“Until I take it off,” I joked.
He shook his head. “Even more beautiful.”
His voice was warm, and his eyes were warm, and his hands were warm and clumsy with eagerness as we tugged and yankedmy stupid shapewear down to my ankles. He steadied me as I stumbled out of my boots.Free. Being with Tim felt real, the awkward bits and the laughter and the box of condoms he pulled from the nightstand drawer.
I looked at them, assailed by a second of doubt. I hadn’t done this recently or with anyone but Gray in a long, long time.
“They’re not expired yet,” Tim said, understanding my need for reassurance, even if he didn’t know the cause.
I smiled. He wasn’t carving notches in his bedpost. There was no bedpost. This was Tim, careful and caring. Of course he had birth control handy.
He gathered me against him, my bare body against his clothed one, the contrast stunning. Erotic. I couldn’t keep from touching him. I ran my hands everywhere I could reach: the short, bristling hair at the back of his neck, his broad shoulders, his back, his abdomen. Lower. He made a sound deep in his throat. Encouraged, I fumbled with his buckle. He helped me, shucking his briefs with his pants.
I tugged at his buttons, but he distracted me, taking my mouth, pushing me down on the mattress, focused and not so polite now. I slid my fingers into his hair, matching his urgency, urging him on as he covered me. His square, scarred knee pushed between mine, his hair-roughened thigh teasing my nerve endings to life, and then he was there—there yes please yes there—his weight solid and focused right where I needed him most. He felt so good I gasped. I stroked him, discovering him in the dark—blunt, thick, and silken.
It wasn’t enough. I wanted all of him. Naked. Now. I wrestled with his buttons. He stiffened, capturing my hands. I tugged free, desperate for the feel of his flesh, struggling to get his shirt off.
“Dee...” Half plea, half protest.
My fingers grazed his chest. He froze. My touch slowed. Gentled. The texture there was different, soft hair and smooth skin sundered by ridges of raised tissue.
“Let me help,” I whispered.Let me see.
His jaw knotted. He levered his weight, holding still as I opened his shirt. His fists clenched and unclenched as I pushed the fabric from his shoulders and down his arms.
Whatever I’d been picturing, it was not this. His chest was a road map of scars: a constellation of stars high on his shoulder, an oval divot to the right of his sternum, a brutal patchwork on his left pectoral bisected by a darker pink line. As if someone had cut out his heart.
Tenderness welled. I blinked back tears. “Does it hurt?”
“No.” He cleared his throat. “The opposite, actually. I can’t feel it at all.”
I touched the divot. “Here?”
“It’s fine.”
“How about here?” The burst of stars.
“Also fine.” A thread of amusement in his voice.
I scraped his nipple gently with my thumbnail. “And this?”
“That’s...” His voice roughened. “That’s good.”
I kissed his chest. He shuddered under my lips. I raised on my elbows, tracing his hurts with hands and mouth, feeling him unravel under my touch, his control fraying. He grabbed for a condom and pushed me down. I lifted to him as he entered me in a slow, thick slide, as he held me tightly, real and solid and there in the darkness.
In bed, Tim was perfectly himself. Careful. Thorough. Steady.
It worked. It worked very well. Both times.
Twenty-four
He’d only wanted to help.
But here they were, in his bed, Dee curled against his side, facing him. Flushed. Sated. Asleep.
He’d done that. Tim grinned like a fool in the dark.
Her hair tickled his jaw. Very carefully, so he didn’t disturb her, he pulled a strand from her lips, smoothing it back against his pillow. She made a soft, protesting sound, and nestled her head against his shoulder.
