He knew what she’d see. Every ridge of raised tissue, every discolored patch where healing never quite completed its work. The puckered, round cigar burns that stippled his shoulders. The long, silvered marks that raked across his back in parallel furrows. The claw marks and half-moons where teeth had punctured skin.
And the brand.
Two letters seared into the hollow of his hip with the permanence of a tattoo. A dead man’s autograph forever carved into ruined flesh.
She’d already seen it all. But forcing himself to show her again was like swimming against the tide with his arms and legs bound. He couldn’t control what would happen next.
Jack unfastened the second button. The third. His jaw locked, and his molars ground together as the shirt parted, revealing the undershirt beneath. He stripped it over his head without ceremony because ceremony would have given him time to reconsider.
Cool air hit his scarred torso as steam from the shower curled through the bathroom, blurring the edges of things, but not enough. Never enough.
He dropped the undershirt to the floor.
The silence that followed was a living thing. Her gaze landed on his chest, his shoulders, the terrain of damage only a tailor could disguise.
He didn’t look at her. Couldn’t. Instead, he stared at the fogged mirror behind her head and worked his belt buckle free, then the button of his trousers, then the zipper. Fabric pooled at his ankles, and he quickly kicked it away, stripping off his socks in the process.
He stood before her in nothing but his briefs.
“Jack.” Her voice was quiet and steady.
He forced himself to meet her eyes.
She didn’t flinch or try to look away. Her placid features gave nothing away as she met his stare. Even professionally trained surgeons and doctors he’d hired privately over the years struggled not to pity him. But not her.
Instead, she moved her gaze over him with the unhurried gravity of someone reading scripture. Starting at his throat, descending across his collarbones, lingering at the burns on his shoulders. Her eyes traced the lash marks across his ribs, followed the jagged seam of an old surgical scar beneath his left pectoral, and arrived at the brand on his hip where his briefs rode low.
Not once did she look away.
Not once did he see disgust.
What he saw was closer to recognition. As if his body were a language she’d been longing to study, and now, finally, given the unabridged text and the permission to read.
He slid the briefs down and stood naked before her.
Her chest lifted, then she exhaled, slow and trembling, but her eyes remained on his. Not dropping. Not straying. Just holding him with a steadiness that felt more intimate than any touch.
“Still…okay?”
“Yes.” She didn’t hesitate.
He helped her down from the vanity, her bare feet meeting the heated stone floor, as their fingers laced. She didn’t press against him, didn’t reach for his body. She simply stood close and waited, following his lead.
He led her into the shower, testing the temperature before guiding them both under the spray. The water against his scars drew a sharp breath from his lungs.
She tipped her face upward, eyes closing, letting the cascade flatten her hair against her skull and run in rivulets down her breasts, her stomach, the soft thatch of curls between her thighs.
He reached for the soap, working a lather between his palms, and stepped behind her. The scent of minerals in the water disappeared as gentle herbs filled the air. Jack massaged her shoulders, gently kneading the tension from the muscles there.
When his thumbs traced the delicate wing of her collarbones, she leaned into his touch, and the trust of it nearly buckled his knees. He moved lower, cupping each breast with reverence, his thumbs circling her nipples until they peaked beneath his palms, and a quiet moan slipped from her parted lips.
He washed her the way priests anoint. With intention. With trembling hands that understood the reverence required when touching something sacred.
His touch moved slowly, thoroughly cleaning every inch of her. Down her ribs, over the gentle swell of her hips, the flat plane of her stomach where the muscles quivered under his fingertips.
Turning her to face him, he knelt before her, lathering each leg from thigh to ankle. He washed away the remnants of what they’d done together, his release and hers, the dried evidence of their shared undoing. His hands moved between her thighs with clinical gentleness, but his breath came ragged, and his cock stirred against his will.
“Jack…”
