SIX
He was crazy. Brett was crazy. The situation was crazy.
John’s mind whirled as he heard the words coming out of his own mouth. We can try it. The moment that they were out, he wanted to snatch them back and shove them down his own throat once more, but at the same time, there was this incredible lifting inside of him. Like something, some burden had slid free of him, and he was letting it go.
He wanted this. And maybe that was the scariest thing of all about it, that he could allow himself to be so weak. Hadn’t he spent years toughening himself up? So why would he be melting now, when Brett was only barely touching him?
No one in the world was here to do him any favors. He remembered being told those words very clearly by his father before the man had proven his point and walked out of John’s life. The world was a shitty place, and people who let themselves be used would be hurt.
But then Brett was doing him a favor. In full knowledge of just how little John could ever do to pay him back, Brett had offered, and offered, and then offered again. And that perseverance had won John over.
Even now, as he cleared his throat and pulled away from those hands on his shoulders, he had to wonder if he was making the worst mistake of his life. But it came down to one simple thing. He wanted it, and Brett wanted to do it. What better reason could there be than that?
“Uh,” John said, feeling stupid. He looked up at Brett, who gazed down at him thoughtfully, with perhaps a trace of fear in his eyes, tensing the corners of his generous mouth, that John might call this off. Well, that was the last thing he wanted to do, right or wrong, and the last lingering doubts melted away. “So should I take off my shirt? Here or in the bedroom?”
Brett turned away from John, looking instead at the couch with an appraising eye. That actually comforted John quite a bit, seeing the professionalism written on his face. This was a man who knew what he was doing, and it was a side of Brett that John had never seen before, but it was nice to know that the person who was going to be touching John’s poor, messed up back, which caused him so much pain, at least wouldn’t make anything worse.
“The bed,” he decided. “The couch isn’t high enough, I would have to kneel on the floor, and that would be uncomfortable.”
So back to Brett’s bed, that soft, sweet haven, they went, and John stripped off his shirt and quickly lay down. The mirror told him that the scars he bore had faded, but part of him wouldn’t ever believe it. The flash of the makeshift bomb, the concussion of it as it had thrown up backward, the shrapnel slicing into his flesh, those were forever marked into his mind even if they didn’t show on his body much anymore.
He felt like they did, and if he were honest with himself, that might have been part of why he hadn’t gotten laid in so long. Who could want a broken man, like he was? So he took his shirt off quickly, then, far too abruptly for his straining back, he flopped down onto the bed. But there was no hiding his back, of course. Not given that the whole point of this was to get it massaged.
When he shot a look at Brett, though, the younger man wasn’t even looking at him. Instead, he was poking through a cupboard, then pulling out a bottle which John very shrewdly deduced was probably massage oil. It was, he told himself nervously, what made the most sense.
God, he was going to pass out. He closed his eyes, not sure that he was going to be able to handle seeing the look of disgust on Brett’s face when he saw John’s body, saw the scars, only Brett wasn’t just going to see them. He was going to touch them.
It was fine. It was all fine. Brett was clearly a professional, just as he had said, and when John dared to open his eyes again, he saw no indication of anything else. Brett reached down, adjusting John’s arms so that they lay by his side, and his hands were smooth and impersonal.
“Let me know if it hurts too much, or in a bad way,” Brett instructed. “I have a very firm touch, I’ve been told.”
John nodded, not trusting his voice to come out right. The anticipation, along with the fear, swirled madly through his mind and tightened his throat and settled in the pit of his stomach. He lay very still, and very stiff, on the bed, but he did consent.
Nothing could have braced him for what it would feel like to have Brett’s hands on him, bare flesh against bare flesh. John closed his eyes against the sting of tears because it had been so long since anyone had touched him, and it meant far too much.
Brett’s hands were strong, just as he had warned, but for John, thick with muscle as his shoulders and back were, that was perfect. A light touch would have done nothing. Slick with the massage oil, Brett’s fingers slid over John’s shoulders, starting at the point where his shoulder met his arm and moved over the tensed muscles to the place where John’s neck rose up away from his back.
John hadn’t fully understood what Brett had meant when he had said that John should let him know if what was happening hurt in a bad way. Wasn’t all pain sort of bad, just by definition? But there was this sweet ache which radiated out, a comforting warmth spreading from Brett’s hands as they slid over his muscles, sore from months and months of pain.
It did hurt, in short, but in a good way, in the best possible way. John thought that he would probably beg Brett to keep going if the other man stopped, so yes, as it turned out, pain could be a good thing. In this one situation, at least.
John didn’t dare to look, but he didn’t sense any hesitation, nor any disgust, from Brett. The scars, which usually seemed to burn as though etched by acid into John’s mind every time he thought of them, faded right out because Brett was rubbing over the scars just as he was over healthy skin. It was like they made no difference at all to him, and that helped them diminish in John’s eyes, too.
He could have thanked Brett just for that, just for the confident way that his strong, supple, sure hands slid over his body. Regardless of the physical release of his muscles, there was a whole other kind of release, the simple pleasure of being touched, of surrendering to this very basic human need that he had been denying himself.
But he had no idea how to say that, any of it, so he bit his tongue and just let it happen. He trusted Brett, and he put his body into his hands, knowing more with every moment that passed that Brett wouldn’t betray that trust.
The more that he gave in to that, the more aware of his own body he became. Obsessed with the smooth way that those hands, slick with oil, caressed every sore muscle, unerringly sought out every knot, every sore place, and rubbed them out with unbelievable skill, he followed the course of those fingers and found a sensual sort of pleasure that he hadn’t really felt since before he’d been injured.
If then.
A groan struggled out of the very core of his being, rising up his throat, but he choked it back, refused to let it out. That would be creepy as hell, for him to moan while Brett was rubbing his back, wouldn’t it? It was a good thing that he had a lot of practice holding things back, though, because the more Brett rubbed, the better it felt.
There was nothing delicate about the touch, just as Brett had warned. And that was a damn good thing because after months of constant pain, and after years before that of stress and tension, as he fought for his country, there was too much in his muscles for a light touch to even come close to releasing.
Over his shoulder blades to his spine, and then down along each side of it, Brett’s hands spread pleasure and pain and relaxation in their wake. Along the spine and down to the small of John’s back, pressing and rubbing and easing the tightness out, Brett leaned into it, put the weight of his body into it. And John couldn’t help the slight cry that came out of him as those sure hands settled right on the small of his back, just inches above the swell of his ass.
“Is that too much?” Brett asked, and John, finding it hard for a moment or two to find the words that he needed, simply shook his head, gasping in the aftershock of that intense sensation. No doubt, it was a lot, but too much? No way. Not even close.
