"Sorry." The word comes out small, ashamed. "Old habit."
Old habit. Meaning Adrian trained her to cover herself. To hide. To believe her body was something to be criticized rather than worshipped.
Rage flickers through me, hot and immediate, but I keep my voice gentle.
"Don't hide from me." I uncurl her fists and bring her hands to my shoulders instead. "Not anymore."
I press my lips to her collarbone. Then her shoulder. The swell of her breast, feather-light. I'm not rushing. Just learning the geography of her skin, tracking every response. The catch in her breathing, the way her fingers tighten on my shoulders, the small sounds she's trying not to make.
The zipper of her pants gives easily and they join the blouse on the floor. Her underwear slides down her thighs until she is standing naked in front of me.
My gaze travels over her. Not judging. Memorizing.
Mine. Every inch. Every scar. Every part she's been taught to hate.
And then I see it. I missed it last night.
The C-section scar cuts vertically down her lower belly, silver-white against her skin. Not the neat horizontal line of a planned procedure, this is an emergency cut, proof of the night everything almost ended.
She flinches when my eyes find it. Her hand moves to cover it, automatic and ashamed.
"It's ugly. I know—"
I drop to my knees.
The hardwood bites into my kneecaps, but I don't care. All I care about is being eye-level with this scar. This proof of what she survived.
"Cole, what are you—"
I kiss it.
Gentle and reverent, my lips press against the raised tissue, and she goes completely still above me. Not frozen with fear, frozen with something else. Shock, maybe. Or the kind of disbelief that comes from someone touching the part of yourself you've been taught to despise.
"This is not ugly." I kiss along the length of it, from the top of the scar down to where it fades away. "This is where you fought back. Where you called Sal. Where you chose yourself and Chesca over everything Adrian tried to take from you."
A broken sound escapes her. Her stomach trembles under my mouth.
"This is where you won, Angelina." I look up at her, and her face is wet with fresh tears. "Don't ever hide it from me, firefly."
She grabs my shoulders and hauls me up, nails biting deep enough to sting. Her mouth crashes into mine. No gentleness left, just teeth and tongue and desperate sounds swallowed between us.
"Off." Her hands yank at my belt. "Get these off. Now."
My belt buckle clatters against the hardwood when my pants hit the ground. Her hand wraps around my cock and strokes, and my hips jerk into her grip. sharp and immediate.
"Bed," she gasps against my mouth.
We crash onto the mattress in a tangle of limbs. She pulls me over her, hooks a leg around my hip, and grinds up so my cock slides through the slick heat between her thighs. The contact drags a groan from my throat.
Control. Maintain control. Let her lead.
"Angelina—" I need to slow down. Need to make sure—
"If you ask me if I'm okay one more time, I swear to God—" She reaches between us, lining up the head of my cock against her entrance. "I'm not fragile. Stop treating me like I am."
She pulls me into her with one sharp roll of her hips, and the tight grip of her pussy swallows every rational thought I had.
"Fuck." The word punches out of me. My arms shake where they are braced on either side of her head.