“Does it hurt all the time?”
“Nuh uh. My turn.”
“Oh, I didn’t realize we were . . . Well, be my guest.” That time, she smiled.
Field was wide open. What did he want to know? If he wanted her to understand he was there for her, there was one place that made sense to start—really making the effort to get to know her. “Are you and Charlie close?”
She tilted her face and brushed her cheek against his forearm. “Yes, but in our own way. Charlie’s hard to get close to. He’s introverted and more comfortable talking to people online than in person. But he’s loyal and kind and has a hilarious, dry sense of humor.” Big eyes looked up at him. “And he’s my little brother, you know?”
Nick nodded. Sounded like Charlie was the exact opposite of Jeremy, but he got exactly what she was saying. “I do know.”
“Are you doing physical therapy for your back?” she asked. Under his fingers, the muscles in her neck and shoulders began to relax.
“I did PT for six months after I got home. Now I see a chiropractor who’s also damn good at therapeutic massage. My turn, and I’m going back to my first question again. Are you okay?”
She looked him right in the eye. “I’m scared.”
He wondered if she knew how brave it was to just admit her fear that way. She might not have her father’s size or training, but she’d clearly inherited a healthy dose of his warrior’s spirit.
“Of what?” he finally said.
“Of not finding Charlie. That they’re hurting him. That, after our fight, he doesn’t know how much I love him.” Nick drew his hands from her neck and caressed her hair, his fingers pushing through the thick layers to lightly scratch her scalp. She sighed. “I’m scared one of you will get hurt. Or all of you will get in trouble.” Releasing a shaky breath, her gaze dropped down to his chest. Lingered. “Does it hurt your back to lay on your stomach?” she asked.
He frowned at the out-of-left-fielder. “Uh, yeah. Why?”
Becca pulled his hand to her mouth and kissed the center of his palm. “Sit down facing backward.” She rolled the desk chair closer.
Rixey stared at the chair like it was speaking in a foreign language. Well, one he didn’t speak anyway.
She laughed. “Don’t be so suspicious. Just sit your butt down already.”
“Well, since you put it that way.” He straddled the chair and rested his forearms on the back. She knelt on the floor behind him, and every nerve ending in his body took note.
“Undo the button,” she said in a low voice, tugging on the waistband of his jeans, her fingers skimming the skin of his lower back.
“Uh, Becca.” Her command sent his brain to places it had no business going.
“Were you always this bad at taking orders?”
He undid the button, his zipper coming down a little in the process, and he wondered what the hell he was doing as his erection was tempted to life.
“Tell me if it hurts or if it’s too hard.” She smoothed her palms straight up his spine, out over his shoulder blades, and down his sides, her fingers almost tickling along his lats. The first few passes were soft and gentle, but soon her fingertips pressed in and her thumbs rubbed deep circles into his sore muscles.
He had to bite back more than one groan. At his shoulders, she worked out from his spine, her surprisingly strong grip working knots out of his traps. When she walked her massaging fingers up his neck, he dropped his head forward on a groan he couldn’t restrain.
“Okay?” she asked, her breath floating over his skin.
“Feels fucking phenomenal.” He felt her soft laughter puff against his back. And now he was all the way hard.
“Good.”
She continued until his upper back was purring and his cock was punching at the open fly of his jeans, begging to be released. Despite the relaxation of, well, some of his muscles, the pace of his breathing slowly but surely picked up, his libido making plans his brain hadn’t agreed to. Yet.
“This dragon is beautiful, Nick.”
“Yeah?” he said into the space between the chair’s backrest and his chest, picturing in his mind’s eye the beast wrapped around a sword spanning the length and breadth of his back.
“Must’ve taken a long time.”
“Three sittings. Jeremy did it.” He’d gotten his first tat at eighteen, a tribal on his shoulder which he’d since added to. But in the months after he’d returned home, he’d gotten quite a few new pieces. He prized them for their ability to memorialize and to temporarily replace the never-ending mental anguish with the sting of the tattoo gun on his body. The dragon had given him several days’ worth of blissful quiet in his head while the needles had run over his skin.
There was a pause, like maybe she was examining it more closely. His head conjured up all kinds of unhelpful images, like her leaning in, brushing her face against his skin, her lips . . . “He’s really good.”
“Jeremy? The best.”
“Does it have a meaning?”
The answer to that could be too damn revealing. “Dragons are protectors of valuable and sacred things. They’re fierce and powerful defenders,” he said, choosing his words carefully.
She stroked a finger straight down the blade of the sword. Nick shuddered. “What is he protecting for you?”
Hesitating for only a moment, Nick rotated the chair forty-five degrees and lifted his right arm. He knew the column of words inked there by heart:
LOYALTY
DUTY
RESPECT
SELFLESS SERVICE
HONOR
INTEGRITY
COURAGE
The core values of the United States Army. Words that defined what being a soldier was all about and words that he’d personally striven to uphold for nearly his entire adult life. To Nick, these weren’t platitudes or pretty concepts to trot out at ceremonies or in speeches. They formed the basis of a code at the heart of the brotherhood of arms. They formed the foundation upon which soldiers lived and died. Live up to them, and anything was possible.
Violate them the way Merritt had and it all went to shit. He should know. He was living the goddamned consequences.
Her hand settled over the words, just rested there, like Becca was holding the ink to his skin. Like she, too, was protecting it. A knot lodged in his throat, and he forced that fucker right on down. He’d grieved enough over everything he’d lost, especially when others had made far greater sacrifices. Enough was enough was efuckingnough.
He shifted the chair so his back faced her again. Regret at telling her about the dragon, about the words, settled into his gut. It left him feeling too exposed, like his nerves sat atop his skin.
But she said no more about it. Instead, her thumbs worked into the small of his back. Her touch was pleasure and pain all at once, the pain of working out the muscles required before the pleasure of relief could come. Slowly, she kneaded toward his left side, the massage gentling as she neared the mass of scars from his injuries and multiple surgeries. Her fingers curled around his side and swept into his pants.
He flinched and sucked in a breath, not because she’d hurt him but because her fingertips had been so damn close to his cock. Though not nearly close enough . . .
His side was sore, and even the light touch was a little uncomfortable, but the longer her warm hands brushed softly over his skin, the more his muscles eased.
“Okay?” she said, her voice soft and breathy. Or maybe that was just wishful thinking caused by the heat roaring over his body at the way she was taking care of him.
“Yeah.”
Just above his hip bone, she settled into a rhythm using both hands, her thumbs swiping low in the back, her fingers rubbing under the loose denim in the front.