Page 109 of Finally Mine
“But there’s a lot more to sex than just my dick doing its job.”
“Care to demonstrate?”
“Gloria! Sweetheart, I want everything to be perfect for you. I want you to have the most amazing sexual experience of your life, and I want to be responsible for it.”
She undid another button. Slid another inch closer. “The way I look at it, you already did give me the most amazing sexual experience of my life, and we haven’t even had sex yet.”
“I’m scarred, Gloria. Hideous, ugly scars. How are you supposed to look at my fucking leg and stay in the goddamn mood?”
“Oh, baby,” Gloria breathed at the vulnerability, the pain, laced in his words. “Is that what this is?”
He stared at his glass of wine, jaw tight. “You might not know this, but I’m a vain, shallow excuse of a man.”
She slid off the couch and knelt between his legs. “Look at me, handsome.”
It took him a moment, but he did as he was told.
“Most of my ugly scars are on the inside, and I’ve presented every last one of them to you. You’re still here. I think you owe me the same chance. Show me your scars, Aldo.”
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She didn’t know what she was asking for,Aldo told himself. This beautiful creature should never be touched by violence again. And that’s exactly what was branded onto his skin, into his DNA. A permanent, physical reminder of the sins human beings were capable of inflicting on each other.
He wanted nothing but beauty and softness and perfection for Gloria.
But she begged for the brutal truth.
Ever so gently, she skimmed her palms under the hem of his shorts and stroked his thighs. “Show me, Aldo. Please?”
It was her plea that he was powerless against. He’d give Gloria anything, anything in this world. Even if it broke his own heart.
Silently, he rose. She stayed where she was on her knees in front of him. Slowly, he slid his shorts down. Eagerly, Gloria helped him step out of them. He sat again, thumbs slipping into the compression sleeve that covered his stump just below the knee. He closed his eyes, teetering on the edge of doing what she wanted and being a complete coward.
Then her hands were on his, and together, they carefully worked the sleeve down his skin.
He didn’t want to look at his leg. He’d already seen it a few hundred times, and it still jarred him sometimes. The brutality that was so far from ‘normal.’ He watched her face instead, studying it for any signs of revulsion, rejection.
But she merely set his prosthesis aside and returned her gaze to the very worst part of him.
Then she was touching him, so gently. Like the rush of air beneath a bird in flight. Those lovely, capable hands skimming scar tissue and pain. His breath caught in his throat. His eyes burned.
“Is this okay?” she whispered.
Never had he felt more vulnerable. He was ripped open, stripped bare, and the woman he loved was staring into his soul.
Terror. Lust. Need. It all rolled through him.
He was rock hard and careening toward a breakdown or a breakthrough. Words failed him. Gloria leaned forward and pressed her lips to the worst of the scars, jagged and nasty beneath the sweetness of her mouth.
He didn’t want to taint that. Didn’t want his ugliness leaving its stain on her.
She looked up at him, but it wasn’t pity or fear that he saw in those golden-brown depths. It was glassy lust. Could she possibly want him like this? Scarred and broken. Damaged.
Yet she was worshipping him. With lips and tongue. Tasting his scars.
Something like tears and fear clawed at the back of his throat.
“You’re beautiful,” she whispered.
