How can he touch them? How can he not be revolted? Disgusted?
A cruel memory surfaced in her thoughts. His name had been Dave, and he'd had a reputation with the girls. He'd made a play for her the moment he'd set eyes on her, and her refusal to go out with him had only made him more determined. She'd been twenty-two, and by then she had known just how ugly her legs were going to be all her life. She'd been chary of men. But Dave had gone on at her and on at her, and he was good-looking, with winning ways, and she couldn't help but fancy him, and in the end she'd given in to temptation and gone out with him. She'd wanted so much to be normal again—have boyfriends, discover sex. Fall in love. They'd dated quite a while, and he hadn't seemed to mind that she couldn't go clubbing, and she'd even, after a few weeks, told him about her accident. He hadn't seemed to mind.
Until the night she'd finally decided that twenty-two was no age to be a virgin still, and Dave had wanted her, so very, very much...
She could remember the look on his face as if it was yesterday. The strangled noise in his throat as she took her jeans off in his flat, the undisguised expletive that exploded from him. The word he'd called her.
Freak.
Crippled freak.
It's what I am. What every man will think me...
'Nikos—'
She caught his head with her hands. His hair was Like black silk to her touch.
'Nikos—don't, please—'
He raised his mouth, lifting his face to her.
'Hush, agape mou, hush.' His voice was low.
He slipped his forearms underneath her thighs, and with the lightest exertion swung her legs round and on to the bed, following them himself to lie beside her. He leaned over her as she lay there, eyes wide and confused.
'Nikos—' Her voice was faint
He laid a finger over her mouth.
'This is not a time for talking,' he told her.
Then slowly, sensually, he began to make love to her.
It was like walking along the blade of a knife. Every move, every gesture, every touch was crucial. Control beaded in every nerve.
This is for her, not for you—
Carefully, incredibly carefully, Nikos kissed her. His mouth was light, as light as swansdown, his lips feathering hers, his tongue flickering at the corners of her mouth until it opened to him, and then slowly, delicately, he explored within.
Her eyes had shut. He hadn't noticed when, but it didn't matter. He knew she could not help it. Knew that the only way she could accept what was happening to her was by closing herself to everything but sensation—pure, blissful sensation.
And it was the same for him. He too knew that he must focus only and absolutely on what was happening now. Not just because of the utter physical control he had to impose on herself, but because somewhere, deep down inside, emotions were running so deep he could not name them. All but one.
Anger. Anger at a universe where such things happened. Anger at himself for being such a boor, a fool. Anger, most of all, at the men who had looked at her and let her feel that she was repulsive to them...
His mouth glided down the smooth, flawless column of her throat, seeking the hollow at its base where her pulse throbbed. With the skill of all his years he parted her robe, shaping delicately, sensuously, the sweet richness of her breasts. His mouth moved to their reddened tips and his tongue nickered over the hardening peaks.
Her heard her gasp, low in her throat, felt her head roll back as she savoured the sensations he aroused in her.
His body surged, and he quelled it urgently. He wanted— Theos how he wanted—to take her swollen nipple into his mouth, to suck and take his fill, move his body over hers at once, fill her with his, and feed and sate his appetite on her.
This is for her, not you—
With extreme control he held back, focussing only on her response, compressing her ripe breasts together so that his tongue could move from one peak to the other, endlessly keeping both in straining engorgement while little moans pulsed in her throat.
He felt her fingers come around his shoulders, beneath the towelling of his robe, pushing it back, sliding it from him, seeking the broad swathe of his shoulderblade to press into the smooth, flawless flesh of his back. He eased the robe from him to let her access him, never for a moment lifting his mouth away from her, only letting it drift down, over the swell of her breast, to lave the suddenly tautened plane of her belly.
And soon beyond.