Jack stood in the bedroom doorway, looking as unsure, almost afraid, as Luna had ever seen him. His eyes were wide, the blue nearly consumed by the black in the centre.

She realized that he was waiting. Debating with himself or waiting for her. She knew this wasn’t a first for him. Not this exactly. But tenderness, certainly. He had never been touched kindly, with compassion. With true passion? She didn’t know.

Luna swallowed down all her own feelings of inadequacy, her own hesitation. She’d left Jarod so many years ago. Protected herself all those years against feeling anything. She still wanted to protect herself. The fear of being hurt again, of opening herself up was still very real. She didn’t even fully know what she was doing.

It was just… Jack. Since the first time she’d touched his shoulder with her gloved hand, no, since the first time she’d laid eyes on him, she knew that she wanted him. Now that she’d really touched him, kissed him, aroused all the buried, repressed passion inside of herself, she wanted this. She needed him so badly it was a physical ache.

Jack stepped forward, as though he truly wanted to be there. He paused again, battling his own demons and Luna knew then, the courage it took for him to even be there. To reach out. To shock himself with the realization that it was possible to enjoy the very thing he’d feared.

She knew exactly what he felt and her heart melted as compassion stirred her. She forced a hard, shaky breath, suddenly aware that she was perilously close to crying. Her feet were moving before she was even conscious of it happening.

Jack tensed when Luna closed in, wrapped her arms around his waist. She looked up into those amazing eyes of his. They stared back at her, so very old, old beyond Jack’s years.

“I know,” she whispered. “I know what you’re feeling. It’s so hard. I… I tried very hard to make sure I didn’t feel anything again. It was safer that way. And now, I- I do feel this. I can’t even name it, but I want it.” She reached up and traced the outline of his lips. He leaned into her touch, so very hesitantly. His eyes closed and he sighed, a sigh that shook his entire frame.

The unfamiliarity of him, the discovery was so exciting that Luna nearly shook as a shiver raced through her body. She’d seen that gorgeous chest, his beautiful back. She wanted more. She wanted all of him. She wanted to trace the pattern of his skin, learn the shape of his muscle, hear the very sounds he made in the throes of passion. Sounds she brought out of him.

“We can go slow,” she whispered huskily, her voice heavy and almost unrecognizable. “I promise that you’re safe with me.”

Jack let out a low groan. She wasn’t sure what it even meant. His eyes closed and stayed that way. His body melted into hers.

“Yes,” he finally whispered.

She sensed he wasn’t a man who threw words around easily. Who words came easy to. That one word, just one, held all the promise in the world.

Her hands hooked under the hem of his t-shirt and she pushed it up, careful of the gauze she’d placed on his back. He lifted his arms, slowly, because the movement caused him pain. His back was probably screaming in protest and here she was, about to do this with him. It only made that feeling, that drive to bring him pleasure that much stronger. She wanted to cancel out the pain. Both the seen and the unseen. The physical and the mental, the emotional. She wanted to erase the hurt in his heart. And in my own.

Luna didn’t even know where to start. Just this. Just do this. His shirt was thrown to the floor. She stared, unembarrassed, at the beautiful lines and ridges of his purely male anatomy. The power in his striated, perfectly formed muscles. The swell and dips, the gentle crests and valleys of a body so very different from her own.

It was exciting. God, it was exciting just looking at him. A wave of raw need washed over Luna, nearly buckling her legs. She reached out and her fingertips grazed his warm, solid muscle. She traced the swells, the textbook beauty come to life. He trembled, but it passed as quickly as it had come.

Luna leaned forward. Touching him wasn’t enough. She flattened her palm above his heart, the steady rhythm quicker than it should have been, giving away all the internal flutter that was going on behind that stoic flesh. Luna leaned in. She inhaled deeply and scented the strong musk of dried sweat and raw masculinity. It was… erotic.

Her body responded instantly, viscerally, her nipples hardening under her camisole, a heavy weight growing in her belly, spreading lower, wetness pooling between her thighs.

She brought her other hand up, tilting her face because she needed him. She needed his mouth, solid and heavy and lusty on her own, sucking away at her breath, swallowing her moans.

Her fingers grazed the shorter hair, the soft buzzed part and tangled in the longer strands. She cupped the back of his head as his neck bent and his mouth found hers. His breath, warm and fragrant, so very sweet against her lips, just one breath before his lips parted and met hers, was so completely erotic it sent a fresh wave of shivers through Luna.

His mouth opened to her and she took the opportunity. Let her tongue sweep in. Exploring. Delving in and back and darting in again. Finding his and stroking it. She awoke the primal urges in both of them, the very same long buried emotions she felt in the kitchen.

His hands were on her body, stripping away her shirt, exposing her camisole. She fumbled with him, tearing that away as well. He groaned and she gasped when his hand found her breast, caressing her nipple. It hardened wickedly under his touch, a tight peak that sent shards of pleasure crashing through her with every graze, every circle, every flick of his fingers.

God, I want him. She’d never wanted anything so bad in her life. She imagined herself stretched out on the bed, his hard body over her, taking her, loving her. Desire washed over her, heady and thick. She brought her hand up, traced the thick lines of his shoulders, kneaded her fingers there, so very softly into the hardness of him.

It wasn’t a sexual touch at all but he shuddered. Trembled. Moaned deep in his throat. Her hand fell away from his head and trailed downwards, tracing the hard outline of his chest, fumbling in between where their bodies were crushed together. She found the button of his jeans, then the zipper. Her fingers were surer than she ever thought they could be. She stripped his jeans away, pushing them down his granite hips.

She should have been fearful, hesitant even. She certainly expected him to be. Luna was surprised when his hands met hers, helped her strip away his boxers. He broke away to remove them completely. Their breath was ragged, hard, gaspy. Her world shifted, tilted wildly when she stared at the wonder of his naked body.

Luna didn’t hesitate once to strip her own jeans away. She stepped from them, took one pace back before she hooked her fingers under the waistband of her red lace panties and slid them down her thighs. She should have been embarrassed. Scared. Timid. She should have had the trust and the desire to be with another person beaten out of her long ago.

She wasn’t. Whatever it was, whatever spell had settled over her, overrode everything. Good sense, hesitation, fear, uncertainty. All she felt in that moment, that charged moment where the very air became thick with desire and hard breath, was desire. Raw, stripped down desire as she’d never known it before.

She waited. She wanted to keep her promise to take it slow. Luna let him make the first move. She let Jack decide if he truly wanted to go through with this or not. Because she sensed that they both knew there was no going back. This moment, this action, is going to change us forever. It didn’t make sense but it didn’t have to.

Luna extended her hand in invitation. Jack stepped forward and slowly, his palm curled around hers, his long, strong fingers tangling with hers in a grasp that could save them both. She turned towards the bed at the same time that the liquid heat in the pit of her stomach exploded, flooding her entire being with something she couldn’t even name. Something she’d never felt before in her entire life.