“No...they didn’t ever…not like that. He—”

  “Don’t,” he said sharply. She flinched, and he cursed himself. Tried again, calmer.

  “I said ‘don’t,’ because I didn’t want you to go there in your head.” He took a breath. “But is it hard to do that? It’s all right to tell me.”

  “No,” she said after a long moment, confirming the truth he was having trouble accepting. “I like my life so much more now, Rory. But then, it was just different. Wrong or right, good or bad…it was just my life.”

  She shook her head, “It didn’t happen often, but sometimes, when they praised me or were more kind, it made me feel…”

  "Like you mattered."

  "Yes. Dr. Taylor says that helped them keep me in a situation where I wouldn’t reach out for help, and I understand that. But she also said it wasn't wrong for me to accept that kindness for what it was worth. Or see my life how I saw it then, the bad and not so bad. If it helped me survive it." She took a breath. “But when you get mad about it, it feels like I’ve said or done something wrong, bringing it up.”

  That made total sense. She had to be able to talk about this stuff, without him reacting. How the hell did he do that?

  Same way he’d learned how to do plenty of other hard stuff. With practice.

  He turned her over toward him, guiding her so she was curled in his arms, her head tucked under his chin. One of her arms crept under his, the other tucked between his chest and her body. Her bare breasts pressed against him. He stroked through her hair again, cradling her jaw and side of her throat. He didn’t want to distress her, but he wasn’t going to make a wrong assumption again, if he could avoid it by asking her the right questions.

  “Whenever I touch you, Daralyn, if something doesn’t feel right, or scares you the wrong way, can you tell me to stop? Truthfully.”

  She thought about it for a few heartbeats, then she shook her head against his chest. “No. I don’t know if I can. When I think about doing it…”

  In a heartbeat, she was a ball of quivering nerves, her breath rasping, a warning of a panic attack. He held her closer.

  “Easy,” he said. “You’re fine. We’re fine.”

  When she’d said no, they’d punished her.

  Her reaction to anger was to draw inward, defuse. How was he going to get past that very male part of him that wanted to rage, tear apart anyone who’d hurt her?

  “It’s okay,” he said, saying it to himself as much as her. All while holding her, rocking her. “It’s okay.”

  “But I can’t…” Despair drenched her tone. For fifteen years, she’d been told what she wanted wasn’t an option. And they’d done such a good job that it was branded down to the unconscious level.

  Telling her she could make choices didn’t liberate her. It shattered her.

  Until she could get there—and she would, he knew it—he would have to continue to determine, guess, or deduce her wants and needs, all while watching out for her well-being. And hope like hell the Dom part of him didn’t get so used to it that he missed any attempts she made to start doing it for herself, such that he overrode her at the wrong moment.

  It was a lot of responsibility, and he felt the weight of it, the fear of it. But he could handle it.

  “I get it,” he said, taking them away from the danger zone. “It’s okay. Don’t tell me what you want. Tell me what feels good.”

  A little bit of tension went out of her, though she spoke hesitantly. “I don’t want to tell you what to do.”

  “Did I say that?” He made his tone firmer. Decisive. “Tell me what I said, Daralyn.”

  “You said to tell you what feels good.”

  “Right. It will be my decision, whether I do those things or not. Right?”

  More relaxing of those tight muscles. It was a small miracle to him, discovering an avenue that might work. It seemed the Dominant side of his nature could read the submissive language of hers better than his conscious self.

  “You holding me feels good.”

  “That’s good, because that’s what I want to do. What I’m going to keep doing.”

  Her fingers between them opened and closed against his chest. Her breathing was leveling out, but he decided a change of subject was in order.

  “Hey, you know that guy in Florida with the specialty fixtures?”

  “He sent us the picture of a spigot shaped like a dragon’s head.”

  “Yeah, that’s him. I was thinking about driving down and doing a face-to-face with him. See his stock in person. He’s on the Gulf. I want you to go with me. I could go fishing, you could bring some books, hang out with me on the dock. School will be closed for the bank holiday in a couple weeks. You’d have a four-day weekend since you have no Friday classes. I can work out coverage for the store.”

  “Okay. Oh…sorry. I mean…”

  He wasn’t sure what she was apologizing for, then realized the arm she’d had threaded under his, hand resting on his waist, had shifted as she changed position. Now her palm was back on his side. He gave her a mock stern look.

  “Did you just grab my ass?”

  She colored three ways. “No…I just, my hand brushed…”

  She came to a halt as he grinned at her, and she pushed lightly at him. Keeping her close in his arm span, he adjusted so he was lying on his back, her draped over his upper body, her arm on his chest, head up under his jaw. Her fingertips followed the curve of his pectoral, a small movement, just a couple inch span of skin. Shy, careful. She had no idea what that contact was doing to him.

  He reached up, closed his hand on hers, flexed out her fingers to a wider reach. “Touch me however feels good, honey. Because all of it feels good to me.”

  When he met her gaze, confirming he meant it, they held that way for a long moment, humor dissipating in the face of a different set of emotions.

  Slowly, she pushed herself up on an elbow, so she was gazing down at his body. The blanket was at her waist, so not only did he see the curves of her naked breasts, but the slope of her side, the shadowed juncture between her thighs, the fold of her legs as she rested on her hip. He made himself keep his hands where they were, one loosely curved over her hip, forearm pressed against her buttocks, fingers playing with the crease where thigh and hip met. His other arm was above his head, hand gripping the post of her headboard so he could dig into it for resolve if needed.

  Laying her fingertips on his opposite shoulder, she drew her touch downward, over his biceps, the inside of his elbow, his forearm.

  Heaven. Absolute bliss. Anyone who’d ever seen the way a simple breeze could turn a whole lake into a canvas of ripples was watching what it was like for a paraplegic, to be touched by a woman where he could feel.

  She moved across, onto his abdomen, up around his nipple, toward his collar bone. She moved as carefully as a novice painter, afraid of taking a wrong stroke on that canvas. Or maybe an expert, knowing just where she wanted the brush to go.

  Down from his neck and shoulder again, back over his pectoral, to his sternum. Her fingers threaded through the hair on his chest, over the bump of his nipple. A little extra exploration there. He’d been able to contain the reaction, until that moment. But when the pleasure rippled through him, capturing her attention, he realized he shouldn’t be hiding it at all. The wave was strong enough to have him briefly closing his eyes, his hand tightening over her hip. Her gaze was intent and curious.

  “Your hands feel good,” he told her.

  What an understatement. A normal guy his age had one major erogenous zone, between his legs. Yeah, other stuff felt good, but most guys he knew would agree. When an orgasm happened, it channeled through the cock and balls like a fire hose. But after losing sensation below the waist, he’d discovered the gods could be kind. Heightened sensation in the parts of his body above the level of his injury meant the whisper of a hand over his shoulders, his nipples, his abdomen, stirred the urgency that a woman’s grip on his cock used to do.

  Sex wasn’t about genitalia, or only about fucking. He hadn’t known that before. It was about feeling.

  The movement of Daralyn’s hands on his chest, his throat, his arms and shoulders, was something he fiercely enjoyed. He told her that, not letting himself avoid what it said about the parts that couldn’t feel. Her eyes stayed wide, deep and thoughtful, her mouth moist. “So I can keep doing it?”

  “Hell, yeah,” he said, and the hoarseness in his voice made the gold in her hazel eyes deepen in color.

  His plan for handling what had happened earlier had been to stay as long as he could determine she wanted him here. Maybe sleep in her bed, hold her through the night. But as they fed on the contact between them, her getting more absorbed in touching him, and him reacting to that contact, he realized that wasn’t the only way to handle what had happened earlier.

  He could show her how much power she had in those slim fingers of hers.

  “You’re so strong,” she whispered, her hand moving over his biceps again. “You could carry me forever. I’ve dreamed that. You carrying me.”

  He tilted his head. “It wasn’t a dream, baby. I did carry you once.”

  Surprise crossed her face. “When?”

  “That first summer you stayed with us. You and Les were out doing chores. It was a really hot day, and you got overheated and passed out while feeding the chickens. She hollered and I came out with Mom. She was figuring out how to get you out of the heat and I picked you up, carried you inside.”

  His mother had called for Thomas, but Thomas was in the hay barn, and Rory was right there. He remembered how astonishingly light she’d felt in his arms.

  “I thought you opened your eyes once, but I didn’t know if you remembered it or not.”

  “I thought it was a dream. I felt safe. You held me like you’d never drop me.”

  He’d never picked up a girl who’d passed out, who needed to be carried from point A to point B. The clammy feel of her skin, her paleness, the worry in his gut, reflected in Les and his mother’s eyes, had made an impression. But his desire to protect her, and the realization of how much she’d needed his care in that moment, had made an even stronger one.

  The illumination in the room, coming from the outside utility light, streaming through the bedroom window, shadowed and etched her thoughtful features. Her next question took him by surprise.

  “Do you dream about it? When you could walk?”

  “Yeah. Plenty of times. Sometimes, if it’s a really vivid dream, when I wake up, I can’t figure out why I’m trying to swing my legs to the floor and it’s not working.”

  He used to hope that the mind would conquer the body in those vivid dreams, so when he was in that half-asleep state, things would kick in, just start working again.

  Her fingertips drifted up, down. Following the arrow of hair toward the waistband of his boxers, then back up toward his navel. Her attention was on his face, the way he was pressing his lips together, the curl of his hand on the headboard as he stayed out of her path. “This feels really good to you?” she asked.

  “Yeah. It does.”

  She moistened her lips. “You said it was okay for me to touch you. Does that mean…anywhere?”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “Where do you want me to touch you?”

  “Everywhere.”

  She curled her hand around his waist. He felt the pressure and movement of her forearm against his side and glanced down to watch her trace the curve of his buttock over the fabric of his underwear. Even though he couldn’t feel it, his memory could take over where his nerves couldn’t.

  He adjusted partially onto his side toward her, and she lay down to face him, scooting closer, cuddling into him. Her cheek rested on his chest as her fingertips glided up to the small of his back, his shoulder blades and back down again.

  There'd been times, with a hand on his dick, working it, and his other hand running over his chest, his abdomen, playing around his navel, he'd brought himself to an orgasm, just to see what it would be like. But that was a pale shadow compared to how it felt when it was caused by Daralyn's hand trailing along his chest, teasing his nipples, her mouth high on his chest, moving up to his throat. He cupped her head as she nibbled the area beneath his ear, and when her fingers tightened on his side, digging into the layer of muscle over his rib cage, his stomach muscles contracted.

  As she moved below his waist again, he watched the flex of her thin arm, imagined she was following the crease between his buttocks, then her fingers fanning out along the cheek again, to the back of his thigh. A quick shiver went up his spine.

  She drew back, was watching his face. “Can you feel it there?”

  He shook his head.

  “Can you show me…where you stop feeling it?”

  “It’s fuzzy. Not a straight line, sensation on this side and nothing on the other side. It’s kind of a gradual thing. But it mostly stops at the waist.”

  He gripped her wrist, and took her hand to the top of his buttocks, just below the waistband of his boxer briefs. “I can feel traces of things in this area. Not real strongly. It’s kind of like phantom sensation. And here.”

  He brought her hand around, resting her fingers on the leg hem edge of his boxer briefs, high on his thighs, a couple inches away from the bulge of his testicles and cock under the stretched fabric.

  He released her then, and reinforced his earlier instruction. “Everywhere, Daralyn. I’ll tell you if I want you to stop.”

  She skated her fingers down his thigh, then back up. She moved her hand over his groin area, around his cock. When she at last gripped him through the fabric, stroked, he let her keep the driver’s seat, decide how she wanted to go.

  Reflexogenic hard-ons didn’t result in a pile driver of an erection, but there were ways he could get it harder, keep it up. Watching her explore was pleasurable torment.

  He’d given some thought to whether she’d even want to have sex. He was better equipped than most men, so to speak, to accept that. But her interest, her reaction, said that she was interested. And her pleasure meant a whole hell of a lot to him.

  “I want to be inside you at some point, Daralyn.”

  “Okay.” Her brief hesitation, her tone, the softening of her mouth and brightness of her eyes, told him she was greenlighting the idea, though he’d still ask a few more questions to be sure, when the time came.

  She’d moved her touch up to his abdomen again. She seemed intensely interested in how it made his muscles tighten and his breath shorten, and he gripped her more urgently with the hand on her hip.

  He let go of the headboard to bring her face back up, so they could meet gazes. “I’m not ever going to force you to tell me what you want, Daralyn. But if ever you do, it will be a gift to me. Every time you do it.”

  She pressed her lips together. “I… Sometimes I feel like you already know. That I don’t have to say it.”

  “I’m not as smart as I might seem. Thomas and Les should have told you that.”

  A slight smile appeared on her lips. “Being inside me... Will it be tonight?”

  “I think we need to think about it some. Take a breath.”

  She didn’t say anything to that. Her eyes lowered, and her breathing was shallow. Her fingers curled into his stomach, little bites of her nails.

  Signs of disappointment, which surprised the hell out of him. He needed to explain further, so she knew it wasn’t a rejection. Not even close. Hand to God, if he was in the middle of church right now and she asked him to make love to her, he wouldn’t hesitate even a second. God would understand. He’d created Daralyn, after all.

  “I want to right now,” he said. “But there’s more to it than that.”

  He’d taken these steps with Amanda Brewster, and it had turned out all right. But truthfully, that had been about him, taking his first steps toward finding out he could still enjoy sex. Also toward something he’d been surprised to find was more important to his sense of his masculinity and pride as a lover: he could make it enjoyable for the woman he was with.

  Having a woman willing to muddle through that with him had meant so much. His feelings for Amanda Brewster would forever dwell in the same room in his heart reserved for firsts—first loves, first kisses. His love for her wasn’t an “in love” love, and it didn’t come close to the intensity he felt about Daralyn. But with Amanda, he’d confirmed that sex, while forever different for him, could still be intense and satisfying. Fulfilling.

  Even more vital, it could be intimate.

  That said, explaining how sex worked for him wasn’t such a common conversation that it came easily, particularly with a woman he wanted to be strong for, to care for. But being around other disabled guys who’d gone through it had helped him realize the stumbling points were often self-generated. If the person was worth talking to about it—and Daralyn was—it would ultimately turn out the way it should.

  “You noticed when you touch me above the waist, I get pretty stirred up. Right?”

  She nodded, her eyes serious. “It doesn’t work the same way for every guy with an SCI, spinal cord injury,” he said. “It depends on where our injury is, what kind of sensation we have left, but for me, when you’re touching my chest, my throat, it feels to me the way it does to another guy, when his arousal shows itself in his cock. I’m just feeling that somewhere else, if that makes sense.” Much like women could feel it in a lot of different places.

  “When you were taking off your clothes,” he said, “touching yourself, it felt like my skin, wherever I could feel it, was catching fire, sensitive to everything. And when you touched me in those places, it felt so good I didn’t want you to stop.”

  Her lips parted, hazel eyes heating. He loved that she had moved her hand back up his chest, caressing him in reaction to his words, before she consciously thought of it. He closed his hand on hers, gave her a smile. “Don’t distract me. I have to finish getting this out.”

  He glimpsed that little smile again, the one that hinted at the day, maybe closer to the near future than anticipated, where she might feel safe to tease him.