Phoenix (Flames & Ashes Book 1)

by Carolyn Anthony

  “And then—then he killed the monster.” It was the first time I’d said the words out loud.

  Jaxxon crushed me to his chest and held me for so long before setting me away from him. He framed my face. A slight tremor in his touch, as his eyes drilled into mine. “I—fuck!” he snarled. “I wish I could fucking kill him again! Do you have any concept of how incredibly strong you are? What you fought through? You were lucky, baby. So damn lucky.” His hands tightened on my face. “Thank you, Valentina. Thank you for trusting me enough to tell me. For being strong enough to tell me.”

  I searched his face, his eyes, looking for some kind of pity, disgust, any of the responses I’d grown used to when I’d had to tell someone I’d been abducted and attacked. There were none. Just anger for what had happened and concern for me now.

  He shook his head hard one time and gently lifted me so I could get my legs out from either side of him. Settling me in his lap, he rested his head on mine. The footrest kicked out and he held me as I cried, letting the past, the shame, the fear flow out of me.

  All of a sudden, he stiffened beneath me. Every muscle touching me went rock hard and he moved me to face him. “The end . . . when you bit him. Did that come to you in a nightmare?”

  This was what I’d been afraid of. “Yes.” I raised a hand to his face, but he pulled back.

  “When? Was it the night I stayed with you?” His eyes searched mine. “That’s why you didn’t want to look at me.”

  “Jaxxon.” I wiped away the remnants of the tears off my cheeks and struggled to sit up. “Please, please listen to me now. That had nothing to do with it. I’d told you that night I’d done that before, but it was different with you. With Rick, I’d disconnect. I hated doing it, but it was a means to an end for me then. I wanted to with you.”

  “No! No fuckin’ way. Look—

  “No! Jaxxon. You look.” I grabbed his shoulders, desperate for him to hear me. “Do you have any idea what you’ve given me? You’ve given me a part of life I never expected to experience. I never thought it possible, because of Rick. Not the attack—Rick. You gave me that. I want a healthy sex life. I want to be able to be uninhibited, to not feel shame because I want you, because I want to please you as you do me. I want to experience everything with you.”

  I searched his face, gauge if he was hearing me, but his expression remained hard, stoic.

  “The nightmares,” I continued, “they’ve been coming for over two years. At first, as flashes, bits and pieces, then longer segments like a movie trailer. Longer scenes that stayed with me, leaving no question they were memories. When they come, I get the feelings, the sensations, the fear. I smell the odors, see the shadows, feel the pain, the hunger, the drug, the knife . . . I would have had the nightmare, the memory, one way or another. Please don’t take the freedom you’ve given me away because you think it was some kind of trigger. It wasn’t. I’m remembering it now and yes, it’s frightening, gruesome, but you were right before. My hang-ups had more to do with what Rick did to me than this. You said you can handle the nightmares. You asked me for the truth, all of it. I’m trusting that you can handle it.”

  Tension finally bled out of his shoulders and he pulled me back across his lap. “I want to give you what you want, I do. All of it. I want to be the one you experience everything with, but you need to talk to me from now on. I know I push you. If it gets too much, you need to open your beautiful mouth. That’s my deal.”

  I leaned up and kissed him softly. “Okay. I promise.”

  I lay there with him so long, feeling lighter than I ever had before. I was emotionally raw. There was still one last step. One more thing I had to see if he could handle. If I could handle it. I just needed to rest first. I closed my eyes and let him hold me, just for a few minutes. But I drifted to sleep in his arms.

  46

  Valentina

  He needs to see everything . . .

  My eyes shot open as if the words had been said aloud. But I’d been asleep . . .

  When I became aware of where I was, I realized what I still had to do. I tried to push myself up, but an iron grip held me still.

  “You’re good, baby. Don’t move.” Jaxxon’s sleepy, rough voice washed over me.

  The room was dark, with the exception of outside lights filtering in through the sheer curtains. “Sorry I fell asleep.”

  “Don’t apologize I needed to wrap my head around . . . everything.” He brushed his lips against my temple.

  When sharp electric prickles shot down my body, I forced myself to settle by breathing in and out in long, steady rhythms. Jaxxon had taken the information better than I’d expected.

  But this made it real.

  Untangling myself from his arms, I kept the blanket around me until the last possible second.

  “Where are you going?”

  I shoved the leg rest back under the chair and stood up between his legs, turning around to face him and pulling out the band that held my braid. “Can you please—please turn on the light?” I shook out my hair, letting it fall around me.

  “Yeah, but you didn’t have to move,” he grunted, and reached over to pull the chain on the lamp.

  I squinted as the room brightened. It took a second to adjust to the soft lighting. Squeezing my eyes shut for a second, I inhaled and straightened to my full height. When he leaned forward to touch me, I put a hand on his shoulder. “Please,” I sighed. “You can’t touch me for this, okay? I need you to sit back.”

  His eyes widened for a brief second and he shook his head. “No.” Grabbing me around the thighs, he pulled me close to him. “Valentina . . . You don’t have to do what I think you’re about to fuckin’ do. You don’t have to prove shit to me.”

  Stepping away from him, I touched his cheek and inhaled. “I do. Thank you for saying that, but this . . . it’s for me too. You asked me for honesty early on—

  Reaching out, he grabbed my hand. “Baby, now I get why—

  “Jaxxon.” A small grin pushed at my lips. “You didn’t let me finish.”

  He squeezed my hand and nodded. “Finish.”

  “I’m in love with you. I have been for a while. I never doubted you. I doubted me, and in doing so, I hurt us both. Can you forgive me? Because if you can’t, I’ll understand, but I need to know now. Right now.” To take this risk, I needed verbal confirmation.

  Letting go of my hands, he wrapped them around the backs of my thighs. “There’s nothing to forgive. You didn’t lie to me. You held back something very fucking personal until you trusted me. Do I wish we could have handled it different? Fuck yeah I do, but we’re okay, baby, and for the record, I think I loved you the second you tried to break my hand.”

  I smiled at that, stalling in an attempt to get my erratic pulse back under control. “Alright. I mean, thank you. I love you too.”

  He smiled up at me. “I’ve never doubted that, sugar.” He sat back, hands resting on the arms of the chair, and he stared at me. “You’re doing this for you?” he asked.

  “Yes. For me, for us. When I said I didn’t blame Rick—

  “Valentina . . . ” he warned, but I cut him off.

  “No, Jaxx. What he did was wrong, yes, but what I did was wrong too. I hid them from him. I told him I’d been in a car accident. I lied. And never let him see how bad the scaring really is. I never loved him, because I never trusted him, but I did lie to him. I don’t want anything between us, if we’re going to try to make this work.” I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “In which case, you have to see . . . them. You have to see if you can handle how bad it is, because I can’t change what I look like and I can’t bring myself to go back under a knife to try and make them more presentable. I just can’t and—

  “Hey.” Jaxxon sat up straighter his tone hard. “Anyone who even suggest that can go fuck themselves, baby. And if you can’t tell them, I sure as fuck will. You’re perfect the way you are.”

  I gave him a small smile. “Thank you for that. But yo
u know what you’re up against, Jaxx, you’ve felt them. And I can’t control the nightmares.” I looked down my body and back to him. “This . . . it’s a lot. It’s not attractive. It’s out of a goddamn horror film.”

  “It’s gonna take more than scars and nightmares to scare me off now, sugar.”

  Breathe in. Out. In. Out.

  “Okay, then . . . ”

  I dropped my head. You got this!

  “Do what you gotta do, liebste. I’m right here.”

  I glanced at him. “You said that to me on my bathroom floor. I don’t know that word. What does it mean?”

  His warm amber eyes never wavered from mine. “My love.”

  Tears blurred my vision. “It’s beautiful.”

  “So are you. Go.”

  My breathing labored now. I released the hold on the blanket, letting it slide to the floor. I slipped trembling fingers under the hem of my long-sleeve shirt and lifted it up until my head popped out the top, leaving just a camisole and my bra.

  I gulped in a deep breath, yanked the camisole off and watched it fall to the floor.

  The top of the scars would be sticking out from the low-slung jeans I wore.

  I dropped my eyes and reached behind my back to the clasp on my bra.

  “Valentina.” His soft voice came across as more of a scream shrieking through my head and I jumped. “If you can do this for you, for us, do you think you can look at me?”

  For some reason, him asking made it easier. If I focused on him, I wouldn’t analyze every disfigured inch of skin I was about to reveal.

  With my eyes now locked to his, I reached behind my back, and with a pinch, unhooked my bra. I crossed my arms over my chest and drew the straps down. I held the cups of the bra against me for a minute and finally let them drop away from my body.

  The cold air from the cracked open glass door swept over my skin. Goosebumps rose up in response. A shiver ran down my spine and I had to fight not to cross my arms.

  “Keep looking at me.” He nodded for me to continue.

  I nodded quickly, reached up with my left hand and covered my breast. I shifted my body toward the light, lifting the soft weight up to expose the underside. “Look close,” I murmured. In the light, the teeth marks from where Blancherd had bit through my skin were still clear.

  Jaxxon leaned forward and raised a hand in front of me, as if asking permission to touch me.

  I nodded once and swallowed hard.

  He slid tentative fingers up my rib cage to just under the hand holding my breast to trace the outline of the marking. “Son of a fucking bitch,” he said, so low I almost missed it. Leaning forward, he ran his lips over it once before sitting back. The kiss wasn’t sexual. It was almost reverent, and my heart skipped a beat at the gentleness of the caress.

  I dropped both hands to my belt. The need to shed not only my clothes, but also my past, was like a vise squeezing my chest

  I undid the buckle. The soft sound of leather slipping through loops seemed too loud for such a large room, but I at last got to the top button of my jeans. I chanced a glance at him. “It’s so bad,” I warned, giving him a chance to back out. I’d show him, but I knew their effect.

  “You’re fucking gorgeous. Do it.”

  The honesty and authority in his tone reassured me enough to keep going. It was as if he took the decision away from me, demanding I give him everything. Every last bit of me. Even if he no longer found me attractive, at least for once, I would know I’d been brave enough to be honest and show someone I loved. No matter what . . .

  I shimmied the jeans over my hips and down my legs. Leaning over, I yanked them to my feet and stepped out, leaving my thong in place. A steady trembling started in my fingers and spread to my hands.

  “Almost done, sugar,” he encouraged. “Finish it.”

  My quivering fingers gripped the sides of my underwear, while still bent over. I shoved them down my thighs and quickly pushed them into the pile of my discarded clothes. I stayed there, staring at my feet . . . praying.

  He. Is. Not. Rick! The voice in my head had now become my ally instead of my enemy.

  He covered my shoulders with his strong hands. He ran his thumbs over the tendons on either side of my neck. “Stand up, baby,” he urged. “It’s okay. Stand up for me.”

  “It’s shocking, Jaxx,” I spoke to the ground.

  “Nothing I can’t handle. Come on up, baby.”

  I exhaled hard and made my way back to a standing position. The room spun for a second, and he steadied me with his hands on my hips as I got my bearings. The first thing to come into focus was his face, his eyes, locked to mine, not the scars. I anchored my hands on his forearms and nodded. “Okay.” I nodded to him. “You—you can look.” I bit the shit out of my lip, feeling nauseous. The hypersensitivity of my skin heightened to the extent the air from the window hurt flowing over it.

  Wrapping his hands around the backs of my thighs, he brought me closer to him until my knees touched the front of his chair. He scooted to the end, still looking up at me.

  “Atme, liebste,” he said softly. “Breathe, love.”

  “Just look, Jaxx. Please. I can’t stop shaking, please.”

  He dropped his gaze from mine down to my naked body, and I took note of every reaction, studied every facial muscle, every twitch. The heat of his stare scaled my skin as he left no inch unexamined. When his eyes settled on the scars, he let go of my hands. Slow and gentle, he ran the tips of his fingers over each of the jagged edges, smooth deformations, and crisscrossed lines.

  Not once did I notice or sense the disgust I had seen when Rick had opened that shower door. Not once did Jaxxon cringe or show any sign of repulsion. He just kept tracing the scars, running his fingers over them, every one. He did it for so long I eventually stopped shaking.

  When his eyes finally met mine again, he wrapped his arms around my waist and buried his head against my chest, holding me. “You,” he said in a strong, sure voice. “You are a goddamn warrior.” He pulled back and looked up at me, taking my face between his hands. “You are the most beautiful fucking woman I’ve ever seen.”

  At that point, my feet gave out. In one motion, he stood and scooped me up. I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and buried my face in his neck as he walked through the family room into the hallway.

  “They’re bad, though, right? Be honest.”

  He kissed my forehead. “Baby, life fucks some of us. They’re marks of survival, Valentina. I don’t see them as bad, shameful, or ugly. I love every inch of you.”

  “Where are we going?” I muttered into his neck.

  “Shower.”

  I jerked my head up to protest, but I had no reason not to now. What if he didn’t sexually want me anymore, though? He could love me, but not want me. “We don’t—

  “Time to relax, sugar, because I don’t think you ever have.”

  Fully clothed, he stepped into his huge shower. A soft-brushed oval rock pattern covered the floor of the large space. The wall where the showerheads came out was made of smooth beige stones, and two long, high benches lined both sides of the shower.

  He put me down, held me around the waist with one arm, and turned on all three showerheads with his free hand. The sprays beat down on his back, blocking the cool water from me until it heated up.

  I stared at his chest, unsure of what to do or what he expected of me. His wet T-shirt clung to his skin and I brought both hands up to rest on his pecs. “You’re wearing clothes.” I couldn’t think of anything more intelligent to say.

  He tilted my face up to his. “What are you thinking?”

  There was no reason to keep it from him now. Not after everything I’d told him, showed him. “I’m wondering if you still want me, now that you’ve seen them.”

  The smirk that always made my stomach clench in anticipation spread across his full lips. “You don’t think I want you anymore?”

  I shrugged, watching the streams of water flow around his fee
t. “I’d understand.”

  “I see . . . ” When he moved, I lifted my head. He let me go, raised both hands behind his back and pulled his shirt off, his wet hair sticking to his neck, his face, his shoulders. Taking my hands in his, he moved them to the waistband of his shorts. “Take them off.”

  I studied his face, trying to gauge what he felt, but I couldn’t read his expression.

  “Now, sweetheart.”

  I slipped my fingers into the sides and pushed his workout shorts down his heavily muscled thighs. When I got them around his knees, I lifted a leg and pushed them the rest of the way down with my toes until he stepped out of them.

  “Nice improvise.” He chuckled and reached over for a bottle of soap, which he squeezed into his palm. Rubbing them together, he moved to the side, sat on one of the long benches, and guided me by the hip to stand between his legs. Starting at my shoulders, he massaged the frothy soap into my skin, kneading the muscles as he worked his way down my arms. The alpine scent I associated strictly with him filled the steamy shower, and my chest muscles tightened.

  Adding more soap, he worked the lather lower. He drew lazy circles around my lower back with his fingers, just above my butt, before running both hands up the sides of my rib cage.

  The gentle pressure of his touch malfunctioned my breathing pattern. I loved the way Jaxxon touched me: gentle, yet firm, always aware, and present. He never absently touched me. Being fully naked in front of him for the first time, with his roughened fingers massaging, stroking, and gliding over every inch of my body felt as if I were being touched for the first time.

  In a way, I kind of was. His thorough exploration of my body became a rebirth.

  When he cupped my breasts, running both thumbs over and around my puckering nipples, I lifted my hands to his shoulders, digging my fingers into his solid muscles, to keep myself upright. He glided soapy hands around my hips, over each globe of my ass, and down the backs of my thighs, kneading and working the muscles until the tension began to bleed out of me.