In the midst of her haze she heard him growling as he gave in to his own release and shot inside her.
After regaining consciousness, Elle realized Jack had rolled onto his back. God, she wasn’t sure if she’d climaxed or had a stroke. A stroke probably. Although she doubted there was any kind of stroke in the world that left you tingly all over and floating in neverland, extremely happy and satisfied.
She turned to Jack and studied him, trailing her fingers over his warm skin. She’d known he was fit, but man, he was magnificent. Thick veins running along starkly defined muscles, not an ounce of fat anywhere. Not an ounce of softness either. And not a single tattoo.
She lifted her gaze to his and found his eyes trained on her, his face inscrutable as always. He hadn’t been too open to letting her touch him, and with her holding to the headboard for dear life while he was eating her out or pounding in her from behind, she hadn’t had that many chances, either.
“I can’t believe you don’t have tattoos.” Clean skin, so weird. Considering how strongly she was attracted to him and how nuts she always went for tattooed bad boys, she’d figured he would be inked.
“I heard you have a thing for assholes with tattoos,” Jack said.
“Yeah, well, I sometimes have a thing for just assholes,” Elle answered, pointedly looking at him.
Her whole life she’d gravitated toward tattooed bad boys, but Jack wasn’t a bad boy. He didn’t go around flaunting attitude, pretending to be a tough guy because he had tattoos or a bike. Those were wannabes; Jack, she had the feeling, was the real deal. He didn’t need to show off or mouth off in front of anyone. The other way around: one stare, one word, and the job was done. He had an aura of authority very few people could pull off and even fewer could withstand without crumbling. Compared with her past experiences, Jack was in a class all his own.
Tattoos he didn’t have, but his body was full of marks and angry scars. “What’s this?”
She didn’t expect an answer, but surprise, surprise, she got it. “Knife wound. Bosnia.”
“And this?” she ventured, tempting her luck further.
“Shrapnel. Afghanistan.”
She moved unto the next one. He answered before she asked.
“Bullet. Sierra Leone.”
There was a very similar scar on his lower abdomen. “This a bullet too?”
He shook his head. “Bayonet. Colombia.”
Jesus Christ, the guy was a road map to the world conflicts of the last two decades, but he wouldn’t take any pity from her, so she went for light.
“You need to have a word with your travel agent, Borg.”
He let out a dry snort.
Several weird scars on his arm and chest got her attention. They were round and looked old. “And these?”
“Cigarette burns. My mother.”
She froze. The marks were by far the smallest and the least life-threatening, yet they were the most horrifying of all. Jack must have been a kid; she couldn’t envision anyone doing that to Jack as an adult, much less as many times as the circles on his body indicated.
She tried very hard not to let what she was feeling show, but she failed miserably, because his expression hardened.
He got out of bed, a scowl on his face, and turning his back on her, headed for the bathroom. And then she saw it.
Oh. My. God.
At her sharp intake of air he swirled and stared at her. “What? Did my shitty childhood put you off?”
She shook her head. “Your back…”
It was completely tattooed. A fallen angel of some sort covered it, not an inch uninked.
His expression relaxed as it dawned on him what she was referring to. “Right. You see, asshole with tattoos here. You didn’t stray too far from your path.”
Jack watched Elle sleep, tense as a fucking bow.
She was resting on her side, her head on the pillow, her hands under her cheek. Man, she looked so sweet sleeping. So…agreeable. And why the fuck was he staring at her instead of sleeping, or better yet, why was he still in her room, he had no clue. It seemed he was incapable of making himself walk away from her, even after fucking her senseless.
It was the lack of shut-eye that was compromising his thought-processing and decision-making skills. He recalled getting more z’s during his last deployment in Afghanistan than these past days with Elle. Her rhythm was inhuman. Of course, if he used the little time he had left for sleep for fucking her, it wasn’t going to help matters. Not that he could do anything about it. Now that the doors were open, he wasn’t going to keep his hands off her. The need to get his fill and fuck her out of his system was too powerful.
Elle opened her eyes, a big smile on her sleepy face. “Something to say to me?”
He didn’t answer, just swept his thumb over her lips, propped on his elbow. “Why did you let me fuck you bareback?”
She laughed. “Good morning to you too.”