Page 124 of Stags

As they walked towards the elevator, he reached out and linked their fingers.

She looked up at him gratefully.

“I’m really fucking sorry,” he breathed. “I’m sorry for being such a jerk about this.”

She shook her head. “It’s understandable.”

“You deserve better,” he said, and he bent down and kissed the top of her head.

She leaned into him. “Okay, well, no pressure, then. Just give me the perfect second time, and all is forgiven. You can handle that, right?”

He chuckled. He put his arm around her. “Yeah, I think I can.”

When they were in the room, he gathered her into his arms, his movements gentle and deliberate. He traced his thumbs over her cheekbones and gazed deeply into her eyes.

“I hate that thing you said in the coffee shop, Rora, that thing about how I was with you because I was lowering my standards.”

Her throat felt tight.

“I hate it, because I know you worry about things like that, I know you think wrong things about yourself, and I see how it hurts you, and I just wish you didn’t have to hurt like that. Because it’s not like that, not at all.”

She shut her eyes. “I’m fat.”

He kissed her forehead. “No.”

“Maibell is—”

“No,” he said again. “No, I love your body. I have told you this, and you seemed to believe me when I did. I showed you the fucking thing on my phone.”

“Yeah,” she breathed. It had been a picture he’d snapped of some woman in a magazine when he was fourteen, he’d said, something he’d looked at and jacked off to, a woman who was voluptuous and shaped a lot like her.You’re exactly the way I picture the perfect woman,he had said.

“Tell me you didn’t show up to my place and say you chose me because you think something pathetic like me is the best you can do.”

She opened her eyes. “No, Stockton, no.”

He gazed into her eyes. “We both have a crippling lack of self-worth, huh?” His mouth curved into a small smile.

She smiled back.

“I hate when you feel it, Rora, because I knowjusthow it feels.”

She kissed him.

He crushed her against him, his mouth moving expertly against hers. When he pulled back, his voice was soft. “I wish I could make it so you never felt that way.”

“But then,” she whispered back, “we wouldn’t understand each other.”

“True,” he murmured, kissing her again. “But I want to see you now. I want to see every inch of your body, and I want you to see how much I adore the way you look.”

Her lower lip was trembling for some reason, and she bit down on it to make it stop. Somehow, it was so much, too much, and she wondered if she’d ever let go of it, really, the insecurity, the feeling of inadequacy. Would it always feel like some kind of sweet revelation when he professed to adore her?

Maybe it was worth it, then.

She sucked in breath. “Well, then,” she said, smiling at him. “Go sit on the bed.”

He raised his eyebrows in confusion. “Okay?”

“Because I’m going to show you this body, and you’re going to sit and watch,” she said.

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