He stilled her movements, then waited until her gaze flicked up to him. “Promise me something.” There was only one thing he was afraid of when it came to Isleen and sex. Her past. She didn’t want to talk about it, and he wasn’t going to press her. He couldn’t handle it. Thinking that Queen might’ve hurt her—in that way—was enough to shoot his anger to the spontaneous combustion level.
“Anything.” The word came out breathy and full of yearning.
“If something doesn’t feel right to you, if you don’t like something, you tell me. Deal?”
“Deal.”
He nipped the end of her nose, then got out of bed and began wrestling his jeans off.
“Can I see all your scars?” She spoke the words to his back.
He froze, pants halfway down his legs.
Right after the lightning strike, he’d been shocked by his own appearance. The thing that helped him most was hearing everyone’s thoughts about the scars. The things he conjured in his own mind were always worse than what people actually thought. With her, he didn’t have that advantage. He had no idea how repulsed she’d be when she saw the whole damned thing.
He heard her moving on the bed, shifting closer to him, then standing up behind him. Hell, he couldn’t see her, but he could feel her at his back. Her hands lightly touched his hips, and he jerked as if she’d slapped him.
“I told you before… Your scars are beautiful.” Her words were a cool caress across his spine.
She dipped her hands into his underwear, sliding them down until they met his pants and he lifted his feet out of them. It felt so weird—and oddly wonderful—to have her undress him.
He forced himself to face her. He stood bare-ass naked in front of her, his Mr. Happy waving at her. “Yeah, I know.” He heard the resignation in his voice. “It’s one big scar.” He expected her to be staring at the deformity marring half his body, but her gaze was locked on his dick. The little fucker liked her looking and somehow got even harder.
She lifted her eyes to him and then reached for his face. It was crazy, but he almost flinched away from her. She touched the tippy-top edge of deformed skin on his forehead. A punch of energy surged through the network of scars, both painful and pleasurable. Shivers rolled over his shoulders.
“Is it sensitive? Hurt when I touch it?” Her eyes met his.
“No. It feels…odd and good. Way good.”
“I’m glad. I’ve wanted to do this since the very first dream of you.” With the tip of her finger, she traced the irregular flesh down his face and neck.
At his chest, she replaced her finger with her mouth. Each collision of lips to flesh was a percussion of feeling reverberating through him. Her touch was heaven and hellfire. Cooling and burning. Agony and ecstasy. He’d never felt anything like it. He wanted to feel it forever. He shook, his entire body trembling. He was acting like a damned virgin at his first prom.
She followed the pattern of scarring down, oh sweet Jesus, down to his hip, to the tangled branch of puckered skin that disappeared only when it reached his dick. Her beautiful thick hair whispered over him, and it was too much. A bead of pre-come oozed out, sliding down his shaft, and Christ, even that was an exotic pleasure. A tortured groan slipped up from deep in his throat. Her gaze flicked up to him, and it was all he could do to not grab her head and shove his dick in her mouth. He wouldn’t do that to her. Not now. Not yet. Not until he knew that’s what she wanted.
“Gotta stop right there.” He spoke through clenched teeth and forced himself to take a step back from her. At this rate, he wasn’t going to make it to the finale. He sucked in a breath, trying to calm his body.
“I want to be naked too.”
All he could do was watch and make sure his tongue wasn’t hanging out the side of his mouth. Her shorts and panties came off as one. There was no hesitation or shyness to her movements when she pulled the braless tank top over her head. She stretched her arms up, arching her spine and thrusting out her small, but perfect breasts. Her nipples were the exact shade of pink as the blush of her cheeks. Maybe it made him a pussy, but pink was his new favorite color.
Over the past few days, not only had her hair grown at an exceedingly fast rate, but her body had filled out. She was still too thin, but she no longer looked skeletal. Scars marred her skin, some pale with age, some red and fresh. God. After everything she’d been through, for her to be standing here in front of him wearing only a smile, was a miracle. She was a miracle.
“You have so many scars.” Okay, not the most romantic words. He settled his hand over the healed wound on her side, the one that had oozed blood when he’d found her. Now only days later, it was completely healed. Somewhere deep inside, in a place of intuition and instinct, he knew he’d played a part in her recovery.
She smiled, but the smile was a sad one, the kind you expected to see on someone who’d suffered a great loss and was trying to hide it. Her shoulders slumped and her arms moved a bit in front of her body as if she were trying to hide her nakedness from him. Leave it to him to say the asshole thing, even when he wasn’t trying to be an ass.