Page 28 of The Butterfly
She gazed up at him, seeing that he could not say more, but clearly hearing his unspoken words.
“Show me more. Let me touch you like you touched me.”
As she waited for him to begin again, Olivia noticed the hesitance in his eyes. It occurred to her then that he’d never intended to allow this to go beyond her pleasure, even though he had told her otherwise. Something held him back, and that, she could not abide.
She stroked his hair, then cupped his face, her finger lightly tracing the scar Conall had left with the bullwhip. Some might think it frightening, marring an otherwise handsome face. She found it alluring, a testament of his strength. That he lay here with her now, even after having suffered the injury, spoke of how deeply he cared for her in a way words never could.
“Niall, please,” she whispered, raising her head to kiss his cheek, then the edge of his jaw. “Let me touch you. Let me kiss you.”
He grunted when she kissed his neck, her lips resting against his pulse—which galloped as hard and fast as hers, proof of his state of arousal. That most male part of him was as hard as ever, pressed right against her.
“Let me see you.”
He stiffened when she dipped her tongue past the edge of his shirt, her fingers working at the top button. His hand came swiftly over hers, halting her just after she’d loosened the button, revealing the delectable column of his throat.
Brow furrowed, she stared up into his eyes, unable to read the dark gaze. He’d shuttered a part of himself away from her and was withdrawing, already trying to pull away physically.
“No,” she pleaded, wrapping her legs around him and holding fast, refusing to let him go. “You cannot leave me now. We’ve gone too far. I want this, Niall.”
“No, ye don’t!” he snapped, his face reddening. “I never … I always keep my clothes on. Ye dinnae want to see. I … I cannae let ye.”
Her frown deepened, more confused now than ever. They had known each other so long, she had thought that nothing between them could be kept secret. But, here they lay with her bared completely, and Niall still keeping something to himself.
“I have seen you undressed before—”
“Back then,” he argued. “Not now. Not after …”
She kissed his cheek again, her lips lingering as she inhaled his scent. One would think a man who worked with horses would carry some sort of unpleasant odor. But not Niall. He smelled like soap, clean, open air, and fresh hay.
“Do you think there could ever be anything about you that I would not like? That any part of you would cause me to stop caring for you … wanting you?”
He did not reply, but the look in his eyes told her that he did. Somehow, he had convinced himself that she’d be easily put off. Now, more than ever, she was determined to prove him wrong.
“Would you allow me to show you everything and still hide things from me?” she urged. “Here I lie with my skinny body and barely any bosom—”
“It’s perfect,” he snapped. “Ye’re perfect in every way, Livvie.”
“I am practically shaped like a boy, and we both know it,” she chided. “But you look at me and I feel like the most beautiful woman in the world. Why would you think I’d see you as anything other than the most beautiful man?”
Shaking his head, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. She allowed him this moment, lying beneath him and waiting silently for him to work himself up to what would come next.
After a while, he sighed, then swiftly tore open his second button, then his third, exposing more of his chest and the dark hair covering it. She held her breath, waiting for him to show her the rest, to prove to her that he was everything she’d always thought he would be.
Moving fast, as if afraid he would change his mind otherwise, he reached back to grasp his collar, giving it a quick jerk to pull the shirt over his head. His mussed hair appeared first, then his face again, just before he tore one arm free and shifted his weight to toss the garment aside.
Olivia sucked in a sharp breath, releasing it on a sigh of wonder at the sight of him. He had changed so much, even since the last time they’d swum together in the pond, his chest and arms bulging with brawn, more of the dark hair covering him in a soft smattering. She laid one hand flat upon his chest, smiling at the feel of his heart beating a rhythmic cadence against her palm.
So intent was she on drinking in the parts of him that pleased her—his broad shoulders, the grooves between the muscles of his abdomen, the enticing lines etching where his waist ended and his hips began—that she did not notice the scars at first. It was only when she began paying closer attention that she noticed them. One marking his chest, a slender, raised line just shy of a nipple. Another curved over his shoulder. More streaked across his ribs, arcing from his back. They were very much like the one upon his face.
With a gasp, she laid her hand against the ones on his ribs, following their path toward his back. Niall shifted atop her, but she kept her legs around him, refusing to let go.
“Livvie, don’t …”
Some horrified sound choked off in her throat, the sting of tears nearly blinding her as she reached his back only to find even more of the scars at her fingertips. They were everywhere, crossing his back this way and that, raised lines carving his skin like paths on a map. There were more of them to be found than smooth skin, and as she came to the largest one—the one stretching across his shoulder blades, the one caused on the day he had been caught kissing her—she began to weep in earnest. The day Conall had attacked him, she hadn’t been brought to see him until after the physician had stitched him up. She had never actually seen the wound for herself—had not seen the mess the bastard had already made of Niall’s back.
“Oh, Niall …hedid this to you?”
Instead of answering her, he jerked out of her hold, forcing her legs apart so that he could roll away from her. He tried to lie on his back, but a touch of her hand stayed him. He remained upon his side, his back presented to her unobstructed. She tried to choke down a sob, but found herself unable to at the sight of what had been done to her precious Niall.
