A hint of stubble on his cheeks tickles my inner thighs, and I try not to wriggle, because holy shit, looking down at this gorgeous man on his knees, face buried in my pussy, is about the hottest thing I’ve ever seen.
When he sucks my clit lightly between his teeth, I whimper, my legs tightening around his head almost involuntarily. “More,” I beg, and Dax reaches up and wraps his arms around my ass, easing me forward until I’m half-hanging off the counter. But I know I won’t fall. He won’t let me.
I’ve never felt more protected than I do in this moment. But then, I can’t think at all as Dax slides two fingers inside me, his tongue continuing to trace rapid fire patterns around my most sensitive nub, and his grunts and appreciative moans taking me higher than I thought possible.
“I’m…oh God. Dax…I’m…”
His free arm bands around me tightly, and he scores his teeth over my clit, thrusting his fingers deep and twisting them to find my G-spot. My entire body implodes, and I can’t breathe, can’t see, can’t hear anything but my own keening cries. He continues to drink me in until my entire body’s spent, and then pushes to his feet with his arm still steadying me.
“I’ll never get enough of you,” he says, his voice rough, and I reach down to find his cock straining against his khakis.
Brushing my lips to his ear, I whisper, “Let me turn off the water, and then…we can take this to the bed.”
“There’ll be time for that…later. Get in the tub. I need to double-check the door locks, and then I’ll join you.”
“Dax—”
But he’s already gone. Hanging my bra on the back of the door, I turn off the water and lower myself into the tub. “Oh, sweet heaven,” I mutter as I rest my head against the warm porcelain and close my eyes. Between the hot water and the aftereffects of an amazing climax, I’m not sure I can move. But then I sense him, and when I force my heavy lids open, my breath stalls in my chest. He’s naked, fully erect, and I lick my lips. “My God, Dax. You’re…”
Dax’s shoulders hunch, and he starts to turn away when I reach up and lightly touch his hip. “We need to get past this.”
“Past what?” he says, his voice rough.
“Get in. There’s plenty of room. I’m not having this conversation unless we’re both on equal ground.”
Carefully, Dax feels for the edge of the tub, and when he’s across from me, the steam swirling around us, I wriggle closer, arranging myself so I’m seated between his legs, his length pressing against my ass. “Who hurt you?”
“I told you about Hell…”
“No. Who hurt you? After.” Tipping my head back, I press a kiss to the side of his jaw. “Every time we share something…real…you shut down. Like you’re sure I’m not going to understand. Or say something so horrible, you won’t be able to unhear it. Someone hurt you.”
“It wasn’t…all her fault,” he says with a heavy sigh. “I had too many demons.”
“Tell me.”
Dax slides his hands under my arms and scoots me forward an inch or two. I start to protest until his fingers dig into my shoulders, slowly working out the knots I’ve lived with for two days.
“Oh, God. Don’t stop…but this doesn’t get you off the hook. Tell me what happened.”
“I’m…thirty-nine, Evianna. I don’t think I told you that. Enlisted when I was twenty-three. Right after college. Served for ten years.” He moves to my neck, and I let my head fall forward as he strokes up and down. “Right before I left for basic training, Lucy and I got married.”
I stop breathing until Dax presses a kiss to my shoulder. “Trust works both ways, darlin’.” As I relax again, he continues. “She was my college sweetheart. Seemed like the right thing to do. I did love her. And I think she loved me too. But, my deployment…put a lot of distance between us. And after I joined my ODA team, I couldn’t tell her anything about my missions, where I was…”
Shifting slightly, Dax starts to dig his thumbs along the sides of my spine, and I lean forward, letting him work each knot, each bit of tension from my back and arms. “For most of the time we were missing, the army thought we were dead. They forced us to make a couple of videos the first month or two. But after that, when they locked us away in Hell, no one heard from us until three months before Ry broke out.”
“What happened then?” I ask, trying to focus on his words even as my body wants to float away under his capable hands.
“Don’t know. Someone got a signal out. A set of coordinates and the letters ODA. But that wasn’t confirmation. Lucy…she did her best. Took a second job to pay for our mortgage, kept a candle burning most nights for me. But when we got out…fuck.” Dax shudders, and I try to turn around, but he stops me and rests his chin against the curve of my neck. “Not yet, darlin’.”
“When you got out…?”
“You spend fifteen months being treated like an animal—” his voice drops to a whisper, “—you become one. I was so angry. Scared. Had to adjust to a world where I wasn’t tied up all the time, where I could eat when I needed to, not whenever they decided we’d starved enough. Shit, I couldn’t even sleep in a bed for weeks unless I was doped up on painkillers. Even with all the pins in my leg and the metal brace, I managed to get myself onto the floor every fucking night.”
He chuckles, a dry, mirthless laugh. “When Lucy showed up…end of my fourth day out, I think, the distance between us…she didn’t know how to touch me. Hell, I didn’t know how to be touched. And when I came home…six weeks later…we were strangers. She wanted to know what happened to me. I just wanted to forget it all. And back then…I thought I could.”
The water’s started to cool, but neither of us moves.
“We lasted three months after I came home. I don’t blame her. I was an asshole most of the time. Angry. Scared. She tried…I think. I didn’t until it was too late. I was too caught up in my own shit to see—” he snorts, “—or hear, I guess, how much I was hurting her. She wanted her husband back. And that man…he died in Hell.”
