He shakes his head. “It’s not important. We can keep going.”
“The hell you say,” I blurt. “You’re not sticking your dick in me until you let out some of that pent-up . . . whatever. What about Zag? Was that a place you were stationed or something?”
Celeste touches his cheek and he lifts his gaze, the distant look focusing on her so intently some of the spark finally comes back.
“Zag’s a person,” she says, caressing his stubble so I can hear the light rasp.
He gives the barest nod, then drops his head back and sighs. “Boyfriend.” He clears his throat and looks at me. “You’ll have him to thank for pretty much everything you experience later. We were together five years until he died. He taught me everything I know.”
“So I guess I’m stuck with your rudimentary woman skills, huh?” Celeste teases.
Maddox gives her an incredulous look. “Sweetness, I’m an expert in you. Have you had any complaints with what I’ve done so far?”
“Only that you refuse to get naked for me. Look at me. I’m already undressed. Leo’s halfway there. It’s your turn. So unless you got a tattoo of my butthole somewhere on your body, we aren’t going to laugh.”
“Your . . . what?”
I bark a laugh. “I told you there were other tempting photos in that batch,” I say with a shrug.
He shakes his head and gives her a bemused smile, then takes a long breath. “You’ve been warned. I’m working on getting them covered, but it’s a long, slow process.”
“So someone has seen you with your shirt off.”
“Just my doctor and my tattoo artist.”
He goes for the hem of his shirt, but Celeste stops him. She grabs his hands and leads him a few feet away from the counter. At her head tilt, I move to stand behind him, and when Celeste urges him to lift his arms, I take the initiative and grab the bottom of his T-shirt to peel it up his torso. It’s a weird sensation, standing here and undressing another man, and as his skin is revealed, I understand why he was so skittish. He has a web of alien-looking pink scar tissue covering his back on his left side. It stretches from the peak of his shoulder diagonally to his spine in a mottled, half-melted, irregular mesh, then extends down his ribcage. There are smaller pink blemishes lower, but nothing as pronounced, though “smaller” is relative because they’re still larger than the bullet scar on my shoulder.
“Jesus,” I blurt when he’s shirtless. I touch the edge of his tattoos, which cover his left arm but end at his shoulder.
He emits a mirthless chuckle. “Yeah, it’s bad. I’m just lucky it’s easy enough to hide under my clothes. Zag took the worst of the blast, threw himself on top of me in his blast suit, but the suit wasn’t enough to save him.”
I remember a few of his stories about missions, then it clicks that Zag is the Zagorski guy he mentioned on a few occasions, who was the CO of the EOD squad Maddox covered as a medic. He never mentioned getting injured or losing anyone though.
“You don’t need to talk about it if you don’t want to,” Celeste says. She’s standing close to him, staring up into his eyes.
“I do, but maybe not tonight.” His voice takes on a rougher tone, and I rest my hands on his shoulders, lean in, and kiss the back of his neck. He tilts his head back, leaning into me, and I squeeze his shoulders, glad when some of the tension eases out of them.
Skin to skin, he feels good, and I press closer. I know how fantastic it feels when Celeste spoons up against my back, not to mention how she always seems to sink right through the bed like a contented cat when I do it to her. I just hope the presence of my hard dick doesn’t ruin the moment. His hips tilt back, his ass pressing harder against my groin, and the mood shifts so effortlessly it’s uncanny. One second he seems too self-conscious to move, the next he hauls Celeste into his arms, growling into a kiss.
Despite the scars that tell the tale of one epic injury, the muscles beneath are strong, and they flex and bunch under my hands when he lifts her. She lets out a surprised, breathy laugh and meets my eyes over his shoulder just before she kisses him again, then she pulls away and whispers something in his ear.
“Mmm, I didn’t forget,” he rumbles back. He lets her slide down his front again, then releases her and smacks her ass with a hard thwack. “Meet us on the bed.”
She strides off, casting a seductive look over her shoulder. I watch her walk, enjoying the view of her smooth, plump ass and its inverted heart shape, the way her long hair brushes the center of her back just above the pair of dimples there.
Just as she disappears around the folding screen that conceals his bed, Maddox turns to me, but instead of embracing me, he slides his hand down the back of my jeans, squeezing my ass in a not-so-subtle reminder of why I’m here. “You know what has to happen before you get a taste of that.”
I force myself to look him in the eyes, but my mouth has gone too dry to speak. He takes pity on me and releases my ass. He backs up, nods for me to take a seat, and pours three more shots of tequila.
“Lubrication is key,” he says with a smirk, pushing all three
