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She leaned over as she washed the small of his back, her breasts brushing against him. “I don’t want things to go back to the way they were. I want to move forward. I want times like this. I know you’re scared that I’ll run away in horror, but I won’t. I’ve wanted this ever since the first time I saw you.”
“You didn’t know about my legs then.”
“I didn’t care about them then. I don’t care about them now with the singular exception of how much of your life revolves around hiding them.” She ran her hands up his neck, the soap facilitating the massage. While it was arousing, there was so much more to the way she was touching him.
It felt like affection and caring and…it felt like love.
“I don’t want to, but you have to see what they’ve cost me.”
She sighed behind him. “They cost you nothing. You gave them for your country. You gave them to keep people like me safe.” She moved in front of him and dropped to her knees, putting her hands on the object of her speech. She soaped up his legs, being careful around the wound, but paying particular and loving attention to the scars that marked his loss. “She cost you. Alicia. Put the blame where it belongs. Her lies cost you up front and then your pride did the rest. I pray that your pride doesn’t cost us both. You need a change of view, Sebastian. You need to start seeing the world through my eyes because I see so much clearer than you.”
“Do you? Tell me then.” He had to try something because she was right. He didn’t want to lose her. He couldn’t stand the thought of going back to his lonely apartment, his solitary existence.
“You didn’t want me in here because you saw me bathing you as a chore.” She moved between the stumps of his legs until they were touching her on either side. If it bothered her in the least, she didn’t show it. She simply went to work on his chest. “I see it as a way to serve my Dom, my partner, my lover. I see it as a way to get close to him because I love being close to him. And in some ways, I see it as something you earned by being brave. You knew what could happen and you still went into the Army. You earned a stunningly beautiful woman putting her hands all over you.”
When she put it like that… How much of his misery was about perception? How much could change if he allowed it to? “I want my turn.”
“Your turn?”
She had to understand that if he was going into this with her, he wouldn’t be the only one offering his body up. “If I earned the most beautiful woman in the world putting her hands on me, I get to put my hands on her.”
She stopped and he could see tears sheen her eyes. She started to say something and then fell silent.
He wasn’t so self-absorbed that he didn’t know what had gone through her head. He reached for her hand. “Sit with me.”
She looked down at the chair. “Can I?”
He put his hands on the sides of the chair. If she’d prepped it properly, the suction cups at the legs would hold it all in place. The shower chair was built for a large man and quite frankly if they fell, they fucking fell. If they fell, they would do it together and he would laugh and be embarrassed a little less than the last time and he would let her help him up.
She would be careful with him. She would have read all the instructions and tested it because Tiffany, while reckless at times, was very loving and thoughtful.
Without another thought, he lifted himself up and repositioned his body so she could sit on his lap. The seat never moved. He did it with ease because one of Damon Knight’s conditions for training him as a Dom was that he also trained him physically. He was strong because his mentor wouldn’t allow him to be anything else.
He was safe because Tiffany was careful with him.
It was good to have people who cared about him.
Never, not once, had Alicia done something to make his life easier. That had been his job.
He’d given that woman years of his life. What did he owe the smart, sweet sub who was willing to fight for him? Who was willing to fight even him to bring them together? Didn’t he owe her a little trust?
“Sit with me.”
She gingerly got to her feet and placed herself on his lap, her arms going around his shoulders. It was awkward at first, but she seemed to find a comfortable spot. “Like this?”
She was going to kill him. His cock was nestled under her ass and he was hard as a rock, but he needed something more than sex. He needed this quiet intimacy. Sex was great, but he’d never once had this with another woman. He held her close, resting his head on her shoulder and just breathing her in.
“You are the single best thing to ever happen to me,” he whispered to her. “Don’t ever compare yourself to Alicia. She was a childhood dream. She was who I thought I should be, but I think it’s far past time to let all of that go.”
She cuddled close, holding onto him like she wouldn’t let go. “You don’t have to be anyone but you with me. I want to be your safe place. You can put on whatever airs you want to the rest of the world, but I want the real man.”
“And if I’m not sure who that is?” That was his real fear. He’d held onto the pain and the past for so long, he might not like what was on this other side.
“I am.” She kissed his cheek, above his eye, on his forehead. Each butterfly touch felt like a benediction. “I know who you are even if you don’t. You’re brave and afraid at the same time. You’re incredibly smart and profoundly stupid. You’re so sure of yourself sometimes and a ball of insecurity at others. You’re almost always kind. Despite everything, you try to help the people around you. You’re human and you’re everything to me.”
And she was reckless and careful. Brilliant and sometimes tactless. Crass and yet more of a lady than he’d ever seen.
For so long the world had been flat. Good and bad. Light and dark. He was whole and then not. Life had been simple, but hadn’t he learned so much about complexity? Sometimes a thing had to be destroyed to become something new, something more beautiful than it had been before.
