“It’s a fairy story.”
“Only so much as there’s a mirror.”
“An evil truth-distorting mirror?”
“Not this mirror. This one sees only the good and true.”
This was not a mirror he wanted to see into.
“This one sees your legs.”
“Crushed under the weight of a very naked, very turned-on woman who’s got the wrong end of the stick about slowing down.”
She stroked him and he groaned. “I have exactly the right end.” She took her hand away. “I love the muscles in your legs. You even have nice feet. You plant them wide to hold onto the world. The muscles in your legs, these tendons and ligaments, they give you grace.”
He knew that wasn’t true. His gait was sometimes halting and uneven. Oddly, music gave him better balance, greater fluidity. He shook his head.
“It’s true. There’s grace in mastering space. Moon walking in the dark.” Like others she’d thought he was drunk when they’d first met, but she’d made it sound like he was something special. “Then there are these hips.”
He grinned at her. “You skipped an important part there.”
She pinched his cheek. “Payback. These hips,” her hands on his hipbones, “this crest,” a long lick in the dip that was the belt of muscle, he exhaled. “I like this part of you.” She eased her hands underneath him and he adjusted to let her. “It’s not polite but this butt of yours. You don’t know how much I like to watch it, in jeans, in those black trousers you wear when you’re singing. In nothing.” She squeeze him. “You’re blushing.”
He dropped his chin. Her hands came away. He felt awkward under her examination.
“I don’t want to embarrass you, but I mean to show you how you look to me.” She brushed hair from his forehead and smoothed a thumb over his brow, then her hands were gone from his face, fingers walking his abs. “These are just lickable. God, Damon, you have no idea how gorgeous you are. This chest, broad, thick. You worked to get this shape, to have this grace, this poetry in how you move, in how you make love to me.”
Her lips to his sternum, her hand across his pec, over the throat chakra tattoo. “I was so worried about you marking your skin. But this was a prayer when you knew you were losing your voice. Now it’s a badge of your courage.”
“Stop, baby.” He put his hand over hers. “Enough.” This was too much to live with, her words striking too deep, too sharp at the core of him.
“Nowhere near enough. I want you to see you like I do.” She picked up one of his hands, made their fingers thread. Took the other and put it over breast, her skin softer, cooler there but rapidly warming under his palm. “I love your hands, these long fingers, so capable.” He couldn’t help himself but roll his thumb over her nipple, making it peak. She moaned.
“Your hands are magical. When you put your hands on me, I know you see me. You can make my pulse jump, you can make my blood run fast when you touch me.” She shifted forward so her lips were against his ear. “When you put your fingers inside me. I want to die from pleasure.”
He turned his head to catch a kiss, force her to shut up. She was all teeth and smiles and even holding her head still, he couldn’t make a kiss work. “Georgia, enough.”
“Taylor showed me photos. You were such a cute kid, cheeky. Angus looked so proud and Jamie so serious. Taylor always looked grubby, like she needed a good wash, but you looked like you knew secrets. When you hit your teens you were all limbs and angles and thick glasses. Skinny and awkward. By seventeen, though. Oh Damon, you were so damn pretty.” She stoked a finger gently across the scar above his brow. “At eighteen, you had this, a scar on a scar, courtesy of Angus.”
“He was teaching me to fight.”
“He didn’t teach you to duck.”
“He taught me enough to be able to protect myself.”
“But not from scaffolding. You frightened me so much that day. You were a gorgeous man at twenty, now you’re so handsome it hurts to look at you sometimes. I know you’re not insensible to this. You know how people react to you. But I’ve never told you how I see you.”
He opened his mouth to shush her and not a cough, not a sound came out.
“I see strength in your jaw and the line of your cheekbones. I see experience in the curve of your top lip, sensuality in the fullness of your bottom one. There is knowledge and wisdom in your brow, and bravery in the shape of your nose and chin. But it’s your eyes, the colour, the steadiness. You think they’re useless, but that’s not true.” She brushed a knuckle against the corner of one eye. “Here is empathy,” she stroked the eyelid closed, “here is humour,” she made a circle, tracing the skin beneath his eye, “here is loyalty.” She kissed the dimple in his cheek, “and fun,” her thumb rested in the cleft of his chin and she moved his head side to side, “and compassion and love.”
He took a shuddered breath. This had gone somewhere unexpected. Turned his desire inside out. He closed his eyes, brought his arms around her and pulled her flush to his chest. He didn’t want her to see him anymore in case she saw duplicity and cowardice before he was ready for her to.
“I’ve upset you.” She sounded uncertain, disappointed.
He squeezed his eyes, a bitter burn behind them and moisture sticky on his lashes. Could he get his voice to work, he didn’t know what to tell her. That he was embarrassed, shamed, that her words put a death grip around his heart.
He flinched when she launched a thousand kisses on his face and neck and throat. Her nails digging into his arms. She tasted the water on his face and she brushed his hair off his forehead. He locked a hand to the back of her head and held her so he could connect one kiss and still the dread he felt against her lips. That one kiss, that lush stroke of tongues slowed his heart rate, but it did nothing to quell his fears.