Free Burn for You: Outback Skies, Book 2 by Lexxie Couper

moaned, swaying towards her as he slid his hands over her hips.
    She continued her exploration of his throat, across the broad expanse of his chest, up to the muscular curve of his left shoulder. The uneven texture of his skin felt foreign beneath her lips, and yet her mind and her body didn’t rebel or recoil.
    Instead, a sense of rightness bloomed within her heart, a feeling of excitement and anticipation. She could spend the rest of forever exploring Evan’s skin with her lips and tongue and fingers. She could spend the rest of her life doing everything she could to erase the painful memories of those scars with moments of love.
    Love.
    The single syllable word caressed her heart.
    She wasn’t in love with him. Not yet, but she suspected it wouldn’t take long before she was.
    She had no problem with that at all.
    With one final tiny step, she destroyed the minute space between them, returning her lips to his as she pressed her body against the hard warmth of his.
    A soft noise—a groan of pleasure—vibrated low in his chest as she crushed her bare breasts to his chest. It radiated through his body into hers, along with the rapid pounding of his heart. The sensation of his skin sliding against her nipples filled her with a wave of giddy delight. She teased his tongue with her own, rolling her hips a little as she feathered her fingertips up the side of his torso.
    For a heart-stilling second, she thought he was going to halt her hands. He didn’t.
    Whereas every time before he’d stopped her from touching his scarred skin, now he proceeded to knead her backside, letting her caress his ribcage and his pecs with her fingers as he thoroughly worshipped her arse cheeks.
    She reveled in his acceptance. Her soul flooded with joy. Her sex flooded with liquid need.
    “I want…” she murmured against his lips.
    Smoothing her hands back down his torso, she shifted her feet a little, enough to allow her hand to slip between their bellies.
    Nipping at his bottom lip with her teeth, she reached for his belt. She tugged at the strip of leather threaded though the buckle at the same time that she lowered the zipper of his fly.
    “ No! ” He jerked away from her. Not just one staggered step this time, but three. Three violent backward steps.
    Jenna’s heart smashed into her throat.
    He turned his back to her. For the first time, she saw how far around his body the scars reached. Most of the muscular plane of his back was a mess of pinkish-white taut flesh. It extended up to the base of his scalp to disappear beneath his shaggy hair, and down below the waistband of his jeans.
    Once again, the reality of the excruciating pain he had endured slammed into her. Her stomach rolled.
    “Evan.” His name fell from her in a husky plea. “Please don’t do this to yourself. To us. I don’t care—”
    “I do,” he answered without turning. His back and shoulders moved as he pulled a ragged breath. She could hear the torment in the slow intake. “You’ve got your story. Now you can go.”
    She stared at his back, at flesh marred by fire and who knows how many skin grafts. Hot tears pricked her eyes. Her blood roared in her head. Her heart thumped in her throat. “My story? The only story I’ve found here is that the hero of Wallaby Ridge is nothing but a broken man afraid to let anyone in to his life. Is that the story you want me to walk away with?”
    He didn’t answer.
    Her eyes stung. Her vision blurred. A single tear fell to her cheek.
    “Is it?” she repeated, although the words were little more than a choked breath.
    He turned his head—a fraction—to the right, not even enough for her to see a hint of his profile. “Please, Jenna. Please go.”
    Gut a churning storm, Jenna ran her gaze over his back one more time. Ached for him. Prayed for him to turn and look at her.
    But he didn’t.
    Instead, he snatched up his shirt from the floor and pulled it over his head and covered his torso once again. Instead, he walked