almost the entire length of his opposite thigh. It was dark brown and puckered and also quite wide in places, like it hadn’t healed that well.
He nodded, his gaze dropping to where her finger was mapping the contours. “You should see the other guy.”
Jane gave a half laugh. “This happened in the accident?”
“Because of the accident, yes. I was in the car for a few hours before I was found. I developed this thing called compartment syndrome in my quadriceps from all the internal bleeding caused by my fractured femur. The pressure had built up, compressing nerves and blood supply to the muscle and to all the nerves and muscles in my lower leg. They had to do an emergency fasciotomy. That’s where they open up the skin and the fascia to decompress the area.”
He bent his leg up and ran his finger along the ridge of the scar, looking very far away for a moment. He slid his leg down. “It doesn’t look pretty. There were a lot of issues with the wound healing afterwards, and I tend toward keloid scarring, but the surgeon reckons I’d have lost my leg had they not gone in when they did.”
Jane sucked in an unsteady breath. She couldn’t even begin to imagine the trauma he’d been through. Sure, his rugby days were over, but he could have lost his leg. Maybe even…died. She might not have known him for long, but that outcome was already unthinkable. “What happened? With the accident?” she asked, her fingers taking up their caress again.
He might not think it was pretty, but this scar was his badge of survival.
“I fell asleep at the wheel one night, coming back from a game out west. It was early in the morning, and I was tired when I got into the car, but I needed to be back in Sydney for an eight a.m. meeting, and it was only a three-hour drive. I thought I’d be okay, and my plan was to pull over and have a kip on the side of the road if I felt sleepy. But yeah…I never got that far. I woke up as the car clipped a cement bollard at some roadworks. It spun out a few times, clipping another one on the opposite side and flipping over several times before slamming driver’s side first into a massive tree.”
Jane’s hand slid to her belly, trying to quell the sudden pitch of nausea. No wonder he had a limp. “Jesus, Cole.”
“Yeah.” He nodded. “It’s pretty deserted in that part of the country, especially at that hour of night, so it was well over an hour before a truck driver came across the accident. And another couple of hours before I was cut out and airlifted to one of the big Sydney trauma hospitals.”
Goose bumps pricked at Jane’s flesh. He’d had to be cut out of his vehicle. “It sounds like you’re very lucky to be alive.”
“Definitely. I’m very thankful for seatbelts and airbags.”
Considering where she was and what they’d done and were about to do, Jane had to concur. She walked her fingers up his thigh in a northerly direction, pleased to see that despite the rather somber turn of the conversation, Cole didn’t seem to have suffered any damage to his equipment. There were no scars or other obvious deformities, and it was definitely in full working order.
Time to lighten things up. “I see some parts of your anatomy escaped unscathed.”
“I know, right?” His hands slid up her body to her breasts, cupping them, and Jane moaned and closed her eyes as her nipples hardened beneath the brush of his thumbs, goose bumps dusting her torso. “But you should probably take it for another test ride in case it was just beginner’s luck.”
Jane sincerely doubted Cole’s sexual prowess had anything to do with luck and everything to do with commitment, practice, and God-given ability.
Like his rugby.
His right hand fell away, and she almost mewed in frustration at the loss of sensation. Opening her eyes to protest the withdrawal, she found him reaching for a condom on the table and presenting it to her. “You want to put it on, or shall I?”
Jane shook her head. “We won’t be needing that.” She had other plans for Cole Hauser’s magnificent cock.
“We won’t?”
“Nope. I know this happened a while ago, but I feel like you might need some kissing better, and—” She walked her fingers from his groin to the thickness of his shaft. “This seems as good