No Damaged Goods

by Snow, Nicole

  Peace makes a soft sound that’s half amusement and half worry. I hear the door shut and the sounds of her stripping off her jacket.

  “I’m not getting you up again, am I?”

  “Not without at least two Vicodin,” I mutter, draping my arm over my eyes. “Sorry. I’m actually keeping off that shit. This leg always gets worse the longer winter drags on. I’m never ready for it. I just need to rest a bit.”

  “What you need,” she says firmly, “is a massage. And if I can’t get you off the sofa and on my table, I’ll just have to strip you down right here.”

  Is she serious?

  I tense, opening an eye, peering up at her from under my arm. “Damn, woman. Can’t say I’ve ever met a girl that eager to get me naked.”

  “No? So the stories they tell about you are exaggerated?” She flashes a saucy little smile and tosses her hair back, sending it slithering around to lay on the other side of her neck and pour down her shoulder. “They swear you were quite the ladies’ man in your younger days.”

  I snort, closing my eyes again. “I grew out of that shit by my senior year. Think they’re confusing me with Holt. He went nuts seeing how many chicks would throw themselves at me, and then kept stealing girls I had just to get under my skin.”

  There’s silence.

  When I look, she’s just standing there, her hands on her cocked, curving hips, watching me wryly. I grunt, unable to help cracking a smile.

  “I know. I know, it’s fucking awful, but I was a horndog teenager, and Holt treated it like a competition. I feel bad for those poor girls, honestly. We were both dicks, even if it was him who left ’em in pieces and me who let ’em down easy.”

  “As long as you’ve grown up.” She settles down on the couch, her weight denting the cushions at my calves, and then those soft hands are pulling on me as she starts working at my bootlaces. “Let’s get you ready.”

  I arch a brow. “You’re really gonna strip me on my own couch?”

  A wicked grin makes her eyes darken and glitter.

  Aw, hell. She’s serious.

  Peace drags one of my boots off, then catches the toe of my sock and peels me out of it. “I’ve finally got you at my mercy, Mr. Silver Tongue. And you can’t fight back. What red-blooded girl wouldn’t take advantage of the last standing heartthrob of Heart’s Edge in that situation?”

  Goddamn.

  That might almost be hot in a crazy, bad porno kinda way.

  If I wasn’t laughing my damn fool head off.

  “Heartthrob of Heart’s Edge? Fuck. Don’t tell me that dumb Instagram account Ember’s ma runs is still going?”

  “Yup! She showed me. It’s up to like a million followers. Her mama’s pretty crazy for all the hot guys around here.”

  “Yeah, fuck. Doc told me all about it.” Snickering, I pull my good leg back and shove her shoulder lightly with the heel of my bare foot. “Heartthrob, my ass. I ain’t nobody’s.”

  She might just be mine, though, with the way my heart skips a beat when she laughs.

  “You might not think so,” she teases, starting on my other foot with an arched look my way from under her lashes. “But I have it on good authority that every single lady in town pines away into their lattes at The Nest, mourning the fact that you’re probably being taken off the market by some out-of-town witch with purple ends.”

  My whole body prickles.

  If she wants to take me off the market...hell, that doesn’t sound half bad.

  I almost say it.

  Almost slip right then and there, but I rein myself in and force a smug smile. “Nobody told them they got the wrong idea, huh?”

  She’s just staying with me for safety, even if she’s getting crazy ideas in her head.

  I practically put her under lock and key.

  I gotta remember that.

  Peace falters a second, glancing at me before fixing her gaze on her hand as she pulls my other boot off. “I don’t think it’s worth the argument. Most of them will figure out soon enough I’m just a tourist, anyway. So they can stop fretting.”

  There it is.

  That reminder she isn’t from here.

  This isn’t her home.

  I’m not her home.

  It shouldn’t get me so riled up.

  I bite my tongue while she drags my other sock off, then shifts her weight up to sit at my side, her hip pressing into my waist.

  “Here,” she murmurs, pushing my coat open. “Sit up for me a little.”

  I can’t resist her. Not even when these feelings are sinking into my gut like a boulder, and I manage to haul myself up on my hands without jouncing myself too much so she can help me out of my jacket.

  Then she’s got my shirt, fingers on the buttons, peeling the flannel open.

  I can’t stop watching her.

  She’s so close, her mouth red and sweet, a rosebud.

  Nah—more like a strawberry.

  A thick, luscious, juicy red strawberry you just want to sink your teeth into for a wet bite of tart sweetness.

  One taste of her lips was enough to leave me addicted, obsessed, undone.

  It’s a miracle I’m even looking at her without throwing her on her back and drinking my fill, pain be damned.

  She’s quiet, her eyes on her hands while she works at the buttons, but now and then there’s a glance.

  Her, catching me through those long lashes that make the green of her eyes stand out even more.

  Her lips part subtly, just enough to see the gleaming tip of her tongue.

  And me barely breathing.

  This feels too fucking intimate, her hands trawling down my body, parting my shirt. She stands, working me out of it with gentle gestures that make her fingers glide across my body.

  When she catches the hem of my undershirt, I nearly lose it.

  Her knuckles, her nails, skim over my naked skin as she pushes the cotton up across my abs, my chest. I lift my arms and let her peel it over my head.

  Fuck. Don’t think I’ve ever let a woman undress me before.

  From anyone else it’d feel diminishing.

  Weird.

  This helpless, sorry bastard being pampered by this knockout chick.

  With Peace, though, it’s almost too powerful.

  Even just to strip me down for a massage, she’s got this certain care for my body. It makes her touch worshipful, like she’s handling something important, something that means the moon and the stars to her.

  I almost can’t stand the silence between us.

  The prickling tension.

  Or how damn bad I want to put my hands on her body like I own it and just feel her warmth soaking into my fingertips.

  She holds my eyes as I flop back against the sofa. Then she settles again, bracing one knee against the cushion, her hands falling to rest on my stomach just above the waist of my jeans.

  I can’t help sucking in a breath through my teeth, shuddering, her touch so hot, my skin so crazy for this mad, sexy woman.

  “You okay?” she asks softly. “This might hurt, getting your jeans off.”

  Real cute. I don’t think she guesses the real pain I’m in.

  Wanting her so bad I can hardly feel the hissing agony in my thigh. Not when the need burning in my gut cuts twice as deep.

  So I nod, licking my lips, bracing myself. “Rip the Band-Aid off, darlin’.”

  “I’ll try to be more careful than that.” She smiles gently.

  So she says.

  But she’s fucking me up hardcore as those nimble fingers flick the button of my jeans open and draw the zipper down.

  I try one more time to tell myself this is nothing to her.

  It’s a job, ain’t it? She undresses clients all the time. She’s seen human bodies in every state imaginable.

  But it’s hard to be objective when she’s dragging the denim down my hips, and it’s pulling my boxer-briefs so tight against me, the fabric rubbing hard, teasing at a reckless hard-on that’s pure tortur
e.

  Yeah, I’m boned.

  Peace can’t be blind.

  She can’t miss what’s going on, tugging my jeans around my thighs and leaving me with nothing but my underwear guarding my growing cock, an unmistakable bulge against the cotton.

  Her gaze darts downward.

  Her cheeks blush that gorgeous shade of sunset, cherries and ocean sky and dawn and every pretty redness in between.

  Fuck.

  Her lower lip catches between her teeth, and she averts her eyes.

  But I think she’s breathing a little harder as my jeans come down the rest of the way.

  Then the heel of her palm knocks my scar.

  Pain explodes over me like a nuclear bomb.

  I snarl, rolling forward, clutching at my thigh with a blistering litany of curses. Suddenly, I’m not thinking with my cock anymore.

  I’m thinking with every bit of agony in me. Peace makes a distressed sound, tossing my jeans aside.

  “Crap,” she gasps. “I’m sorry, I—hold on. I’ll fix it.”

  I just squeeze my eyes shut, gritting my teeth, while she darts away from the room.

  She’s not gone long.

  Through the roar in my ears I hear her rattling around upstairs, digging, before she comes clattering back down with the case she uses for her massage oils.

  She careens back to the sofa, dropping down next to me. The case hits the coffee table and snaps open. If I wasn’t hurting so damn bad, I might almost laugh. She makes me think of an Army medic with a go bag diving in to save a soldier down.

  Hell, I feel like a man down right now.

  “Let’s see...” she whispers.

  She rifles through her bottles and comes up with one that has a faint reddish-gold tint to the oil inside. Soon she’s got a palmful, rubbing her hands together to warm it with swift friction.

  The scent is explosive. Something with a pungent bite like cinnamon, maybe leather. I don’t know. But just the scent alone is soothing.

  It gets me breathing again, ready for her hands, her heat.

  “Ahhh, baby,” I growl. It falls out spontaneously. “You’re so the shit.”

  She laughs, giving me a heavenly stroke. I love how fast this stuff numbs me up.

  Pure soothing heat drenches me, melts into my flesh, and I groan, shuddering.

  The pain relief isn’t instant, not by a mile, but it’s better than a legion of needles ripping at my flesh.

  “What is that stuff?” I ask, focusing on how she kneads my flesh.

  “My own custom blend, sort of,” she says. Her voice has that steady, soft warmth that she settles into when she’s working, like she can heal with the hypnotic rhythm of her words as much as the rhythm of her touch. “Have you ever heard of BPAL?”

  I shake my head, leaning back a bit, making myself lie down and letting her work.

  I gotta trust her.

  Let her do her thing.

  And I try to relax as she works her fingers in knowing circles over the scar. Each pulse of pain is a little less terrible, a little less raw.

  “Never heard of it,” I say.

  “Black Phoenix Alchemy Labs.” She laughs. “When I was a kid, it was this big thing online. They make these oil-based scents, instead of alcohol-based or water-based colognes. It only takes a dab to last all day, but they’re unique because they respond to your body chemistry and mix with your skin pH to make your own scent. Which means what smells really good on one person can smell rank on another.”

  I snort. “You ask me, most normal cologne smells rank anyway, so this already sounds like an improvement.”

  “Maybe.” Her voice softens and so does her touch.

  She switches to using the heel of her palm, kneading my pain like dough to make it more pliant, more malleable. I’m almost starting to enjoy how it hurts as that heady scent drifts over me.

  “Keep talkin’,” I tell her. “Your voice helps me along.”

  “Well, it used to be this status thing around the online message boards I’d hang out on. You’d get samplers to try out and talk about all the different scents you could throw together. I was into it because it was this cool thing, but I honestly thought half the people were bullshitting.” Her voice hitches up, taking on a snooty accent that makes me grin. “I get heart notes of cardamom, with a secondary hint of jasmine and a delicate underpinning of laurel, lavender, and jock straps.”

  Can’t help myself.

  I burst out laughing, the feeling helping to loosen more tension knifing through me. “Jock straps, huh?”

  “Yep. I bet not one of them could tell the smell of jock straps from cardamom,” she says, laughing wickedly. “I don’t know what cardamom smells like.”

  “Got one up on me, darlin’. I don’t even know what cardamom is.”

  “Because you’re a dude,” she teases, warm and sweet, and it aches to hear that fondness in her voice for me. “But they had this one line of scents called Dragon’s Hide. It was this leathery smell mixed with something else I couldn’t identify. It always made me think of Dad. This leather jacket he always wore, all the time, and I just...”

  “You tried to make your own?” I ask softly. “So you’d have a scent that reminded you of him.”

  She nods and swallows thickly.

  I open my eyes and watch her in her glory.

  The sweet little smile playing around her lips, the way she touches me with tenderness. This woman might just be an angel come to earth.

  “But I made it my way, and it kept me working until I figured out the oil I’m using on you right now. Cinnamon. A little fiery, just like me.” She shakes her head with a soft, self-deprecating laugh, and her unbound hair shimmers like the spark she is. “The heat helps, don’t you think? It’s a good topical remedy for pain. Penetrates deep to loosen up the tension and warm the muscles.”

  “It’s working,” I tell her. “How come you never used it before?”

  “The smell’s pretty strong,” she says, flicking an almost nervous glance at me from under her lashes. “I’m always worried people won’t like it.”

  “I do,” I answer. “It’s deep shit. Intoxicating. Sultry, kinda. Helps me limber up.”

  Her eyes ignite, even if that pixie smile of hers doesn’t change.

  “Yeah?” she whispers. “I’m glad.”

  I am, too.

  Not for the reasons she’s thinking.

  I’m just happy to be up in her world tonight.

  Glad that she’d take something tied to an important memory and turn it into something she can use to ease people’s pain.

  It’s like this girl was born for that name she carries.

  She really is a peace to the world and to me.

  And she’s everything as I close my eyes and settle into silence and let her go to town.

  I don’t know when I started trusting her hands this much, but I do, just like that big ol’ pissed off lion in the story with a splinter in his paw.

  I let go.

  Drop my pride, drop my defenses, and let Peace Rabe fix my hell.

  Boy, does she ever. Every time her hands glide across my flesh, I feel like she’s reaching inside to soften my soul.

  I know what she told me, when those bad memories hit during that one session. Massage can stir up old pains. It’s only natural that touching those trigger points in the body unlocks things that were buried away.

  Thing is, pain’s not the only thing that’s been branded in me.

  I haven’t been calm or truly happy for a long time.

  But she’s coaxing that out, reaching down to where the better stuff’s buried. She dredges them up and lets them spread through me in a blissful wash of warmth, rolling through my flesh until I’m a relaxed, lazy mess sprawled on the couch.

  No pain.

  No hurt.

  No heartbreak.

  No anger, no tension, no loss.

  Just me and this fine ass woman.

  Her hands on my skin, my body throbbing, and
fuck, I can’t stop how that wonderful feeling pools in my gut and pulses in my cock again.

  This time, it’s slow and riled instead of urgent and tense.

  Best of all, she never stops touching me.

  Telling me, with every tender press of her fingers, that she’s not afraid.

  Not repelled by whatever this insane, unspeakable thing is between us.

  I don’t know how long I lie there, letting her turn me into a mess of contentment.

  It seems like forever and too soon at the same time when she slowly eases, stopping with her palms resting lightly over my scar.

  “How you feeling?” she asks, her voice pure silk in the darkness behind my eyelids. “Better?”

  “Oh, yeah,” I breathe, opening my eyes, looking up at her hazily. “Doesn’t even hurt now. Feels like hot butter.”

  “Good.”

  She looks down at me with her eyes half-lidded, her lips parted, and—

  Shit.

  There’s something there.

  Something blazing in the rapid pace of her breaths, the way her tits rise and fall, the thinness of her shirt and bra over nipples that press hard little swells against the fabric.

  Peace just holds my eyes for several long moments before her gaze darts away. She pulls her hands back, standing and reaching for a towel from her kit.

  “Give me a second,” she says, a throaty burr darkening her voice. “I’ll get everything cleaned up.”

  Her tongue slides over her lips, her gaze slipping over me for a drawn out second. Then she turns and walks away just a little too fast, vanishing into the kitchen.

  I push myself up on one arm and stare after her.

  The sway of her hips, the tightness of her sweet, thick ass in her jeans...

  Sweet hell, they’re pulling on me like gravity.

  Something more, too—this intangible thing between us, this connection I can’t ignore.

  And it’s urging me to her.

  I don’t even realize I’m getting up till I’m up. My body feels light, fluid, like she’s taken away every scar and every burden I ever had. She’s left me stronger.

  Strong enough for her.

  When I step into the kitchen, she’s washing her hands in the sink.

  She glances up as I draw closer, turning to face me, wiping her hands off on a towel. “Blake?”