It had been years since Luna last felt the comforting solidness of a male form in her bed. She drifted in and out of wakefulness towards morning, at first confused by the weight, a little too warm, the breaths heavy and drawn out with sleep. When she shifted, even a little, she was very aware that she was sore in all the right places.
She never panicked. Even before she was fully alert she knew she was safe. That the heavy limbs entwined with hers were not a threat. She couldn’t say how she knew. This man was unpredictable. She knew nothing about him. Certainly his confessions about his earlier life proved that. She couldn’t say how she knew that this wouldn’t turn out like Jarod. She just knew.
Jack, that wasn’t even his real name, wasn’t the kind of man who got pissed drunk and beat up a woman. Despite his hulking size, he didn’t seem like he’d ever lay hand on anyone. She wondered what he would be like when he was angry. Calm and rational? He’d probably bury the emotion deep inside, pretend like he didn’t feel anything at all until he was somewhere where he could decompress.
Luna shifted away, extracting her limbs just enough that she could turn and face Jack. Watching him sleep, his features relaxed and unguarded, seemed like a rare privilege, a genuine moment to treasure. She doubted very much that he had ever spent the night with anyone, at least not in this capacity.
Why me? Why is it just so easy to be next to him? It shouldn’t be. It shouldn’t be this easy and it shouldn’t feel this damn good.
But it did.
Luna had spent three years shoring up her courage to do this again. Trust someone. She’d built walls around herself by making herself far too busy with work to ever truly feel anything. Then Jack walked in, demanded a cover up, and rocked her entire world. All those carefully constructed walls and everything she thought she knew lay in smouldering ruins.
“How long have you been watching me?”
Luna started, half guilty. Jack’s eyes opened an inch. He seemed to find the bright sunlight flooding her room quite offensive and he slammed them shut again.
“A minute, not more.”
“You should have woken me. It must be… boring watching me drool and snore.”
Boring. It’s not that at all. Anything but that. Erotic heat flooded Luna’s bloodstream. When Jack stretched and the covers fell away, revealing that rock solid wall of hard muscle, the heat burned harder, faster. She shivered violently, the fierceness of her need for this man, this man who was a stranger still, nearly overwhelming her.
“I thought you might like to show me the parts of your house I didn’t see last night.” Jack said slowly, enunciating every word. His lids lifted slowly again and those incredible blue eyes, eyes she would give the entire world to see light up with pleasure or passion- anything, as long as it was genuine emotion, focused on her face.
“Like what?” Luna laughed but when those blue eyes darkened with primal want, her laugh died. “You mean like…”
“Like the shower, for instance. My back is itching like hell. But it’s not like I can reach it… I thought you might want to- uh-”
“Oh,” she whispered, breathless. Yes I would love to watch you rinse off. Her cheeks fired as she blushed painfully just thinking about what they had done the night before. “For someone who never kissed another person, it’s a pretty big jump to want to shower together.”
One blonde brow raised in mock astonishment. “Are you telling me that now that I finally have the courage to make the offer, you’re going to turn me down?”
Oh god, not that. Never that. Luna shivered, embarrassed at the animalistic wave of lust that ripped through her. “I wasn’t saying no, I’m just surprised.”
“After last night? I suppose that if I didn’t have a melt down over that, the shower will be fine.”
She reached out and placed her hand on his shoulder. His warm, smooth skin melded into her fingertips. He was warm and alive, the muscle bunching with each of his breaths. “Why me? That’s the only real question I have. Why me when you haven’t done this with anyone else? What makes me so special?”
Jack’s gaze never wavered though his lips thinned. “I… I don’t have an answer for that. I just- the first time you touched me, something different happened to me. I’ve never truly wanted a connection with someone. What I wanted could only be termed mechanical before. Something to prove that I wasn’t as dead inside as I thought I was. That part of me was still human. With you, I never felt that for a second. It was like my past vanished the instant I saw you. Or not vanished, but it didn’t matter so much. All the wounds and hard shit that made me who I am… it didn’t matter. With you, it’s just me.” He frowned. “I don’t even know what that really means.”
Her hand fell from his shoulder and slid down his arm, caressing the bunched, striated muscle, the blonde hairs that were neither soft or crisp but something beautiful in between.
Kind of like them. Neither decided or unafraid, certain or unsure… she had never done this before- never trusted someone so blindly. But he hadn’t done it either. She had asked him last night if they could be each other’s healing. She’d said just for the night, but maybe, just maybe, that healing didn’t have to dissipate with daybreak.
“That shower sounds good,” she whispered as her hand fell to his and her fingers intertwined with his larger, stronger ones.