All of Me Read online

  Nathan could hardly wait to know this part of her. He was shaking nearly as badly as Stella – panting and sweating too.

  He caressed face. “Open your eyes, Stella. I want you to watch me…” Her eyes opened slowly. The tear soaked eyelashes framing those gypsy eyes hurt. Nathan gently gripped her chin. “I want you to watch me. Because I want you to see how beautiful I think you are. The expression on my face when I see how incredible you look.”

  “Oh, Nathan…I think you’re going to be very disappointed.” Her voice caught on a sob. “And I don’t think I can bear to see that awful look on your face. I’ve seen it before and I don’t think I can see it again. Not from you. It would hurt too much.”

  Nathan almost backed down. Because he had his own secretes and he understood all too well the importance of keeping those secrets. But he was a selfish bastard and Stella’s scars were nothing to be ashamed of. And like he’d said, he needed to see all of her…to taste all of her.

  “Am I anything like the last person who saw this part of your body?” Nathan hooked his finger over her clasp and hesitated.

  Stella shook her head with such vehemence Nathan smiled. With a quick flick of his fingers, her clasp popped open and his breath caught.

  Stella tried to cover her scar, but Nathan grabbed her wrist – leaving her exposed. To his gaze. To his scrutiny and judgment.

  He’d asked that she watch him. She hadn’t planned on granting that particular request, but Stella found she couldn’t take her eye off of his face. Good or bad, she needed to gauge his reaction so she could immediately plan her next move.

  Stella knew the scar by heart. It had taken a while for her to look at it, but once she had, she’d been obsessed. Her philosophy had been to stare at it until it no longer had the power to shock or to hurt her. The plan had worked, but all of the old feelings came up as she imagined seeing it through Nathan’s eyes.

  She’d come here planning to make love to him again. Stella had known in the back of her head this confrontation had been a possibility. She had hoped maybe it would be like last time…that they would be so desperate to come together that the removal of clothing wouldn’t be an issue.

  Or he could have purposefully avoided taking her shirt off, which would have crushed Stella and ended any possible sexual situation anyway.

  No, this had been coming. But now that it was here, Stella wasn’t sure she could handle it.

  But if Nathan was disgusted by her chest, he deserved an Academy Award. Stella studied his face as he studied her body and all she saw was a detached examination of her missing breast followed by a hungry gaze at her still present one. With a little shake, Nathan brought his attention back to her scar.

  He slowly, gently traced it with his fingertip. It was the first time anyone besides Stella or her sisters had touched it and she immediately started crying.

  The human touch – his touch – against that very raw, intimate, symbolic part of herself was overwhelming.

  Nathan’s whiskey eyes found hers. “Did I hurt you?” When Stella shook her head, he exhaled. “It just feels weird to have someone touch it?”

  She nodded.

  “Can I tell you what I really think?” Stella nodded again, not sure if she really wanted him to. Her breath caught when he said, “I think it’s amazing. I think you look like a goddamned warrior.” He traced her scar again, thoughtfully. “That’s a battle scar and something you should be proud of.”

  Stella curled her fingers into the front of his shirt to keep her knees from giving out when he lowered his head to her chest. The feel of his warm breath against her skin was almost more than Stella could take.

  “I’d like to kiss you there, Stella.” She gasped as his lips came dangerously close to her scar. “Tell me I can, Stella. I need to.”

  There it was again…that sexy begging. Only this man could make wanting to kiss her mastectomy scar sound hot.

  She nodded her consent and Nathan pressed his lips to her scar. He nuzzled it a bit before moving his mouth to the other side, to her breast. Stella gasped as he took her nipple into his warm, wet mouth. She clutched his head. “Oh, God, Nathan…”

  “You are so beautiful,” he whispered against her breast; his breath against her wet flesh causing an entire body shiver. “The sexiest woman I’ve ever seen.” One hand caressed her flat chest while the other curled around a chunk of her hair at the base of her head. He tugged it gently, exposing her neck to his mouth. Nathan nuzzled her neck, kissing along her jugular until he reached her earlobe.

  Stella moaned as he gently bit it and kissed behind her ear. Nathan did his sexy little growl thing when she reached down between them and caressed his erection through his uniform pants.

  Stella nimbly undid the button and yanked his zipper down. Within seconds, Nathan’s hot, hard – and huge - erection was in her hands. She only managed to stroke it a few times before Nathan groaned and tossed her onto the bed. Stella shucked her socks, pants, and underwear off and waited for Nathan to join her. It occurred to her how comfortable she was naked in front of him already. And she was about to get a whole lot more comfortable with him.

  But Nathan just stood there looking torn and Stella remembered what he’d said about his own body. With what she knew about his background, Stella could only imagine what it was. She wanted to see him and she wanted to make him feel as accepted and beautiful as he’d made her feel. But something told Stella this wasn’t the right time to push him.

  She latched onto his eyes. “You don’t need to show me anything, Nathan. Not until you’re ready. Whatever you need to do to be with me, is fine with me. I want you anyway I can have you.” Stella smiled as she crooked a finger at him. “But I need to make love to you right now, so please come here. Now.”

  To Stella’s absolute shock, Nathan slowly stepped out of his pants, folded them, and set them on a chair next to his bed. His socks were removed and balled up and set aside.

  Nothing too evident so far. There were a few roundish, shiny scars scattered here and there on his legs, but nothing grotesque that should cause Nathan such embarrassment.

  He put his hands on his hips and sighed. When Nathan met her eyes, Stella nodded her encouragement. He slowly unbuttoned and pulled off his short-sleeved uniform shirt, revealing that tattoo Stella had been dying to lay eyes on.

  It covered most of his left bicep, extending onto his left pec and up over his left shoulder a bit. It looked like a military tattoo of some kind: a skull wearing a beret in front of a sword, with wings extending out from each side of the skull. A banner on top read “Death Before” and a banner below read “Dishonor.” The upper arm of his right arm was also tattooed up. The words “Special Forces,” “Ranger,” and “Airborne” were placed in three consecutive tattoos down his arm. They looked like uniform patches. Below that, it read “75th Regiment” in Old English black script.

  Stella nearly swooned.

  It was cliché and so very womanly of her, but Stella seriously started panting at that ink.

  Until she saw all of the marring of his skin around the tattoos. And some scarring even through the tattoos.

  “Shrapnel,” he said flatly in response to her unspoken question.

  Stella swallowed hard and nodded. “Can you take your tee shirt off, please?”

  Nathan stood motionless for a while and Stella knew the worst of whatever was going on was beneath that wife beater tee shirt. But he’d better get on with it soon because watching his huge muscles flex and not being able to touch and taste them was driving her crazy. She wanted to be as compassionate to him as he’d been to her, but Sweet Jesus, there was only so much a woman could take.

  Knowing exactly how Nathan felt as he lifted the hem of his shirt over his head, Stella tried her best not to react to what she saw, but that proved to be too difficult. She gasped and a hand flew to her mouth when she saw what he’d been hiding from her.

  Nathan wasn’t sporting a bad tattoo, bad skin condition, or a measly sca
r. His entire torso was covered in faded scars. Some looked the round ones on his forearms, others were lines, and still others were jagged.

  Before Stella had a chance to process or react to what she’d just seen, Nathan turned around, giving her his back.

  If Stella had thought his front was bad, she hadn’t seen anything yet. There were healed over welts, more circular marks, slashes, and jagged patches. His body looked like a road map of scars.

  Stella couldn’t begin to imagine what had caused all of them. She could hardly process what she was seeing, let alone try to understand it.

  All of a sudden, her single mastectomy scar seemed pretty…well, manageable.

  Nathan turned back to her, his face inscrutable. “So did you see everything you needed to see?” His tone was flippant and sarcastic, but the look in his eyes was anything but.

  Stella quirked a brow. “Not everything,” she answered with a lip curl he couldn’t misinterpret.

  His defensive smirk faded and his arms dropped.

  “Come here.” She beckoned him with another crook of her finger. Just to be cruel, Stella leaned back onto her elbows and let her legs open slightly.

  Nathan was on top of her so quickly it stole her breath. Or maybe it was the insanely passionate kiss that stole her breath.

  “Mmmm…” Stella wrapped her legs around his waist and lifted her pelvis up to grind against his. Nathan nipped at her lower lip and sucked at her top before flipping them until she was on top.

  “Oh, I like this,” Stella said with a laugh. She straddled him and slowly ran her hands over his hard pectorals. She pressed her lips to one then the other. “These are very, very nice…I mean, like insanely amazing.” Her hands skated over his muscular shoulders and down each arm. “Although, these might be my favorites.” Nathan’s eyes were hot and hard on her face as Stella gently gripped his bulging biceps. She ran her fingertips around the outside over his triceps, over his tattoos, and sighed. “Yum-my, Nathan. Seriously.”

  “I’m glad you like them.” His voice was so choked and raw that Stella smiled.

  “That’s an understatement.” Her mind wandered and Stella’s heart sank a little. “But I bet that’s not the first time you’ve heard that, is it? I bet all of the women have liked them, huh? Who wouldn’t?”

  Stella tried her hardest to ruin the moment because she was jealous and scared and suddenly very insecure.

  “How many women have you been with, Nathan? Lots, I bet.” His muscles went rigid beneath her hands as Stella continued to caress his incredible body. She laughed mirthlessly. “You don’t need me panting over you, I’m sure. I bet you’ve heard it all a million times.”

  Nathan flipped her onto her back so fast the room spun. He grabbed each of her wrists and pinned her to the mattress. Gently, but firmly enough to make his point. He got really close to her face and his expression was intense.

  “No woman I had before you matters. They didn’t matter at the time and they sure as fuck don’t matter now.” He stared at her lips longingly and Stella instinctively opened her legs wider beneath him.

  “I forgot about them two seconds after they left my bed.” He laughed, cold and hard. “At the risk of sounding like the heartless asshole I am, I’ll tell you I forgot about them before they left my bed. I fucked to feel something. Anything. And as soon as it was over, I felt worse than before. But I still did it because I’m fucked up and a prick and not worth a damn.”

  Stella stared into his eyes for a long time. Searching. “Two seconds after I leave your bed, will you forget about me, Nathan? Are you forgetting about me right now?”

  “Fucking-A, Stella...I couldn’t forget about you if I tried. Which I have. Since the moment I met you.”

  And cue Stella melting.

  “I want to touch you. All of you.” Stella tried to pull away from his grip, but he wouldn’t budge.

  So she played dirty.

  Stella turned her head and nipped at his wrist; licking and biting and sucking at it until Nathan’s pelvis undulated against the cradle of her body. Stella smiled against his skin.

  “Oh, yeah?” he rasped. “You think you’re getting the best of me, don’t you?” When Stella pressed her feet flat to the backs of his calves and arched her back, Nathan’s eyes squeezed shut and his head dropped down.

  “Yes, I do. And I am,” Stella whispered.

  “Hell, Stella. What are you doing to me?”

  “The same thing you’re doing to me.” When Nathan’s eyes opened, Stella met them and sighed. “I’m sorry I brought that up…the stuff about other women. I’m jealous. I can’t stand the thought of you with anyone else.”

  Nathan scoffed. “You don’t say. I sorta got that idea during the Nadia fiasco the other night.”

  When Stella stuck her tongue out, Nathan smiled.

  She tickled his side. “And you’re not jealous?”

  “I’ve had more murderous thoughts toward people in the past two weeks than I have in the past 32 years.” When Stella grinned, he gave her a stern look. “Not funny. You’re going to get me into serious trouble, you know that?”

  “Yes.” Stella struggled against his grip. “Now let go of me so I can touch you.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Nathan couldn’t believe she still wanted him after seeing what a mess his body was.

  Well, maybe he could believe it. Stella wasn’t really someone who would let a few hundred scars stop her from getting what she wanted.

  And she wanted Nathan, no doubt about that. He didn’t know how or why, but there was no disputing the look in her eyes and the way she was kissing him like her life depended on it.

  They were a tangle of limbs and lips and frenzied movements. All designed to each them as close to one another as possible. They flipped and rolled; his comforter was pushed off the bed and his sheets were hanging on by a thread. Nathan would pin her down only to have Stella distract him long enough to get on top. When he finally got her on her back again, she bit and licked and scratched her nails down his back. It was like something out of every hot-blooded male’s wildest fantasy and something Nathan had ever expected to experience. Hadn’t thought it even existed in real life.

  And if Nathan thought she’d been passionate and unrestrained during their previous sexual encounters, those had been nothing compared to her ferocity tonight.

  At one point, the urge to take control and see Stella on all fours took hold and Nathan flipped her on her stomach. She made a little noise of protest at being rendered unable to touch him, but moaned as Nathan ran his hands over her amazing ass. It was soft, smooth, and perfectly shaped…exactly as he had envisioned it a million times in his mind. Stella then did exactly what he had hoped: she stuck her ass up high enough for him to position himself behind her and grab onto her hips.

  He’d never been one for shenanigans of any kind, but mostly especially not the sexual kind. Sex was for getting off and there didn’t need to be a bunch of BS to get there. But with her, with Stella, he wanted to prolong the experience as long as possible. And he wanted to do things to her and with her that he’d never really cared about before.

  Nathan had gone down on women before and he’d enjoyed it well enough, but the he’d never experienced the compulsion he had to taste Stella. He pulled her hips back until his mouth met the slick softness of her labia and groaned when she audibly gasped. Nathan started out slow, with his pace increasing in tandem with Stella’s moans and his own need. He licked and invaded and nuzzled her there until Stella broke apart under his mouth; crying out his name as she came for him.

  Nathan was positioned himself behind Stella. He grabbed her hips and entered her in one smooth, strong movement.

  “Oh, God…yes, Nathan…” Stella pushed herself backwards on his erection and Nathan lost all control.

  He slammed into her sweet warmth again and again until a powerful orgasm overcame him; wracking his entire body and turning his vision black for a few seconds as he pumped into her. With a
final shudder, Nathan fell forward, one hand braced on either side of Stella’s back.

  Stella’s body went limp beneath him and, when he could finally move, Nathan followed suit. He collapsed next to her, panting.

  Nathan turned his head and stared at the back of Stella’s. His gaze lowered to small tattoo on her left shoulder he’d never noticed before. It was a pink heart, pink ribbon, white wings, and a banner that read: “Survivor.”

  Wasn’t that the truth.

  Stella was lying motionless, with her arms above her head and her legs still splayed a little from Nathan’s invasion. A light sheen of perspiration coated her body.

  What the fuck, man…

  A flush crept up his neck.

  Nice move. Really smooth to just fuck her like an animal from behind out of nowhere.

  Idiot.

  “Stella?”

  “Mmmm?”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Mmmm-hmmm.”

  “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

  “Uh-uh.”

  Nathan let a few more minutes pass in silence before getting all weird on her again. “Hey, Stella?”

  “Mmmm?”

  “Are you…fine…with what happened?”

  Her snort was muffled by the mattress. “Uh, yeah, Nathan. I’m more than ‘fine’ with what happened.” She turned her head to face him and smiled sleepily. “I loved it. It was incredible and intense and insane. And I want to do it again really soon.” Stella’s eyes closed. “But right now, I’m tired and just want to enjoy the afterglow.” She cracked one eyelid and grinned at Nathan. “Is that okay with you, Sergeant?”

  Stella scooted closer and nuzzled into the crook of his arm. She threw her left leg over his right one and, with a contented sigh, fell fast asleep. Her slow, steady heartbeat resonated through his ribcage and the even warm puffs of her breath on his upper chest.

  He wondered, not for the first time, what Stella saw in him. Why she wanted to waste her time on him and trust her body with him. She was beautiful, funny, kind, smart, strong…Stella could have any man she wanted, any time she wanted. Why the fuck did she want him?