Tessa
He let me in.
The house was dark. When I closed the front door behind me, the lock clicked. A voice from down the corridor said, “Back here.”
I stepped through the living room to the hall. There was a dim slice of light coming from the bedroom.
I took a step, and my feet squelched. I kicked off my soaked sandals and walked, dripping, down the hall toward the slice of light. I could feel my T-shirt clinging to my body, the ends of my hair dripping water down my neck. I felt heat pulsing through me—adrenaline, embarrassment, lust—and shivers on my skin. I felt terrified and ecstatic and alive.
He hadn’t said anything about what I’d just told him. Not a word. But this was Andrew. He didn’t have to say it. I’m sorry, that’s too bad, I hope you’re okay, have you tried therapy? No. The things people struggled to say would sound ridiculous coming from Andrew. He didn’t have to say a fucking thing.
At the bedroom doorway, I stopped. I was familiar with Andrew’s bedroom, but it looked different tonight. The only light was from a bedside lamp; the blinds were shut. I could hear rain lashing the windows and thunder rolling overhead. Except for the sound of the storm, it was quiet.
Andrew’s chair was pushed to the foot of the bed, empty. Andrew sat on the edge of the bed with the covers pulled back behind him. I’d obviously caught him just as he’d maneuvered himself into bed, getting ready to get under the covers. He was wearing nothing but boxer shorts.
I took a minute to take him in. His shoulders were sleek and muscled, his arms like marble as his hands braced against the bed on either side of his hips. He had a short dusting of dark hair on his chest, over his pectorals and down the perfect line of his stomach. His chest was wide and strong, his abs and his waist perfect. I could even see hard muscles lining the sides of his ribcage.
His thighs were sleek and strong, not bulky. His calves were thin. He was barefoot, his feet resting limply against the bedside rug.
I raised my gaze back to his shoulders, his gorgeous collarbones, and then his face. He had trimmed his beard so it was sleek to his jawline. His dark hair was brushed back from his forehead. His beautiful mouth was set. And his eyes watched me with wariness tinged with hurt and anger and lust.
I knew he’d looked me up and down, just as I had him. I knew my shirt was wet and my nipples were hard, that my chest was rising and falling, that my cheeks were flushed. I liked that he’d seen all of that. I felt naked in front of him anyway.
He was tense as he sat there looking at me, his muscles bunching, his hands gripping the edge of the mattress. Even his knuckles were sexy.
“That was the truth?” he asked me, his voice rough.
He meant the confession I’d just given him. “Yes,” I said.
There was no joking now, no back-and-forth banter. The Andrew who used his wits as a defense, who would say something about how I must be crazy to hang out with him, was gone tonight. There was only this Andrew, who had been pulled out of that twisted car and gone into the darkness, who had put himself back together using the only tools he had. Who was still putting himself back together, day after day.
Lightning flashed through the blinds, and thunder rolled. Still, Andrew’s gaze held mine. “You can’t fix this,” he said in his rough voice, motioning to his legs. “Do you understand that? I’m not a project or a broken piece of furniture. You can’t fix it. I will always be like this. Always. You can’t fix me.”
I nodded. “I can’t fix myself, either,” I said.
“You can,” Andrew replied. “You will. And then you’ll leave.”
I could have denied it, but he wouldn’t have believed me. I knew what I was; I was strong, and I was tough, but I was broken. I wasn’t nice. I wasn’t normal. I wasn’t going to get married and have babies and have a nice life. I was always going to be thinking around the next corner, tangling things up in my head, cutting people with my sharp edges. It was how I was, and nothing was ever going to make me soft and sweet and gentle. I couldn’t fix myself; the only thing I could do was learn to like myself. It was something I’d started on the day I’d gone to his door with a cake in my hands.
And I wasn’t going to leave. But Andrew wouldn’t believe a string of arguments and words. The only thing that mattered to him was action.
So I reached for the hem of my T-shirt and pulled it off over my head.
Andrew breathed in and closed his eyes as if I was hurting him. He breathed out again as I unzipped my jeans and pushed them down my hips, peeling them off. They made a damp sound as they hit the floor.
He opened his eyes again. I was in nothing but a bra and panties. I reached behind my back, unclasped the bra, and tossed it away.
“Christ,” he said softly, under his breath. I wasn’t sure he even knew he’d said it.
I walked toward the bed. I braced myself with a hand on his bare shoulder—his skin was smooth and warm under my palm—and swung a leg over his lap as if I was getting in a saddle. I lowered myself onto his thighs and slid forward, my inner thighs against his hips. I settled myself against him, my bare breasts brushing his chest, and ran my hands down the smooth muscles of his arms.
“I’m cold,” I said, my voice raw.
He took another breath, his body stiff for a moment, and then he relaxed just a little as my ass settled onto his thighs. He seemed to be breathing me in. I knew I was doing the same to him; he smelled like he always did, vital and clean and tangy, the smell of a man. The smell of a man I wanted.
He lifted his chin and looked at me. His hands left the mattress and his palms came to my waist, smoothing down over my hips, then up again. He didn’t grab my ass or my tits; instead he ran his hands up the sides of my ribcage, then to my back as I shivered in his lap, my nipples hard against him. I arched a little in pleasure as he stroked my back, up my shoulder blades, both of us melting into each other piece by piece.
Then he moved his hand up to the back of my neck, his fingers in my hair. He pulled me down to him and kissed me.
Thunder crashed again, and I parted my lips. He angled my head and kissed me deeply, his taste in my mouth, and as I throbbed at his touch I realized something: Andrew was experienced. I didn’t know what he’d been doing since the accident, but the man who was kissing me had definitely done it before. And he was very, very good at it.
His hands were good, too. Big and warm and confident, touching me in a way that was reverent and hot at the same time. I’d had too many bad dates in my life, too many unsatisfying makeout sessions with guys who tasted like tequila shots and thought that pinching my nipples through my shirt was a sexy move. I’d had too much sex that was a few minutes of nothing with only one of us getting off. Andrew’s hands were like magic, moving over my skin like every inch of it was important. He slid one palm down and cupped my breast, and even though I’d spent most of my day standing nearly naked in front of strangers, for the first time I felt like the sexiest woman alive.
I slid my tongue into his mouth, and he made a sound that was almost like pain. The muscles in his shoulders were tense as steel, his breathing shallow. I broke the kiss but I kept my mouth close to his as I stroked my thumbs over his perfect cheekbones and his soft beard.
“Andrew,” I said, “tell me the truth. Have you done this since the accident?”
He flinched a little under my fingertips, the slightest wince. His shoulders didn’t soften. “Do not,” he said, his voice hoarse, “do not use that as an excuse. Not now. Not ever.”
An excuse for what? To pity him? To treat him differently? To leave?
No, he wouldn’t want excuses. God, the raw courage of him. I’d never seen anyone so fucking brave.
I put my hand over his where it cupped my breast. I found his other hand and put it on my other breast, my fingers over his. I leaned in and kissed him, brushing my mouth over his soft lips. “No excuses,” I said.
“Good,” he said. His shoulders eased just a little, and he leaned in and whispered in my ear, as if telling me a secret. “I can smell you.”
The breath exhaled out of me. He probably could smell me—I was only wearing a scrap of fabric, and I was wet. And the words made me wetter. My hands tightened over his. “Touch me,” I begged him.
“Lie down,” he said.
Reluctantly, I slid off his lap and onto the bed. I scooted over as he took a second to arrange himself, pulling his legs up onto the mattress. He did it quickly, almost gracefully, at ease with himself, and for a second the thought went through my head that I didn’t know exactly how this would happen. The position wouldn’t be the same as it was with other men. There might even be some improvisation. Because Andrew wasn’t like other men.
He was better.
I lay on my back, and then he was next to me, balanced on his hip, leaning over me. He braced himself on one gorgeous, muscled arm. He looked down at me, searching my face with his dark eyes.
“I’m not going to say it,” he said. “I’m not going to ask it.”
“Then don’t,” I said. I ran a hand down his chest, fascinated by the feel of it, the heat of his skin, the light whorls of hair. “We’ve done enough talking for a while, don’t you think?”
For the first time, the ghost of a smile touched the corner of his mouth. Then he leaned down to me.
“You’re right,” he said. “No more talking.”