Cuddling wasn’t something Jack had ever seen himself doing. He thought all that romantic mush was for movies. The shitty kind that he would never watch.

It turned out, when he gave it a chance, it wasn’t half bad. Hell, who was he kidding? He could stay wrapped up in Luna for the rest of his life. Her long legs were tangled up in his. His strong arm wrapped around her protectively. Her head rested on his chest. Which meant he was on his back, his torn, up, sore as hell back, but he didn’t care. The pain was nothing compared to the new feeling. He didn’t even have a word for it.

Luna raised her head and stared up at him with sleepy, sated eyes. The room wasn’t light but the window provided enough of a glow that her face wasn’t completely shadowed. “So, you’re a mystery, Jack. I don’t even know your last name. I don’t know the first thing about you. Why it seems so odd that you walk around wearing a suit when it seems like you’d scorn that kind of lifestyle. Why you’ve never kissed anyone when I assume you’re far from being a virgin. That tattoo on your back speaks to a much seedier kind of lifestyle than just a club owner.”

Jack tensed. Every single muscle froze. He knew he had two options. Lie and get the hell out of there or for once just be honest. Would it really kill him to tell someone about his past?

He took a deep breath, his insides squirming with sudden nerves. He was about to find out. “I grew up rough. Bounced from foster to foster home until I landed in a more permanent position. It would have been alright had my foster ‘dad’ not been a drunken asshole. He put on a nice face for the rest of the world but I knew the truth. He used to come home drunk and take it out on me. I was twelve. I ran away so many times I lost count.”

“Is that where… where all your scars came from?” She traced a few of the raised lines and marred ridges on his chest.

Jack sighed at the pain in her voice. The last thing I want is for my life to seep into hers. To hurt her. “Some,” he admitted. “I finally left when I was fourteen. When I was tired of taking the brunt of everything he had to throw my way. He didn’t call the cops. Didn’t try and get me back. That would mean admitting what a shit human being he really was. I was kind of lost to the system. The kid that fell through the cracks, that no one owned and no one cared about.” Luna was silent. Because she was utterly repulsed? Horrified? “You want to send me packing yet?”

She shifted, glancing up at him with a shocking amount of empathy. So he’d been right. Someone had done something awful to her. Beaten her? Abused her? Mentally? Physically? Worse? Jack’s body tightened with a wave of hot, animalistic rage. He would like to find the bastard and pound him into the ground.

“Go on,” Luna urged gently, quietly defusing his bomb of anger.

“I met this guy while I was just trying to stay alive. He was sixteen. Real street smart. Grew up shitty. Ran away from home when he was twelve and kept on running. His dad did worse to him than I ever had handed out to me. Touched him… anyway he called himself Lion. He had this little posse of asshole kids that followed him. Lived in abandoned buildings here and there until they were forced to move. Stole everything they could get their hands on, either to sell or trade for drugs to sell. They took me in like someone who takes in a half-drowned puppy and raises it to be a guard dog. No, maybe not a guard dog. A working dog. I was really, really good at stealing things. Jack isn’t my real name. We all had code names. Fucking stupid, but that’s what we did. We never discussed real identities. Those people, who we were before, they were gone. Forgotten. Buried because they had to be in order to survive. I was really good at stealing shit. Cars especially. That’s how I earned my name. Jack, as in jacking cars.”

“Oh.”

“Should I continue?”

Luna resettled her cheek right above Jack’s heart. The old urge to flee had deserted him completely, like some other man had come into his skin the minute Luna had first touched him, transforming him into something that was precious and kind, new and tender, just for her. Because she needed it. Because he would never, ever hurt her.

“Yes.”

Jack wondered why she didn’t tell him to get the hell out of her house. Why she didn’t ask a hundred questions. She waited patiently, refusing to judge him or classify him. Best of all, she didn’t pity him.

“I stole a car one night and finally got busted. I was sixteen. I got sent to juvie and that’s where I met Alan. He was an old guy. Well, old to me at the time. He was maybe fifty, if that. He was a good man. Told me I needed to straighten my shit out before I spent the rest of my life behind bars. I had never connected with anyone before. Never trusted another person besides my… well those kids I was with. We were a brotherhood of sorts. Took a blood oath one night.” He winced when he said those words, reminded of Lion stalking into the club. Was that really less than ten hours ago? “Alan was so patient with me. He showed me that life could be good. That not everyone is out to hurt you or use you. When I got out, I didn’t want to go back to that group. I wanted to find a job and try and make a life for myself.”

“What happened?”

“Alan died when I was nineteen. He kept me on the straight and narrow for two years. He had no family. He had a wife but they never had kids. She died of cancer a few years before he met me. That’s why he got involved with troubled youth. I guess it gave his life meaning. He’d made a lot of money over his lifetime, working in stocks. He retired early. Lost his wife. Found something to keep himself from going insane. Met me. He was like the father I never had.” Jack swallowed hard, suddenly close to tears. He’d cried, in private, once. Once after losing Alan. He’d allowed himself a few minutes of grief, one brief second of weakness. Now, he was dangerously close to breaking down and crying like the kid he’d never been.

“I’m sorry,” Luna whispered. She didn’t look up, just traced a small circle on his chest, as though drawing some unseen picture. He wondered what it was of. Was it beautiful or not, now that she knew what he really was?

“He left me all that money. I was nineteen and suddenly I inherited a little over three million.” There was a sharp intake of breath and her hand stilled. “I put it all in the bank. I was smart by then. Collected interest. Put my ass in college. I graduated with a business degree and bought my club. Used some of the money for that. I have a house, a nice car. It doesn’t mean anything. Is it strange that sometimes I still crave those old, musty warehouses? The thrill of taking something that doesn’t belong to you?”

“I don’t know,” Luna said uncertainly. She went back to drawing those imaginary lines and circles over his skin. It actually felt… good.

It was strange how you could spend your entire life fearing touch and all of a sudden, in an instant, be transformed into someone who craved it. No, he craved Luna’s touch. Hers and hers alone. That thought sent a chill ripping up Jack’s spine. He didn’t even know her. There was no way he should feel like this, crave her like this, want to know more. Fear of losing her like he suddenly did.

“It only happens once and awhile. That tattoo… it happened when I told the guys I was leaving. I got out and I went back and found them. They wanted to pick up right where we left off. They viewed my leaving as an abandonment of brothers who had cared for me for years. I suppose, in a way, they were my family. I couldn’t be involved with them. I knew if I even kept in touch that I would fall back into that life. I couldn’t imagine spending my years locked behind bars. I knew that was my future if I ever went back to them. Lion didn’t like it. I don’t know if he really even cared about me or if he just didn’t want to lose my skills. They were pretty damn lucrative. Anyway, I remember getting in a fight. Like a bloody fist fight, but it wasn’t the first time. I knocked Lion down and jumped on top of him. That’s when everything went black. One of the other guys, Reaper or Wolf, must have hit me over the head with something. Probably a fucking bat. When I woke up I was in some alley. Stripped down to the waist. My head hurt like hell but my back felt like fucking fire. Like someone threw acid on my skin. They had taken me somewhere to get that damn tattoo. So they would always be a part of me. They marked me for life.”

Luna shifted. He was afraid she’d pull away, disgusted now that she knew he was not only a seedy club owner but that he’d stolen shit, gone to juvie, and inherited money he didn’t deserve from a man he could never hope to live up to.

The tenderness in her eyes, when she finally looked at him, nearly broke his heart. “Not for life. Never for life. Because, Jack, I am much, much more skilled than Lion, that’s a ridiculous name by the way, ever accounted for.”

She moved, shifted upwards. Her lush lips parted just a fraction. Her eyes darkened and it was clear that even after everything, after finding out that he wasn’t much more than a reformed criminal, if he was truly reformed at all, or a lost little boy at heart, she wasn’t going to give up. She wasn’t going to tell him to take a hike.

“It just so happens that someone I knew, who was supposed to care for me and love me, someone who I trusted very much, hurt me. Physically. Mentally. Emotionally. In every way you can hurt a person. I know what it’s like to be on your own. I know what it’s like to have no one in the world, no one to turn to. I know the loneliness that it’s in your heart. The reason you can’t truly ever be with another person, or trust them to share that most sacred connection with you. I get it. So, for tonight, even if it’s just one night, can we be each other’s healing? Or maybe not healing… but…”

“Yah. I get it.” He did. Truly. Luna was different. He’d always wondered if he could ever be with another person in the way most people took for granted. She’d answered that question.

The future was never certain. He knew that for a fact. So yes, for that night, for as many nights as she wanted him, he was willing to give her the one thing he never thought possible. Himself.