“Do that again,” I managed.
She dropped her hand to the same spot and dug into the muscle, her hand surprisingly strong. “Here?”
I made a noise. Starbursts of pleasure were bursting in my leg, traveling up into the rest of my body. “Holy shit.”
She laughed. “I guess that means I’m doing it right.” She kept going, using both hands now, squeezing the big muscle and down into what was left of my calf. “Jeez, Max, these are hard as iron. You could get a massage, you know.”
“No fucking way,” I choked, the response automatic. I didn’t want anyone except doctors to see my leg, and certainly not to touch it. I did the stretches and massaged it myself sometimes. But if Gwen would do this for me, she could touch my leg anytime she wanted, discomfort be damned.
No woman, no lover, had seen me as I was since the explosion happened. Until Gwen.
And it was fantastic. “I’ll buy you another building,” I moaned as she moved to the inside of my knee, and up again. “I’ll buy you a goddamn city block.”
“That’s what they all say,” she said. She shifted on the mattress, getting a better angle. “Devon said you had a girlfriend. Before you
got injured.”
What? Between the sex and the massage, I was too blissed out at first to follow the change in conversation. I felt myself frowning. “Why the hell did Devon tell you that?”
“Is it true?” she asked, still squeezing me. I couldn’t read her voice.
“I suppose.” Shit, I hadn’t thought about Jackie in years. “She was in nursing school.”
“Was it serious?”
I raised my head and looked down at her, but her hair was falling in her face as she looked down, and she wasn’t looking at me. “What the hell is this about?”
“I’m just curious.” She glanced at me, her expression carefully blank. She shrugged tightly and went back to kneading my muscles.
I tried to answer the question through my fuzzy thoughts. “To be honest, we didn’t see each other all that much. She was in nursing school, and I was usually deployed."
“So it was mostly sex, then,” she said.
“What? Not really, no.” The penny dropped. “Wait a minute. Are you jealous?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You are.” I watched the tense line of her shoulders. “You really are.”
She raised her head and looked at me, pushing her hair back from her eyes with one hand. Her gaze was fiery. “I don’t like the idea of anyone else touching you,” she said.
I laughed. “Gwen, I really don’t want any fucking details, but you’re hardly a nun.”
She made a dismissive noise and flipped her hand. “Amateurs, all of them,” she said. “Boring.”
Jesus, she was full of herself. Still, that was flattering. “Well, stop worrying,” I told her. “Jackie and I broke up during my last leave. She didn’t cheat on me, but she’d met some other guy she wanted to be with, and I couldn’t even care. We split and I went back to Afghanistan. I haven’t seen her since.” Had that only been four years ago? It felt like a century, something that had happened to some other man. If I saw the Max Reilly from that last leave on the street, I probably wouldn’t even recognize him.
“All right,” she said, apparently satisfied. She stopped her massage and rose up on her knees, looking down at me. “Well,” she said, her voice dropping sexily as she saw what was going on between my legs. “You’re awake.”
“You’re in my bed,” I said, putting my hands on her hips and moving her up. “Trust me, I’m awake.”
She settled over me and rubbed lazily over my cock, leaning forward and bracing her arms on the bed. “Um,” she said, a purr of pleasure as she moved again. “Oh God, that’s nice.”
“You’re wet,” I said, pressing her down.
“Mm,” she said again. Her voice was a lazy drawl now, and I knew the feeling. I had no idea how this woman made me feel better than I did with anyone else, how she made it so easy. How my body knew hers so well. I only knew that I didn’t like the idea of anyone else touching her either. Anyone but me.
I kissed the side of her neck and moved her so she was on my cock, lowering her down on me. She made a sweet little noise as she did it, and then she moved in a slow circle.