I move slowly, cautiously. I uncurl fingers I wasn’t even aware of drawing into fists, and I reach for her again. I brush away the hair that wants to fall back over her shoulder, like she’s trained it to cover her. I bend to press my lips to the curve of her neck, to the scars that have haunted her for so long. “This doesn’t make you less,” I tell her softly. “It makes you more. More beautiful, more desirable. It makes you a survivor. A winner. Someone worth having.” I drop my voice into a whisper. “Someone worth loving.”
I move to nuzzle the soft space beneath her ear, gratified by the subtle change in her breathing. It turns from a heave to a sigh as she leans into me just a few centimeters. But a few centimeters is enough. It’s enough to assure me that I’m reading her right. Despite what has happened, despite the turmoil of the day, she wants me. Like I want her. She cares what I think. She might not want to, but she does. And that’s good. Because I care, too. Maybe more than I should, especially for a girl who wants nothing except to push people away.
“Can’t you just trust me? Just a little? Can’t you let me love you?”
The pause before her answer is so long I think she might not answer.
But then she does.
“I-I’m afraid,” comes her barely audible response.
“Don’t be. I’ve got you. I won’t let anything hurt you. Including me.”
She’s silent for a long time as I press tiny kisses along her jaw and cheek, stroking the smooth parts of her skin to put her at ease.
“Please don’t disappoint me.”
Her request is like a punch in the gut. The pain, the raw plea in her voice cuts through me like a knife.
“I’d rather take a beating than disappoint you.”
She raises tentative hands to curl her fingers around my biceps. I feel them tremble. I feel her fight as clearly as if it were my own. But I also feel her give in.
“Then love me.”
She doesn’t have to tell me twice.
TWENTY-ONE
Katie
For the first time since I woke up from a medically induced coma in the hospital five years ago, I’m letting go. I’m trusting. I’m throwing all my caution, all my insecurity, all my reasons out the window and I’m letting someone in. All the way in.
For the first time, I’m trying to live.
Rogan has seen me. All of me. All the ugly, all the fear, and he still wants me. I might never experience this again, so for just this one moment in time, I’m giving in.
I don’t protest when he slides one arm behind my back and the other beneath my knees to sweep me off my feet. In the bedroom, he sets me at the foot of the bed, but he doesn’t back away. Instead, he stands so close I can feel the heat radiating from his chest, from his stomach, from his thighs, warming me through and through.
He lowers his mouth to mine in a kiss that sears me—my flesh, my heart, my soul. It says he accepts me. It says he wants me. It says that, for now, he won’t hurt me. He’ll only make me feel beautiful and special and loved. Not like a freak show.
With every soft brush of his lips, he rubs away Ronnie’s touch. He rubs away Calvin, my ex’s, fists. He replaces the flames of my past with a new kind of fire, the kind that kindles low in my belly and spreads through my limbs in a slow blaze.
“You taste so good,” he mutters as he licks along the crease of my lips. “I bet you’re delicious everywhere.”
My knees go all soft at his words. It’s been so long . . . So, so long . . .
Rogan spreads kisses across my collarbone and down the center of my chest. His hands come up to palm my breasts. He grazes my nipples with his thumbs and I let my head drop back on my shoulders, the sensation tingling all the way down my arms to my fingertips.
“So beautiful,” he says as his lips travel to cover one nipple. The first touch of his tongue, hotter than any real fire, causes me to gasp. “Do you like that?” he asks, swirling wet heat around the sensitive peak. I don’t respond. I simply thread my fingers into his hair and hold him to me. He laughs, a deep throaty chuckle that vibrates through my breast. “Mmmm, that’s what I thought.”