Stephanie Tyler - Unbreakable

“You can’t be serious about letting her go back to him,” Avery said.

“Keeping her away from him might fuck her up more,” Jem said. “Trust me, Avery—I know about this shit. Seen it firsthand.”

He stared at the closed bathroom door and wished to hell he knew how to fix this.

Two months later

Avery lay down on the table in Gunner’s shop. It had been damaged from the bomb, with the shop taking the brunt of the damage. But Jem had hired men to renovate—and fast—and the shop had been redone to look the way he’d left it for the most part, save for some other updates. She’d researched the latest in equipment, gotten him leather tables and chairs, all of which added to the look he’d already created.

He’d loved it. She’d watched him just walk around the shop for a while, touching the guns and the chairs and the pictures, as though he was making sure it was all real.

And then he’d finally done the same to her. It was only the two of them in here tonight—he’d booked a private session, he’d told her. But instead of drawing and getting stencils ready, he was sliding a hand under her tank top, kissing her neck, picking her up and placing her on the table so he was standing between her legs.

“I thought you were tattooing me?” she asked, but she was far from complaining.

“Got to prepare. Relax. Make sure every inch of your skin’s ready for me,” Gunner murmured. He licked at her collarbone, nipped at her skin and she carded her hands through his dark hair.

They’d both gone through what seemed like complete transformation the past months. Somehow she’d never felt more like herself. She was complete, and she was done running.

Gunner was on the same page. If he hadn’t told her—which he had—she’d know it by his kisses, each one a promise. He was tugging down her sweats, pulling off her tank top.

“Because you have to take it off for the session anyway,” he said seriously.

“And my pants?”

“All for your comfort,” he assured her as he dropped them to the floor and dragged a finger gently along her wet sex. She gasped at the jolt of pleasure. “See? Better already?”

“Yes,” she agreed, because stopping now might kill her. Between the danger and her wounds, just being with him like this hadn’t happened frequently enough. Since the first time she’d let him see her scars, before Landon was caught, the sex had been during stolen, frantic moments.

His finger slid inside her as his thumb played along her clit. She pulled his head to her, kissed him, tongue sliding along his.

A second finger slid into her, and her hips rose to meet the touch. He always made her feel like this—aching with need and so completely wanted.

She moaned into his mouth as they kissed for a while. Then he kissed his way down to her breasts, laved her nipples until they were swollen and tender with arousal, until she was so wet and needful, she clawed at him for more.

She helped yank his pants down impatiently. Stroked his cock as he groaned. Guided him inside her, then pushed against him so he was forced to enter her quickly. She was on her back and he was standing over her, holding her thighs up, watching her face as he thrust.

“Fuck yeah, Avery. So tight and wet.”

“Yes.”

“For me.”

“Only. All for you.” Pleasure strummed every inch of her body as her climax built, started with the intense tightening in her belly and spread until her orgasm took away any coherent thoughts. Gunner rocked into her as she contracted around him until he came too, with a shout that sounded like her name. And then he half collapsed onto her as they recovered. And then he began to draw. While he was still on top of her.

“Should I be offended?” she asked.

“Did you come?”

“I think you know the answer to that.” She felt boneless. He smiled, slid off her, covered most of her with a towel. When she looked down, she noted that he’d kept one of her scars exposed. He ran his finger across it, the way she did sometimes. It was only slightly raised and pretty thin, considering how ragged the cut had been.

“Drea did a good job,” she said, tried to keep the sadness out of her voice, and he nodded. “I promised her I’d fix it further.”

“I wish we could fix her,” she whispered.

“Me too.” He pressed his lips to one of the scars. “But this is your night. She’d want this.”

Although Avery couldn’t claim to know Drea well, she did know her well enough to recognize the truth in Gunner’s words. She knew he would cover the scars so well that the first thing she saw when she looked in the mirror would be his work, not Donal’s.

She also knew that when Gunner looked at her, he didn’t see any scars at all. This was all for her. “Make it beautiful,” she told him.

“Can’t improve on perfection,” he teased, and she giggled. Giggled. It had been so long since she felt free.

There were still more tests coming at them—she knew that there might be problems from what they’d done to Landon—problems from whatever they decided to do in the future as S8. But they’d handle them together. “I love you, Gunner.”

She’d said it to him so many times in the past month. Loved saying it as much as she loved him.

“Love you, chère .” He traced a finger over her skin. “Ready?”

“Yes.”

She’d seen him do something similar to cover scars. The first night she’d met him, he’d been tattooing over the breasts of a mastectomy patient, making her look and feel beautiful. And now he was going to make his mark on her, turn something horrible into something beautiful.

He was so good at that.

The buzz of the needle was like a drug to her. She let herself drift in and out, confident that Gunner would keep all his promises.

He didn’t finish it all that night, but he covered the large one on her upper torso and he repaired the very first tattoo he’d given her in painstaking detail.

“You can’t even tell anything happened,” she said. “But it did. And you made it okay.”

“I’m always going to make it okay,” he told her fiercely. “Always.”

She believed him.

All she could remember was Danny. He helped her. Saved her from her family and now the handsome, dark-haired man was refusing to let her see him.

He looked so grim when he told her for what had to be the hundredth time, “That’s right, Drea—I won’t let you be with Danny.”

“Why?”

“Maybe one day, you’ll know the answer to that.”

He’d told her the real answer, a few times, that she was broken up with Danny, that she was a doctor. That Danny had hurt her. That she’d run from him. That she’d asked Jem for help and now he was helping her.

Sometimes she felt as if she was going crazy. After two weeks, she still couldn’t remember anything he’d told her. He’d even gone so far as to show her a picture of herself on the FBI’s database.

A wanted woman. Because of Danny.

So although she might believe it somewhere deep inside, because she knew that Danny was the head of a motorcycle club that sold drugs and could believe he’d get her in trouble, she remembered how bad it had been at home. How much better it had been with Danny.

You’re a doctor.

You’re strong as hell.

You’ll remember everything soon.

Jem told her that. A doctor did too.

“So basically, I’m in hiding from the FBI?” she asked. They were in a rental house, he’d told her earlier, and it was cozy and furnished and very comfortable, but she was going stir-crazy staying inside. There was only so much TV she could watch, and she’d read so much her eyes were strained.