He needs to see everything . . .

My eyes shot open as if the words had been said aloud. But I’d been asleep . . .

When I became aware of where I was, I realized what I still had to do. I tried to push myself up, but an iron grip held me still.

“You’re good, baby. Don’t move.” Jaxxon’s sleepy, rough voice washed over me.

The room was dark, with the exception of outside lights filtering in through the sheer curtains. “Sorry I fell asleep.”

“Don’t apologize I needed to wrap my head around . . . everything.” He brushed his lips against my temple.

When sharp electric prickles shot down my body, I forced myself to settle by breathing in and out in long, steady rhythms. Jaxxon had taken the information better than I’d expected.

But this made it real.

Untangling myself from his arms, I kept the blanket around me until the last possible second.

“Where are you going?”

I shoved the leg rest back under the chair and stood up between his legs, turning around to face him and pulling out the band that held my braid. “Can you please—please turn on the light?” I shook out my hair, letting it fall around me.

“Yeah, but you didn’t have to move,” he grunted, and reached over to pull the chain on the lamp.

I squinted as the room brightened. It took a second to adjust to the soft lighting. Squeezing my eyes shut for a second, I inhaled and straightened to my full height. When he leaned forward to touch me, I put a hand on his shoulder. “Please,” I sighed. “You can’t touch me for this, okay? I need you to sit back.”

His eyes widened for a brief second and he shook his head. “No.” Grabbing me around the thighs, he pulled me close to him. “Valentina . . . You don’t have to do what I think you’re about to fuckin’ do. You don’t have to prove shit to me.”

Stepping away from him, I touched his cheek and inhaled. “I do. Thank you for saying that, but this . . . it’s for me too. You asked me for honesty early on—

Reaching out, he grabbed my hand. “Baby, now I get why—

“Jaxxon.” A small grin pushed at my lips. “You didn’t let me finish.”

He squeezed my hand and nodded. “Finish.”

“I’m in love with you. I have been for a while. I never doubted you. I doubted me, and in doing so, I hurt us both. Can you forgive me? Because if you can’t, I’ll understand, but I need to know now. Right now.” To take this risk, I needed verbal confirmation.

Letting go of my hands, he wrapped them around the backs of my thighs. “There’s nothing to forgive. You didn’t lie to me. You held back something very fucking personal until you trusted me. Do I wish we could have handled it different? Fuck yeah I do, but we’re okay, baby, and for the record, I think I loved you the second you tried to break my hand.”

I smiled at that, stalling in an attempt to get my erratic pulse back under control. “Alright. I mean, thank you. I love you too.”

He smiled up at me. “I’ve never doubted that, sugar.” He sat back, hands resting on the arms of the chair, and he stared at me. “You’re doing this for you?” he asked.

“Yes. For me, for us. When I said I didn’t blame Rick—

“Valentina . . . ” he warned, but I cut him off.

“No, Jaxx. What he did was wrong, yes, but what I did was wrong too. I hid them from him. I told him I’d been in a car accident. I lied. And never let him see how bad the scaring really is. I never loved him, because I never trusted him, but I did lie to him. I don’t want anything between us, if we’re going to try to make this work.” I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “In which case, you have to see . . . them. You have to see if you can handle how bad it is, because I can’t change what I look like and I can’t bring myself to go back under a knife to try and make them more presentable. I just can’t and—

“Hey.” Jaxxon sat up straighter his tone hard. “Anyone who even suggest that can go fuck themselves, baby. And if you can’t tell them, I sure as fuck will. You’re perfect the way you are.”

I gave him a small smile. “Thank you for that. But you know what you’re up against, Jaxx, you’ve felt them. And I can’t control the nightmares.” I looked down my body and back to him. “This . . . it’s a lot. It’s not attractive. It’s out of a goddamn horror film.”

“It’s gonna take more than scars and nightmares to scare me off now, sugar.”

Breathe in. Out. In. Out.

“Okay, then . . . ”

I dropped my head. You got this!

“Do what you gotta do, liebste. I’m right here.”

I glanced at him. “You said that to me on my bathroom floor. I don’t know that word. What does it mean?”

His warm amber eyes never wavered from mine. “My love.”

Tears blurred my vision. “It’s beautiful.”

“So are you. Go.”

My breathing labored now. I released the hold on the blanket, letting it slide to the floor. I slipped trembling fingers under the hem of my long-sleeve shirt and lifted it up until my head popped out the top, leaving just a camisole and my bra.

I gulped in a deep breath, yanked the camisole off and watched it fall to the floor.

The top of the scars would be sticking out from the low-slung jeans I wore.

I dropped my eyes and reached behind my back to the clasp on my bra.

“Valentina.” His soft voice came across as more of a scream shrieking through my head and I jumped. “If you can do this for you, for us, do you think you can look at me?”

For some reason, him asking made it easier. If I focused on him, I wouldn’t analyze every disfigured inch of skin I was about to reveal.

With my eyes now locked to his, I reached behind my back, and with a pinch, unhooked my bra. I crossed my arms over my chest and drew the straps down. I held the cups of the bra against me for a minute and finally let them drop away from my body.

The cold air from the cracked open glass door swept over my skin. Goosebumps rose up in response. A shiver ran down my spine and I had to fight not to cross my arms.

“Keep looking at me.” He nodded for me to continue.

I nodded quickly, reached up with my left hand and covered my breast. I shifted my body toward the light, lifting the soft weight up to expose the underside. “Look close,” I murmured. In the light, the teeth marks from where Blancherd had bit through my skin were still clear.

Jaxxon leaned forward and raised a hand in front of me, as if asking permission to touch me.

I nodded once and swallowed hard.

He slid tentative fingers up my rib cage to just under the hand holding my breast to trace the outline of the marking. “Son of a fucking bitch,” he said, so low I almost missed it. Leaning forward, he ran his lips over it once before sitting back. The kiss wasn’t sexual. It was almost reverent, and my heart skipped a beat at the gentleness of the caress.

I dropped both hands to my belt. The need to shed not only my clothes, but also my past, was like a vise squeezing my chest

I undid the buckle. The soft sound of leather slipping through loops seemed too loud for such a large room, but I at last got to the top button of my jeans. I chanced a glance at him. “It’s so bad,” I warned, giving him a chance to back out. I’d show him, but I knew their effect.

“You’re fucking gorgeous. Do it.”

The honesty and authority in his tone reassured me enough to keep going. It was as if he took the decision away from me, demanding I give him everything. Every last bit of me. Even if he no longer found me attractive, at least for once, I would know I’d been brave enough to be honest and show someone I loved. No matter what . . .

I shimmied the jeans over my hips and down my legs. Leaning over, I yanked them to my feet and stepped out, leaving my thong in place. A steady trembling started in my fingers and spread to my hands.

“Almost done, sugar,” he encouraged. “Finish it.”

My quivering fingers gripped the sides of my underwear, while still bent over. I shoved them down my thighs and quickly pushed them into the pile of my discarded clothes. I stayed there, staring at my feet . . . praying.

He. Is. Not. Rick! The voice in my head had now become my ally instead of my enemy.

He covered my shoulders with his strong hands. He ran his thumbs over the tendons on either side of my neck. “Stand up, baby,” he urged. “It’s okay. Stand up for me.”

“It’s shocking, Jaxx,” I spoke to the ground.

“Nothing I can’t handle. Come on up, baby.”

I exhaled hard and made my way back to a standing position. The room spun for a second, and he steadied me with his hands on my hips as I got my bearings. The first thing to come into focus was his face, his eyes, locked to mine, not the scars. I anchored my hands on his forearms and nodded. “Okay.” I nodded to him. “You—you can look.” I bit the shit out of my lip, feeling nauseous. The hypersensitivity of my skin heightened to the extent the air from the window hurt flowing over it.

Wrapping his hands around the backs of my thighs, he brought me closer to him until my knees touched the front of his chair. He scooted to the end, still looking up at me.

“Atme, liebste,” he said softly. “Breathe, love.”

“Just look, Jaxx. Please. I can’t stop shaking, please.”

He dropped his gaze from mine down to my naked body, and I took note of every reaction, studied every facial muscle, every twitch. The heat of his stare scaled my skin as he left no inch unexamined. When his eyes settled on the scars, he let go of my hands. Slow and gentle, he ran the tips of his fingers over each of the jagged edges, smooth deformations, and crisscrossed lines.

Not once did I notice or sense the disgust I had seen when Rick had opened that shower door. Not once did Jaxxon cringe or show any sign of repulsion. He just kept tracing the scars, running his fingers over them, every one. He did it for so long I eventually stopped shaking.

When his eyes finally met mine again, he wrapped his arms around my waist and buried his head against my chest, holding me. “You,” he said in a strong, sure voice. “You are a goddamn warrior.” He pulled back and looked up at me, taking my face between his hands. “You are the most beautiful fucking woman I’ve ever seen.”

At that point, my feet gave out. In one motion, he stood and scooped me up. I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and buried my face in his neck as he walked through the family room into the hallway.

“They’re bad, though, right? Be honest.”

He kissed my forehead. “Baby, life fucks some of us. They’re marks of survival, Valentina. I don’t see them as bad, shameful, or ugly. I love every inch of you.”

“Where are we going?” I muttered into his neck.

“Shower.”

I jerked my head up to protest, but I had no reason not to now. What if he didn’t sexually want me anymore, though? He could love me, but not want me. “We don’t—

“Time to relax, sugar, because I don’t think you ever have.”

Fully clothed, he stepped into his huge shower. A soft-brushed oval rock pattern covered the floor of the large space. The wall where the showerheads came out was made of smooth beige stones, and two long, high benches lined both sides of the shower.

He put me down, held me around the waist with one arm, and turned on all three showerheads with his free hand. The sprays beat down on his back, blocking the cool water from me until it heated up.

I stared at his chest, unsure of what to do or what he expected of me. His wet T-shirt clung to his skin and I brought both hands up to rest on his pecs. “You’re wearing clothes.” I couldn’t think of anything more intelligent to say.

He tilted my face up to his. “What are you thinking?”

There was no reason to keep it from him now. Not after everything I’d told him, showed him. “I’m wondering if you still want me, now that you’ve seen them.”

The smirk that always made my stomach clench in anticipation spread across his full lips. “You don’t think I want you anymore?”

I shrugged, watching the streams of water flow around his feet. “I’d understand.”

“I see . . . ” When he moved, I lifted my head. He let me go, raised both hands behind his back and pulled his shirt off, his wet hair sticking to his neck, his face, his shoulders. Taking my hands in his, he moved them to the waistband of his shorts. “Take them off.”

I studied his face, trying to gauge what he felt, but I couldn’t read his expression.

“Now, sweetheart.”

I slipped my fingers into the sides and pushed his workout shorts down his heavily muscled thighs. When I got them around his knees, I lifted a leg and pushed them the rest of the way down with my toes until he stepped out of them.

“Nice improvise.” He chuckled and reached over for a bottle of soap, which he squeezed into his palm. Rubbing them together, he moved to the side, sat on one of the long benches, and guided me by the hip to stand between his legs. Starting at my shoulders, he massaged the frothy soap into my skin, kneading the muscles as he worked his way down my arms. The alpine scent I associated strictly with him filled the steamy shower, and my chest muscles tightened.

Adding more soap, he worked the lather lower. He drew lazy circles around my lower back with his fingers, just above my butt, before running both hands up the sides of my rib cage.

The gentle pressure of his touch malfunctioned my breathing pattern. I loved the way Jaxxon touched me: gentle, yet firm, always aware, and present. He never absently touched me. Being fully naked in front of him for the first time, with his roughened fingers massaging, stroking, and gliding over every inch of my body felt as if I were being touched for the first time.

In a way, I kind of was. His thorough exploration of my body became a rebirth.

When he cupped my breasts, running both thumbs over and around my puckering nipples, I lifted my hands to his shoulders, digging my fingers into his solid muscles, to keep myself upright. He glided soapy hands around my hips, over each globe of my ass, and down the backs of my thighs, kneading and working the muscles until the tension began to bleed out of me.

“Open your legs a little, sugar.” His husky voice sounded deeper in the steamy shower.

I widened my stance. With one hand anchored on my hip, he spread the lather over the scars on my lower abdomen with the other. He didn’t rush. He traced the outline of each one and ran a slow finger across the tops of them. I watched him touch me. Felt the callused glide of his fingers over the ridged peaks and smooth edges of each one.

He split the vee between my legs with his thumbs. Sliding them along my outer lips, rubbing them up and down before sliding over the center of my cleft.

When his thumb breached my opening, I gasped and opened my eyes to stare up at the variegated rock ceiling of the shower. With each touch, my body reacted with a rush of wetness between my thighs.

“You’re trembling.” The stroking never stopped. “Are you cold?”

Cold? No. If anything he’d set me ablaze. “I . . . ” Words became insignificant. I couldn’t articulate the experience of his touch. How do you describe a cleansing from the inside out?

“You what?” He sought my eyes, while pushing between my lips and strumming over my sensitive, swelling bundle of nerves.

A craving for him burst through me, intensifying with every stroke, every caress. The thorough washing of my entire body with no reservation on his part had my every muscle quivering, and the only sound I heard was the fast, loud, beating of my heart. “Jaxxon . . . ” I brought my head back down.

He stood then, moving me under the hot sprays of water, washing away all remnants of soap, along with any reservations I had about how much I needed him, wanted him. Loved him.

“Look at me, Valentina.”

I lifted my head, my name on his lips alone felt like a caress.

Taking my hands in his, he brought them down and wrapped them both around his hard, velvet shaft. “Still think I don’t want you?” Using my hands, he stroked himself from base to tip, growing harder within my grasp.

As his hands fell away, I stroked him slowly, watching every swollen vein and smooth ridge disappear and reappear between my hands.

Everything about Jaxxon projected power, strength, and protection and for the first time since I could remember, I felt safe, not just physically, but to my very soul.

I grabbed his soap and lathered my hands. Starting at the ripped cords of his abdominals, I smoothed my hands up over each ridge up to his rock hard pecs, over his never-ending shoulders, down his defined biceps, to his forearms, and interlaced my soapy hands with his. “You’re so beautiful,” I said softly. “You’re perfect.”

A deep, raspy chuckle echoed throughout the bathroom. “Thank fuck you think so.”

I let my fingers rest on his hips and rubbed the pads of my thumbs along the grooves of his hip bone to his pelvis, and finally back to the base of his shaft. I dropped one hand down, and took his heavy sacks in my hand, letting their weight rest in my palm as I explored his softest skin with my fingers.

“Jesus, baby,” he said, on a hard exhale. “You have the softest touch. Fuck.”

A smile spread across my lips and I rested my head against his sternum. He kneaded his hands through my hair, as I worked back up to his shaft. I stroked him from tip to base before splitting my fingers over the top of him, over the small slit at the top.

When his forehead rested on the top of my head, I found his breathing as erratic as mine. “I’m not gonna stop you, sugar, but if you keep this up, it will have an endgame, and you’ve had a rough night.”

“No.” I went up on my tiptoes while he still had his head bent and crushed my mouth to his, and his tongue breached my lips on contact. I clutched at his shoulders as his skilled tongue devoured mine. “Please,” I blurted out against his mouth. “Here, now.”

Jaxxon dropped his hands to my hips, and lifted me up on to one of the long benches, leaning his big body into mine. “Turn your hands around and hold on to the top of the shower, the top of the glass. Tight, baby.”

I did as he asked, panting.

With his eyes locked on mine, he took a knee on the floor and lifted my right leg over his shoulder. He turned his head, tracing the long line of my scar with his tongue, kissing the skin along the way, until he reached space between my thigh and my core. He stroked his tongue over my thickening lips, licking up either side, before taking each one between his teeth and teasing me into a frenzy. My legs shook when he skimmed his tongue up my slit from bottom to top in one long lick, stopping only to take my clit between his lips.

“Jaxxon,” I groaned. “I missed you so much.”

He sucked my bud in a firm, steady rhythm—not hard enough to push me over, but enough to build the anticipation. The moans and sounds falling from my mouth became incoherent pleas.

Pulling his face away, he slid two fingers through my lips to rub me in tight circles. “I love how wet you get.” He bent his head, licking the tender space under his fingers, “I missed the taste of you.”

Back and forth, he teased and seduced, licking with his tongue, caressing with his hands, igniting the heat in my body so much, I felt like every inch of my skin burned. I let my head fall back against the glass as I labored to breathe through his thorough seduction, and at some point, the world fell away, leaving nothing and no one, but him and me, and this fire blazing between us.

His fingers slid up and down right on top of my clit and glanced up at me. “Let go for me, baby.” Splitting my lips wide, he leaned in and flicked his tongue over me hard and fast.

When I screamed his name, he sucked me into his mouth. Years of tension quivered out of every muscle. “Oh . . . Jaxx!” I groaned as euphoric tremors consumed me. The leg I was standing on gave out, but he caught me by lifting an arm up across my chest and holding me against the glass. He licked me slowly, drawing out every last shudder.

I looked down my body, losing myself in the golden glow of his magnetic eyes. “Make love to me.” I ran my hands down his chest as he got back to his feet. “Please. Here.” I couldn’t wait. All I could think of was the feel of him inside me and how he felt like home.

“Not here.” He lifted me into his arms, his mouth plundering mine as he walked out of the shower and straight to his bed, leaving a trail of water behind us. Laying me on the bed, both of us soaking wet, he covered my body with his and rested his weight on his elbows on either side of my head.

“Jaxx.” I split my legs and locked them around his waist, trailing a hand along the side of his face. “Love me.”

“All the time, sugar.” He kissed my forehead, down to my nose, and finally bent to seal his lips over mine. I opened to him and he plunged his tongue between my lips at the same time he entered me in one smooth, fluid thrust, not stopping until he was seated fully inside me.

I wrapped one arm around his neck and ran them down over the strong muscles in his back, as he pulled out and pushed back into me hard and slow, setting a maddening pace that had me moaning into his mouth as I drew his silken tongue between my lips. I arched my back against the bed and he slipped one hand under my backside, lifting me up to him. Alive. Jaxxon made me feel alive, made me feel instead of just exist.

Pulling away, he caged my face between his hands. “Look at me, baby.” His gaze held me hostage as he rocked his body in and out of mine, forcing me to feel every ridge, every raised vein, every hard inch. He hit the sweet spot inside me with each thrust and each retreat of his rimmed head, forcing me to the delicious edge only he could take me to.

In and out, he rocked inside me, never moving faster, just longer, harder. Perfect. When my legs began to tremble, he pulled his arm out from under me. Balancing on one hand, he lifted his torso, but never broke the rhythm of his strokes.

“Jaxxon!” I grabbed onto the tendons between his neck and his shoulder, trying to pull him back to me, missing his weight on top of me.

“Just keep looking at me.” He licked his thumb and rested his hand on top of my mound. Dropping his thumb down, he slid between my spread and swollen lips and drew small circles around my clit. The combination of him driving inside me, the tenderness of his erotic touch, and his constant, but steady pace had me gasping for air and grabbing any part of him that would bring him closer.

I searched his eyes, which never left my face. “Jaxxon,” I panted and lifted both hands to his face. “I love you—please . . . Make me come.”

“Always, liebste. You’ll always come for me.” The words were bitten out in time with him finally beginning to move faster. I couldn’t fight the pressure any longer, and when he pushed into me harder, I screamed his name as a zenith of pleasure burst through what felt like every cell in my body. My muscles contracted around him, my body clamping down on his.

With a final thrust, my body filled with the warm jets of his release, intensifying the tiny quakes rolling over my body, wrapped around his cock, pulling him deeper. He sucked in a breath and dropped to an elbow above me, his long groan rumbling across my ear.

“I fucking love you, baby.” He traced the shell of my ear with the tip of his nose, before taking it into his mouth and pulling back. “You’re like the goddamn sun to me.”

He rolled over, taking me with him and I rested my head on his chest. I closed my eyes for a second, snuggling closer to him, realizing I’d never felt more loved, nor had I ever loved this deep. I felt safe with Jaxxon . . . safe to be me, safe from the past and for the first time, unafraid of . . . life outside of my comfort zone. I’d taken the biggest risk in my life trusting him, and I now knew what emotional safety felt like.

I’d always felt physically safe with him, but, like my dad, Jaxxon had a stronger protective instinct than most men, especially when it came to the women in his life, even women he didn’t know. It was one of the first things I noticed about him.

I rested my chin on my hand and traced a finger around the J.V.R tattooed across his pec. “What’s Jessa’s middle name?”

He covered my hand with his. “Viktoria, after my mom.”

I smiled up at him. “I love that you have her initials tattooed over your heart.”

His chest rose on a deep breath and he exhaled hard. He cleared his throat. “It’s not for Jessa.”

When I met his eyes, there was a flash of something I couldn’t name, but every muscle in his body tensed and his tone was . . . off. “Can I ask who it’s for, if not Jessa?”

The muscle in his cheek twitched, he bunched a pillow under his head, and moved a strand of hair out of my face. “I have three sisters, baby. Bridge, Elle, and Julia. Julia Viktoria, also after my mom.” He threaded our fingers and looked down at our locked hands. “Jules died when she was twelve. She was three years younger than me—my little sister. I was with her . . . when she died. It was hardest thing I’ve ever dealt with and something I’ll carry till I’m fucking dead.” He shook his head as if to clear it. “So, yeah, the J.V.R—it’s in memory of Jules.”

I scooted up his chest, and placed a soft kiss on his lips. “I’m sorry you lost your little sister. I’m sorry for whatever pain you carry because of losing her.” I ran a finger over the initials again. “It’s beautiful. Thank you for telling me.”

When I went to sit up, he grabbed me and ravished my mouth with a hard, hungry kiss before pulling back and framing my face. “Thank you, baby. Thank you for being strong enough to trust me with you. I know what that took. I will always protect you, your heart, all of you.”

The power radiating from his fingers, from his body, carried to me through his touch, and I placed my hands over his. “I love you, Jaxxon.”

“I love you, sugar.”