My hands moved from his hips to explore the smooth expanse of his back, tracing the contours of his spine while he moaned softly against my lips.
The sound vibrated through me, igniting something possessive I hadn't felt in years. I pulled him closer, my arms encircling his waist as the kiss deepened further.
He responded by shifting his position, straddling my lap more deliberately so that his naked thighs bracketed mine.
The pressure against my unexpected erection intensified, and I gasped into his mouth. Connor swallowed the sound eagerly, his hips making a small, experimental movement that sent sparks of pleasure shooting through me.
"I want to see you," he whispered against my lips. "All of you."
His hands moved to the waistband of my pajama bottoms again, and this time I didn't stop him. I lifted my hips as much as I could to help as he tugged the fabric down.
I felt a moment of self-consciousness as my lower body was revealed—the musculature altered by years of disuse, the scars more prominent here than on my upper body.
But Connor's gaze held no pity, no revulsion. Instead, his eyes darkened with desire as they swept over me.
"You're perfect," he said, his voice hushed.
I almost protested the absurdity of the statement. Perfect was the last thing I was. Perfect belonged to the man I'd beenbefore the accident—whole, unmarked, confident in my body's capabilities. The man I was now was held together with surgical steel and stubborn determination.
But something in Connor's expression stopped the denial before it reached my lips. He was looking at me not with the clinical assessment of doctors or the awkward avoidance of acquaintances, but with genuine appreciation. As if the scars were simply part of the landscape of my body rather than markers of damage.
His hands followed his gaze, tracing the lines of my hips, my thighs. When his fingers brushed against one of the longer scars on my leg, I tensed involuntarily, waiting for the questions, for the shift in mood that usually accompanied such discoveries.
Instead, Connor leaned down and pressed a kiss to the scar tissue, his lips gentle against the raised ridge. The tenderness of the gesture made my throat tight with an emotion I couldn't name.
"Thank you for letting me see you," he said, his eyes meeting mine as he straightened.
The rustle of remaining clothing being removed filled the quiet room as I pushed my pajama shirt completely off, surrendering to the moment with a completeness that should have terrified me.
I was exposed now—not just physically but emotionally—in a way I hadn't allowed myself to be since before the accident.
Connor settled back onto my lap, our naked bodies finally meeting without barriers. The sensation of skin against skin was overwhelming after so long without such contact.
He was warm and solid and real, his weight anchoring me to the present when I might have otherwise dissociated from the intensity of the experience.
His hands framed my face, thumbs stroking my cheekbones with surprising tenderness given his drugged state. "Is this okay?" he asked, a moment of lucidity breaking through.
The question almost made me laugh. Was it okay? Nothing about this situation was okay. He was drugged. I was disabled. We were strangers caught in extraordinary circumstances. By any rational measure, what we were doing was ill-advised at best, potentially harmful at worst.
And yet, as I looked into his eyes—blue-gray and earnest despite the dilation of his pupils—I couldn't bring myself to end it.
"Yes," I said finally, my hands settling on his hips. "This is okay."
The smile that broke across his face was like sunrise after the longest night, brilliant and warming. He leaned forward to kiss me again, his body pressing insistently against mine, and I surrendered to the heat building between us.
What followed was a night of discovery that defied everything I'd accepted about my post-accident life.
Connor's hands and mouth explored my body with a combination of reverence and hunger that left me breathless. Each touch awakened nerve endings I'd thought permanently dormant, sending electric currents of pleasure racing through paths I'd believed forever closed.
I found myself responding with increasing intensity, sounds escaping my lips that I never thought I'd make again—deep groans when his mouth found sensitive spots on my neck, sharp gasps when his fingers traced the ridges of my hipbones, broken whispers of encouragement when he ventured lower.
"You're so responsive," Connor murmured against my collarbone, his voice carrying a note of wonder. "So beautiful when you let go."
I wanted to tell him that I hadn't "let go" in three years—that I'd held myself together with iron control, never allowing myself to be vulnerable, never permitting desire to breach my carefully constructed defenses.
But the words caught in my throat as his lips moved down my chest, his tongue tracing patterns that made coherent thought impossible.
Unlike the clinical touches of physical therapists or the awkward assistance of home health aides, Connor touched me like I was whole. His fingers found the scars that mapped the geography of my accident, but instead of avoiding them or treating them with pitying gentleness, he incorporated them into his exploration.
