The Returning Hero (11 page)

Brett gave her an unconvincing smile. “My back’s kind of off-limits,” he said.

“You mean because of your injuries?” she asked, voice soft, knowing how difficult it must be for him to talk about.

“Yeah.”

“You don’t have to be embarrassed, Brett,” she said, leaning up to press a kiss to his shoulder, gently touching his lower back this time and avoiding where she’d almost touched before.

“Jamie…” He said her name as if it were a warning.

But she wasn’t going to take no for an answer, not after all they’d been through together. She wanted to touch every part of Brett, and she wasn’t scared of what had happened to him or the marks that had been left on his skin. It wasn’t like they’d just met and he had to hide who he was from her.

“Let me see you,” she whispered, pushing him gently back down to the bed. “There’s nothing I could see right now that could change the way I feel about you.”

CHAPTER NINE

C
HILLS
RAN
UP
and down Brett’s body just at the mention of his scars, of her seeing them. He hadn’t let anyone other than the medical team that had worked on him see how he looked now, to really see what had happened to him. Jamie looking at the mess that was his skin wasn’t something he ever wanted to happen, but the way she was staring at him, like he was doing something to hurt her by not just opening up, was telling him that he may not have a choice. He didn’t want to hurt her, had no intention of pushing her away, but this was something that he needed to prepare for.

“I can’t,” he muttered, rolling firmly on to his back.

Jamie tucked her knees up to her chin and wrapped her arms around her legs. The mood had changed, was no longer about sex and suddenly included a whole lot of stuff that Brett wasn’t ready to face. Gone was the fun, flirty vibe they’d had happening between them, replaced by a serious, we-need-to-talk session.

“You’ve never talked about…”

“And I don’t want to,” he said, voice firm as he interrupted her. There was no way he was going to start talking, not now. That he was going to ruin what had been an otherwise perfect evening by dredging up exactly how his skin had become so disfigured.

“Can we just pick up where we left off?”

“You don’t need to tell me, Brett, but let me see.
Please?
” she asked.

He shut his eyes, not wanting to get angry with this woman who’d been through so much, who he so genuinely cared about. Who was being so brave in another way that he knew must be beyond difficult for her. It shouldn’t be so impossibly hard, but it was. Opening up had always been difficult for him, yet he’d told her openly about the truth of his past, about his parents and how he still felt responsible for their deaths. This, though…this was different. The pain was too fresh.

“I’m embarrassed,” he admitted, opening his eyes and looking straight into hers. “I’m no longer the guy who can go to the beach and just take off his top without thinking about it. It’s not something you want to see or hear about. It’s not who I am. And it’s not how I want you to see me.”

Now it was Jamie shaking her head, telling him he was the one in the wrong. “No, Brett,” she told him, voice low and husky. “You
are
still that guy, because you’re still handsome and you’re still
you.
I don’t care what your skin looks like, but we can’t do this without you opening up to me. We can’t take this further if there’s any secrets between us.”

He knew he was being stupid, that there was no point in delaying the inevitable, but letting Jamie see what he’d been through, what he was
still
going through, was like giving up a piece of his soul that he’d never intended on letting anyone be witness to. His skin had always been tanned and blemish-free, he’d always been the one to whip his shirt off on a hot day, but everything had changed the day he’d been burned. And not just his body, but his mind, too.

“It’s ugly,” he said, voice flat, knowing he was fighting a losing battle.

“I don’t care,” she said straight back, her gaze unwavering. “I just want you to let me in, Brett.”

Jamie dropped her arms and moved closer, hands on his shoulders as she gently motioned for him to move. She couldn’t have made him budge an inch if he hadn’t wanted to, but he knew that the only way Jamie was going to trust him, that they were going to move past this, was if he let her in. If he trusted her to see what scared him the most.

Brett took a deep breath and reluctantly rolled over onto his stomach, hands under his chin as he lay there for her to inspect him. He was expecting a gasp, something to tell him what a shock it was for her seeing him like that, but all he could hear was silence. A long stretch of silence that had him holding his breath, wishing he’d refused.

And then she touched him
. Brett dropped his head into the pillow. He’d been waiting for her to make a noise and now he was the one forcing back a groan. Or maybe it was a cry for help, he didn’t know—all he knew was that Jamie was touching him in a way that was making him want to scream at her to stop, and at the same time beg her never to take her hands off of him. Because now she’d seen it, there was no going back, and all of a sudden he wanted her to see the real him. Needed her to see his pain and help to heal him, because he didn’t want to be broken anymore.

Her fingers traced his entire back, dipped into the tender areas where he’d almost been burned alive, before she caressed the smooth parts of his back that reminded him of what all his skin had once looked like. What his body had once been.

Then she started to trace down his leg, too, the leg that he was so lucky to still have attached to his body, but that was disfigured from the skin grafts he’d painfully endured in recovery.

“Stop,” he commanded, head rising off the pillow. His back was one thing, but she was taking things too far.

“No,” she whispered, pushing him back down and straddling his buttocks instead. He still had his boxers on, but he could feel the heat of her as she sat on him. “Don’t move a muscle.”

* * *

Jamie put her palms over Brett’s arms as he spread them out on either side of him. At the same time she dipped her head until she could press a soft, warm kiss to his back, between his shoulder blades. Here, the skin was still smooth and tanned, like his back had always been, and she wanted to start here before she moved lower.

“Jamie…” She heard him mumble her name.

She continued undeterred, moving her mouth slowly down his back. When she reached the first of the jagged edged lines that crisscrossed down his entire lower back, she made her kisses even lighter, only just letting her lips touch him, as soft as she could make them. His skin was still pink where he’d been burned, the marks a blazing reminder of what he’d been through, and she needed to show him that she didn’t care, that she could deal with the wounds he’d come home with, the wounds that he’d be forced to live with forever. That she accepted the man he was today as much as she would have accepted the man he’d been before the explosion—that in her eyes he was no different.

Her hair fell forward and splayed across his back as she started to move lower again, making her way down his leg now, shuffling her body farther down the bed. His right leg was impossible to compare to his back—the scars extended all the way down his thigh and calf, enough to make her want to gasp, at least when she’d first seen them. But now she focused on the shape of his leg, the muscles still bulging from his calf, the thickness of his thigh that told her how fit he was, how determined he’d been to stay strong even through what must have been a painful recovery. Brett was a fighter, she knew that, and he’d endured what might have broken others.

“They’re just marks, Brett,” she told him as she wriggled back up his body and sat on his buttocks again, hands spread out over his back as she gently massaged his shoulders.

“They’re marks I’ll have forever,” he muttered.

When he went to move, she pushed herself up on her knees so he could flip onto his back beneath her. Jamie lowered herself when he looked comfortable, staring into his eyes as she leaned forward. She tucked her long hair behind her ears to keep it out of the way.

“You’re still the same, handsome Brett you were to me before I saw them,” she said. “It’s part of you now, and they don’t scare me.”

“You have to say that now,” he told her. “You can’t exactly be honest with me about how much they disgust you.”

Jamie frowned. “Of course I can be honest with you.” She paused, touching his cheek with the tips of her fingers because she needed to connect with him, needed him to know that she was telling the truth. “Do your scars terrify me and remind me of what we’ve both lost? Sure. But they’re just marks, Brett, and they’re
your
marks, so there’s no point in pretending like they’re not there. Now that I’ve seen them, I’ve seen them. You don’t have to worry about hiding them from me, or how I’ll react.”

“I hate that I have a constant reminder on my skin,” he admitted, reaching up for her and stroking a hand down her hair until he reached the ends of it, skimming the center of her back.

“At least you’re alive to be reminded of it,” she whispered. “At least you’re here, right now, in my bed.”

Brett groaned, his hand falling from her hair. “I’m sorry, I…”

“Shhhh,” she said, leaning down on to him, her elbows on either side of his head to prop herself up, bodies pressed together. “Stop talking.”

“And what?” he asked.

“Kiss me again.”

Jamie didn’t wait for Brett to act, because she was already hovering above him, lips aching to close over his and feel what it was like to be almost naked and this intimate with a man she’d been attracted to for so long.
And he didn’t disappoint.
Brett’s mouth was firm against hers, his lips warm and soft. His hands were in her hair as she pressed herself even tighter against him, her body tight to his.

She could feel how much he wanted her, and it only made her sure in her decision. Brett wasn’t just some rebound guy to her, someone to fill the bed with to keep her warm. He was a man she already cared so much about, only now…

“Jamie, I think we need to slow this down,” he said, hands still tangled in her long hair as he yanked her back a little.

“No,” she told him, wriggling against him until he groaned, fighting him. “Don’t stop.”

Jamie was being cruel to him, she knew she was, because he was trying to be the good guy and she was the one lying on top of him, forcing him into compliance. Making him be bad. But she didn’t want him to be the good guy right now, didn’t want him to think at all, she just wanted him to act.

“Are you sure?” he mumbled in between kisses.

“I’ve never been so sure about anything in my life,” she whispered, before claiming his mouth again and teasing him with her tongue. There was no way she was going to let him stop.

Brett’s moan was all she needed to spur her on, to make her reach behind her back and fumble to unhook her bra. His expert hands came to her assistance, and all of a sudden they were completely skin-to-skin, her breasts against his warm chest, almost as close as two people could be.

“This feels right,” she told him, pulling back so she could look into his eyes. “Don’t you think?”

From the way he was staring back at her, she knew he felt the same. It was different, it was terrifying, and it was exhilarating, because it was the first time she’d been intimate with a man who wasn’t her husband in six years,
but it was Brett
. And if there were ever going to be another man besides Sam she made love to, she knew in her heart that it was right that man was him.

CHAPTER TEN

J
AMIE
WOKE
UP
and reached out an arm, feeling for Brett, but she opened her eyes instead because there was no warm body beside her. She sat up, pulling the sheet up with her to cover her breasts, and she spotted him straight away. He was sitting in the big armchair she had beside the window, his T-shirt and boxers on, staring at something that she couldn’t see. Or maybe he was just staring at nothing.

“Hey,” she said.

Brett turned, his big body filling the entire chair that had always seemed so roomy to her when she tucked her legs up and read a book in the sun.

“Morning,” he replied.

Jamie watched the way he looked at her, like he wasn’t sure, like something was troubling him. His expression was nothing like the one she’d witnessed before they’d fallen asleep.

“Brett, what’s wrong?”

He shoved a hand through his hair. “You want me to be honest?”

She knew there was only one answer she could give to that question. “Yes.”

He sighed. “Everything.”

Tears pricked her eyes and she blinked them away, refused to let them even come close to spilling. After last night, she’d expected to wake up in his arms, thought what they’d shared was special, that they’d just pick up again where they’d left off, but the way he was looking at her…

“I don’t understand,” she managed to say, eyes never leaving his.

She watched as Brett stood and crossed the room, moving to the bed beside her. A low moan from Bear made her gaze flicker for a second, but the dog was still in his own bed.

Brett took one of her hands, the other still clutching the sheet and keeping her covered. All of a sudden she felt vulnerable being naked, whereas before she’d been completely comfortable.

“I feel guilty,” he admitted, fingers stroking the back of her hand as he held it. “I don’t want to, but I can’t help it.”

She understood the guilt, but if he was having second thoughts about what they’d done… “Brett, I don’t regret last night, if that’s what you’re worried about. Not for a moment.”

He moved closer, his thigh pressed to hers as he faced her. “I don’t regret it, either, but what we did, what happened, it’s changed everything.”

“Is that the worst thing in the world?” she asked.

He smiled, but the sadness in his eyes scared her.

“If I’m honest with you, I can’t think of anything I’d rather do than be with you. For the first time since the explosion, I’ve slept through the night, like I’m protected in your arms from the worst of my memories. And then I wake up and realize that I’ve taken Sam’s place, that I’ve taken something from him, and it scares me.”