“I am. ‘Course I didn’t take the time to appreciate that until I got older.” He watched her unfasten her hair, slowly letting the long, shiny mass fall down around her shoulders. “I’m glad they’re gone though. I’m friggin’ beat.”
“Thank you for letting me nap earlier.” She tousled her fingers through the soft waves, blissfully unaware of how damn sexy she was taking on such an innocent task. “I would’ve never made it through the day.”
“Mmm.” He nodded and kept his eyes trained on her. How was it that everything this woman did captivated him so? Gave him crazy ideas about the lengths he’d go to keep her close just so she could mesmerize him a little more.
“So, I bought some things while I was out earlier. I’m not sure if you’re up for it now...” She dropped the bobby pins into her purse and pulled out a brand new electric hair clipper. “But I thought maybe you’d want to clean up the top before we go home tomorrow.”
Home with Jenny. Yes, please. “Never gonna turn away your hands on me, sugar.”
She gave him a sassy smirk and tossed her phone onto the bed. “I need music when I’m doing hair. Find something while I get this ready?”
“Yea, ma’am.”
She busied herself getting towels and opening packaging and he snatched up the phone, staring for a long moment when he saw himself as her background picture. He was crashed out in her bed, one arm folded behind his head. There were some real sexy pillow lines on his face, too.
“You make a habit outta taking pictures of me when I’m sleeping?”
A pretty pink blush colored her cheeks as she unwound the cord of the clipper. “You looked so peaceful. I couldn’t resist.”
Fair enough. He might’ve taken some of her, too. “Did you just put this on here or...”
“No.” She shook her head, her blush deepening. “It’s been on there since I took it.”
“Even when I was an ass.”
“Didn’t stop me from caring about you.”
He scrubbed a hand around the back of his neck. “Can I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
He hesitated. Did he even have a right to know? “That night at Josh’s, you said you weren’t sure about how you’d felt about Reed. I’m curious if you ever figured that out.”
She set down the clipper and took her time unfolding a towel. “Actually, I did.”
“And?”
“You hoping I’ll stroke your ego, Superman?”
“Not at all.” But if what she had to say worked in that way, too, all the better.
“What I feel for you is a million times more potent than anything I’ve ever felt for someone else.” She turned to him, a soft, knowing expression on her face. “You fall asleep and wake up thinking about me? I dream about you. About you in my future. What our life might be like together. Our first Christmas. Our first anniversary. You asking me to be yours forever.”
She lifted a shoulder and gave an unsure smile, like maybe the last bit was too far-fetched to ever be reality. Well, he had one thought on the matter—she expected him to wait that long?
“I know that might be a lot for you to handle right now, but I need us to be real about where we’re going. I’ve never wanted anything as much as I want you in my life and, believe me, I’ve wanted an awful lot.”
“Took the words right out of my mouth.”
She shot him another knowing grin. “But the fact of the matter is...we live on opposite sides of the state.”
“We’ll make it work.”
“I hope so.” She gestured for him to swing his legs over the side of the bed so she could drape the towel around his neck and lay others out around him. “You got my music ready?”
He thumbed play on the YouTube playlist. Rock, of course, and though it couldn’t lead to anything, he chose the angsty kind that usually made him want to get naked.
“Nice.” Her eyes widened when Seether’s The Gift started to play. “I love this song.”
“Me, too. Makes me think of you.” He put his hands on her hips when she shifted between his knees, clippers in hand.
“Really?” When she feathered her fingers through his hair, he shivered. Fucking hell, he loved her hands on him. “You okay?”
“Mmm-hmm. Just ready for you to work your magic on me, baby.”
A sweet smile curved her pretty lips, as she flipped on the clippers. With gentle, confident hands, she began sliding it back through his hair. She worked her way around his stitches, carefully turning his head this way and that. Every caress of her fingers, stroking him here and brushing away hair there, felt like fucking heaven. In no time, he was hard as a rock.
She noticed. “Do you get turned on every time someone cuts your hair, handsome?”
He didn’t answer. Instead, he lifted his hands and covered her breasts, loving how quickly her nipples peaked beneath his thumbs.
“You’re gonna make it hard for me to work if you keep doing that,” she whispered, so he kneaded them again. And again and again, until she stopped cutting and gripped his shoulders with trembling hands. “God, Brody.”
“I can’t get enough of you,” he murmured, tugging the tie of her wispy top loose and baring the pretty skin plumping out of her bra. Another jerk and one nipple popped free, dark and beaded and beckoning his mouth.
“We can’t do this here.” Jenny dropped the clippers onto the bed and rolled forward at the same time he leaned in and sucked her puckered flesh between his lips. “You’re hurt,” she panted, even as her hands drifted up his stomach, bunching the hospital gown so she could get to his skin. Her palm grazed his cock through his underwear and a tremor rocked his body.
“I love this,” he rasped, his hips lifting greedily toward her touch. “You touching me. Taking care of me.”
She cast a glance at the door while she freed his shaft and began to stroke. Soft and slow, then hard and tight, driving him fucking wild every time her thumb circled around the crown and his piercing.
He licked at her nipple again, thrusting into her hand with abandon as the pressure at the base of his spine built like a raging inferno. Desperate for more, he yanked her mouth down to his and let the sweetness on her tongue stoke the fire until it was white hot. He came hard, jetting over her hand and against his stomach while she kept at him, wringing out every last drop and shudder he had.
“Jesus Christ, I love you,” he murmured, burying his face in her chest and absorbing her addictive essence, breath after ragged breath.
She laughed and kissed the now-short hair on the top of his head. “I love you, too.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
“The man sitting across from me right now is not the same man who sat in that very seat four months ago.” Dr. Sherman set his notes to the side and smiled. “Minus the scuffed up face, I’m happy with the progress you’re making, Corporal.”
Brody nodded. “I’ve slept a solid seven hours three times this past week.” Not because of the pain pills either, because he hadn’t taken those beyond the first day.
“That’s great. Is Jenny still helping to put your mind at ease?”
He nodded. “Yeah. She’s been my biggest supporter. I couldn’t have done this without her. I almost screwed that up, though.”
“How so?”
“I cut her loose. Told her I needed some space, because I didn’t want to bring her down with me when I hit bottom. Turned out I crashed a lot faster without her. It sucked.”
“So things are better now?”
Another nod. “Yeah. I mean, I have some decisions to make, but already the load seems lighter. I’m not sure what happened, but I’m not complaining.”
“Building trusting, supportive relationships can often be the best solution for trauma survivors, but you have to be sure you’re not using that support as a crutch. Or like a Band-Aid, for the lack of a better term. Maybe you’ve accomplished that.”