take it.”

  Her vision darkened on the edges, breathing suspended for long moments until her lungs protested, sucking in another draught of air before seizing again.

  Nate—because he wasn’t Blade in this moment, as he’d asked her, as she’d done instinctively, she’d transformed him to Nate as soon as he’d started loving on her—groaned, the sound harsh, cut off as he buried his face against her throat, setting his teeth in the muscle in the notch of her shoulder. His hips bucked, drawing his cock out until she nearly lost him. The swollen rim pushed back inside a dozen times, spreading her, stretching her in pulsing pumps. Then he was deep inside again, so deep he ground against her clit, his sac brushing the cheeks of her ass, and he came. Heat filled her, a delicious feeling of something forbidden as she’d never allowed this, never experienced the extra slipperiness, the sense of overfilling as his cock throbbed and throbbed.

  Her orgasm was passing, slipping away like an elusive scent on the wind, and she clenched down hard as she tried to extend it, surprised by Nate’s reaction. He pushed both hands underneath her, cupping her ass and lifting while he pounded hard for another handful of thrusts, her name a groaned sound against her skin.

  “So fuckin’ good.” His fingers tightened their grip, and she arched, lifting for him. “God, Jenn.”

  “Was pretty good from my side, too.” She fought to catch her breath, each word coming out on an individual huff of air. “Really good.”

  “Glad you clarified.” He chuckled, and she felt the rumbling shake down to her bones, his position on top of her pressing the humor into her skin. “Otherwise I might develop a complex about being only pretty good.”

  “Liar. You know you’re more than really good, even.” Turning her head, she kissed his cheek softly. “Overwhelmingly good.”

  That pleased chuckle rolled through her again, and she saw the curve of his cheek when he smiled. “I guess I don’t have to ask if it was good for you?” He lifted slightly and pulled out, moving to his back on the bed next to her. A moment later, he hooked his arm around her neck and yanked her towards him, positioning her half on top of his chest.

  She angled her arm, chin resting in her hand. “So good.”

  “I’ve never had it that good, Jenn. Never had anything close. Wanna know what I spent the day thinking?” Lips pressed together, she nodded. “How I could prove. Prove to you that I. That I was good enough. That I’d be worth. Worth takin’ a chance on.” He looked frustrated, brow furrowing. “My mouth.” Huffing out a sigh, he shook his head. “This is. It is how it is. Some. Days are better. Better than others.”

  Jenn lifted a hand and cupped his cheek. “I don’t care.”

  “You will.” The bleak expression that fleeted across his features broke her heart, and she shook her head fiercely.

  “You don’t get to tell me what I want. You can’t decide that for me. If you don’t like me, or don’t want me around, then that’s your decision. But if you want this? Want this with me? Then you can’t try to predetermine the ending. Nate, baby, we’ve hardly begun. I can’t wait to see where this takes us, because it feels so very right to me, but don’t put some kind of time limit on this just because you’re afraid.” He jerked at that word and she nodded. “Oh, I know. You’re this military guy, been in a dozen firefights, because your friends do like to brag on you, mostly because you won’t brag on yourself. But in this, you’re letting some false sense of unworthiness make you afraid. Don’t be afraid of winning.”

  “I get so.” His face twisted into an unpleasant expression, an unwelcome echo of his previous one. He lifted a hand and thumped it solidly against the side of his head once, then a second time. He’d pulled back for a third strike when she curled her fingers around his wrist, staying the blow. “So frustrated.”

  “If I tell you I’m not, would you believe me?” Gazes locked, they stared at each other for a long minute. Then he slowly shook his head side to side. “Then I’ll have to prove it to you.” Digging her toes into the mattress, she pushed up until she could kiss him, pressing her lips against his. With a sigh, she relaxed back against his chest, laying her cheek on his pec and gazing into his face. “I’m listening, Nate. I’ll be here.”

  His arms tightened around her, squeezing down like bands of steel, holding her in place. Voice rough and hesitant, he whispered something that wasn’t as much a secret as he seemed to believe. “I think I love you.”

  Jenn smiled at him through the sheen of tears his unexpected bomb had caused, fingers drawing tiny circles on his chest, not moving a muscle otherwise. “I know I love you.”

  He huffed out a laugh, then sighed deeply, tension flowing out of his muscles with the breath.

 

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