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“Never.”
“Ever?” She pauses.
“Maybe when I was a little kid.”
Another cup of water, another heavenly pass of her fingertips through my hair.
“Well that’s a shame,” she murmurs.
I try to stay still and keep the full weight of my head off her arm as she pours a few half-cups over the back and sides of my hair.
Then, just when I think she’s finished, she parts the hair around my scars and feathers a light kiss over my head. It’s fast, a no-big-deal thing, over almost before I notice. But it brings that feeling back into my chest. The heavy, hot one.
I turn around, because I want to see her, and as I trace her collarbone, I see a scar I’ve never noticed at the base of her throat.
Looking at it makes my own throat feel tight. I reach for her, but I can’t seem to touch her.
Her eyes roll. “Yeah, yeah. Don’t give me that look. You’ve got that wicked-looking shrapnel scar on your neck and shoulder back here—” she points toward it— “and I see a bullet scar on your back, no exit hole in the front, I noticed, BTW. What about the one on your thigh? Bullet, too?” She arches her brows. “Who knows what else I can’t see. You’re a pincushion, just like I am.”
I finally manage to swallow and trace my fingers over the little scar at the base of her throat. I want to ask her if it’s from a breathing tube—one of the ones they push in during a real emergency. I’ve seen one done in the field before.
Instead I ask, “Is that from the wreck?”
“Yes.”
She soaps her chest up and I wait for her to say more, but she just blinks at me and looks down at her bubble-covered breasts. My gaze follows hers. My dick throbs as I notice her nipples poking out of the suds.
I’m about to reach for one when I see another scar on her right arm—long, straight, and about five inches long. I feel an almost painful wave of protectiveness for her.
“Do you still…have any pain?” Goddamn, my voice is raspy.
Gwenna smiles gently. “For the most part, no. It’s sweet of you to ask.”
“I’m not sweet.”
“I think you are.”
A moment later, she washes the soap off her chest and rises from the tub. She wraps a towel around herself, then holds one out for me. I tuck it around my waist, and she says, “Lean your head down.”
I hesitate only a moment before I do as she asks, and Gwenna covers my dripping head with another towel.
She rubs it all around, kind of violently. I’m trying to decide if it feels good or bad when she stops. “Barrett—oh my God! Your tattoo. Is this— I have the same one, this exact tat, just like yours!”
My heart starts pounding as I straighten up. My eyes go to the inside of her forearm. “I saw that the other day.”
I try to keep a neutral face as she looks from her arm up at me. “That is so insane! I wish I could put them beside each other and show you.” She holds her arm up by my neck. “Yours looks exactly like mine. Identical. Where’d you get it?”
“Miami.” My throat tightens around the word.
“I got mine in Breckenridge, the year before the wreck. Why’d you get yours? It doesn’t exactly fit your badass special ops theme.”
I blow my breath out, looking at the floor for just a second while I get my shit together. Then I look into her beautiful brown eyes. “I got it to jerk around with my friend Breck. He always wanted it to be colder out there in the middle of the desert. We called him our special snowflake.” I smile a little at the memory, even though the tattoo angle on the story is bullshit.
“Breck…like Breckenridge?”
I only hesitate a moment before I answer. “Yeah. He was from there.”
I see her eyes widen when she hears the word was—and for once, I’m glad she’s scared to pry.
