“Just because we can’t see your biggest wound doesn’t mean it’s any less important. Or any less heroic.”

“Don’t say that. Christ, just...don’t.” He swiped at his face with a wet hand and droplets of water clung to his lower lip. So she turned, and leaning in on her knees, licked it away.

“Say what, Superman? That you’re a hero?” she breathed against his mouth. “That you’re not one of the most incredible freakin’ human beings I’ve ever met?” Another kiss, this one a little harder, more insistent than the last since Brody’s walls stayed firmly in place, his eyes open and his lips barely participating.

“I have worse nightmares now than I did as a kid. For all I sweat during the damn things, I might as well piss the bed, too. That ain’t exactly commendable shit.”

“We didn’t need new sheets in Vegas.” She brushed her lips along his jaw and then down the thick cord on the side of his neck, refusing to be deterred.

“That’s because you were there,” he rasped, and the vibration of his words tickled her tongue. Goosebumps spread along her bare skin like a slow-burning fire.

“Ah, so having someone in bed with you...that helps?” She didn’t want to think about him with another woman—or women, for that matter—but this was about him right now, not her.

“That’s just it...” One of his hands coasted up her back, the callouses on his fingers scraping gently over her vertebrae until he reached the hooks of her bra. Then his touch reversed, trailing all the way down to the band of her panties. “It’s you, Jenn. Only you.”

“Me?” She lifted her head, eyes wide.

He nodded. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”

“How do you know that? We’ve only slept in the same bed that one time.”

He lifted a shoulder and slid a hand under her ass, pulling her into his lap. “Best sleep I’ve had in months. Talking to you before bed helps, too. Not always, but I can usually get a few uninterrupted hours.”

“But...” Why hadn’t he told her this before? “We don’t talk all the time. In fact, we hardly even texted this week.” He’d been busy with work and she’d tried not to come off as too needy.

“I know.” He brushed the damp hair away from her face. “I didn’t figure it was fair to use you like my own personal dose of Ambien without you knowing. I wanted to tell you before it happened again and then you showed up today.”

Wow. “I’m not sure what to say. I mean...” Part of her loved that she could help him that way and another part of her worried that maybe he was just—

“No,” he said quickly, answering her unfinished thought. He folded his arm around her lower back, anchoring her in place, with her thighs hugged against his hips, warm water pulsing against their skin.

“Dammit, Jenn, that’s not why I want to be with you. It isn’t even part of the reason, though you’ve gotta admit—it’s damn coincidental that the one girl I can’t stop thinking about also happens to be the only person who’s been able to calm all this crazy shit in my head.”

When he tipped her chin so he could see her face, she closed her eyes, shuttering out all the confusion and, God help her, hope still rolling around in her head. He wanted to be with her. To hear him say those words with such conviction...

“I found out I’d been grounded right before Christmas, and the only people who know why are the guys in my battalion and my friggin’ shrink. I haven’t even told my parents.” He sighed and his breath feathered against her face, making her shiver. “Please look at me,” he pleaded, his voice gentle. “I need to see your eyes.”

A complete sucker for this man, she slowly gave him what he wanted and he let out a shuddered exhale, his arms tightening around her in a shaky embrace. God, he was handsome.

“That. That right there is why I can’t get you out of my head.” He pulled her head down to his, the tip of his nose brushing against hers as he peppered kisses over her mouth and along her cheekbone. “You know the truth and you don’t look at me any differently than you did that first night.”

“Why would I?” she whispered.

“The same reason you worry I might only use you,” he countered, a small laugh rumbling in his throat. “It’s what we know, babe. It’s what we’ve come to expect, even from people we thought cared about us.”

“But you’re the same man here.” Fingers spread wide, she dragged them over his heart.

“I’m not sure that’s true, but with you I want to try and be that guy again.”

And he made her want to take a leap she swore she wouldn’t. If they could share this kind of surreal intimacy with nothing more than words, what kind of physical connection would they have?

She kept her eyes glued on his, reached around her back and, one hook at a time, unfastened her bra.

His gaze darkened and his nostrils began to flare with every breath he took. “What are you doing, sugar?”

“You’ve trusted me with all the deepest parts of you, now I want to do the same.”

“Jenny...” His tone was all protest and warning, but the eager way his hands squeezed her ass beneath the water, paired with his eyes locked on the skin she revealed told a different story.

“Are you saying you don’t want me?” she teased, rolling one shoulder so the strap fell.

“Oh, I want you,” he growled like a caged animal.

“Then have me.”

Chapter Thirteen

The man was the freaking devil with his mouth.

The sweet swirl of Brody’s tongue around one pebbled nipple while he rolled the other between his thumb and forefinger turned Jenny’s brain to mush in seconds. Dropping her head back, all she could do was hold on tight and turn herself over to his ministrations, letting him build the fire that flamed at her core with every hungry pluck of her flesh.

Back and forth he went, lips and hands driving her completely mad with desire until that invisible cord wound so tight in her belly, she shook with need. Between her legs, his thick erection pressed into her softness and she let go of any pretense of acting like a proper lady—she rubbed against him like the shameless, sex-deprived vamp she really was.

“Slow down, sugar.” Her wet, strawberry-red peak popping from between his lips as he smiled. “We’ve got all night.”

“I just...I need this.” And it had nothing to do with the actual getting off part, because she was damn good at that all on her own. She’d even done it two weeks ago after he’d whispered dirty words in her ear on her front porch. She’d flown higher and harder than she had in months.

What she needed now was that deeper, more intimate connection that only being with this man could give her. She didn’t understand the pull or why it was so damn intense with Brody, but he’d just laid himself bare before her and, God help her, she wanted more. She wanted everything.

She slipped her hands beneath the water and smoothed them down his hard, bunched abs, loving how the muscles jumped and tensed against her touch. The wide head of his shaft stretched the soaked cotton of his underwear to the point that one brush of her fingers set him free to her touch. One fingertip toyed with the ball at the end of his piercing and she shivered. How would that smooth steel feel against her tongue? Inside her?

He let her play with the jewelry and every solid, silky inch of him that followed while he laid wet kisses along her collarbone and thumbed gently at one nipple. “Is that what you need?” he rasped.

She nodded. “I think you need it, too.”

His stormy gaze drifted up to hers again as she wrapped her hand around his erection, her fingers not close to touching, and stroked him. “I’m afraid what I need and what you want are two different things.”

“Doubtful.” Up and down she went, memorizing every ridge and contour of him and loving the play of pleasure that flickered across his face. He reciprocated the touch by urging her onto her knees and pushing one hand into the back of her panties. His middle finger slid along the seem of her cheeks until the rough, calloused fingertip grazed her sex and she moaned. More of that please. Lots more.