“I hated them at first.”
His fingers went still in my hair.
“Why?”
“Because they hurt you. Because they proved the accident had happened. Every time I saw one, I was back in that hospital corridor waiting for someone to tell me whether you were going to live.”
His throat moved.
“And now?”
I touched the scar with my mouth once more.
“Now they belong to the man who did.”
His eye shone.
I rose and opened his pants.
He lifted his hips carefully while I eased denim and underwear down together. The movement tightened the muscles in his right thigh.
“Pain?”
“One.”
“Sharp?”
“No. Just stiff.”
I freed his injured leg slowly and placed his clothes aside.
Then Noah stood naked in front of me.
The scars had faded. They no longer looked raw or newly acquired. Muscle had begun to return to his shoulders, chest, and thighs, though months of recovery still marked him.
Desire did not ask me to compare this body to the one I remembered.
I wanted the man who stood before me now.
Nothing about that wanting was diminished.
He saw it in my face.
“You look as though you’re trying not to devour me.”
“I’m demonstrating restraint.”
“Unconvincingly.”
“Come here.”
He stepped into my arms.
Bare skin met bare skin.
Noah exhaled against my throat, and some of the tension seemed to leave him. His hands moved over my back, tentative at first, then lower with sudden confidence.
His grip tightened.
