I can tell from the way he looks up that he’s trying to remember what he wrote. He blinks. “I said you’re beautiful.” He pulls away from me in disbelief. “You think I’m lying about that? You’re fucking gorgeous!”
“I don’t feel beautiful,” I tell him in a small voice.
I wait for him to tell me that I’m being as ridiculous as I am. Only he doesn’t. Instead, his fingers reach up and gently brush a strand of hair away from my cheek. His touch is careful, like he’s afraid I’ll disappear if he presses too hard.
“You don’t have to,” he murmurs. “I do.”
I finally look up at him again.
His green eyes have seemed darker lately.Shadowed. There’s something coiled behind them that wasn’t there when I first woke up in that hospital bed, and it’s watching me as if it wants me to notice it.
“I wish I could remember,” I whisper. “More than that, I wish I could see what you see when you look at me.”
“Well, that’s easy,” he murmurs back. He suddenly stands, holding out his hand to me. “I can show you.”
My breath catches. “Show me what?”
“What I see.”
I hesitate only a second before I take his hand.
He pulls me up gently and leads me towards the hall. I expect that we’re going to our bedroom, but he passes that room. My old room, too. He keeps going until he takes me to the one I borrowed the hairdryer from.
The one with the massive standing mirror propped up in one corner of the room.
Dallas moves until we’re both standing in front of it, our reflection filling the glass.
He’s still in the clothes he wears to work: muscle tee, dark jeans, boots. Compared to the white slip of a dress I have on, he looks like a dark villain ready to ravish the innocent heroine. As his hands settle on my hips, I look so small in comparison.
“You don’t see it,” he murmurs near my ear. “But I do.”
His thumbs trace slow circles against my skin, grounding me.
“You used to hate this spot,” he says, brushing his fingers along my collarbone. “Said it made you look too breakable.”
“I did?” I whisper.
“Yeah.”
He leans closer, his breath warm against my neck.
“Breakable? No, baby. You’re not breakable,” he says softly. “You’ve never been. If you were, would the two of us fit together as well as I know we do?”
My heart stutters as he moves his hands again. They slide up my sides slowly, almost reverentially. He’s not rushed. Definitely not greedy. His moves are intentional, from the way he cups my tits through the nightie to how he reaches down to my hips, hitching up the skirt enough to see that I didn’t bother putting panties on after my shower this morning.
It’s his turn for his breath to catch. In the mirror’s reflection, I watch his eyes go heavy, his lips parting slightly as he pants out a breath. He’s watching the front of my pussy as he reveals it, his growing erection nudging my ass as though he can’t help but grind himself against.
To make it easier, I lean back against him.
“Look at us,” he murmurs. “Look at the way I look at you. Tell me you’re not beautiful, baby. Mirrors don’t lie. You’re the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen. I wake up every morning andthank fucking God that I get to call you mine. Now look. Tell me that I’m wrong.”
Look? I’m looking. And you know what I see? I don’t see a man who’s simply tolerating a woman who fell into his lap the same way she fell out of a window. I don’t see a stranger pretending. I see a husband who is so desperate for his wife, if it wasn’t for his jeans keeping us apart, he would already be inside me.
“Let me tell you something, Lucy Wright. I want you to remember,” he says, voice roughening. “Not because you doubt me. But because I want you to know instinctively what we were. We’re made for each other. Look in the mirror. You’ll see.”
As I stare, Dallas’s mouth trails down the curve of my shoulder. His hand tightens at my waist.
The mirror won’t let me hide.
