Silence settled, heavy and waiting.
I pushed off the door and took a slow, uneven step toward her. Her throat worked on a swallow, but she didn’t move back.
“I was a dick,” I said. “Mostly because my brain was melting out my ears. Also because the list of things I am currently terrified of is long and pathetic.”
Her mouth curved at the edges. “You aren’t pathetic.”
“You’d be surprised.” My laugh came out low and frayed. I shifted my weight, the prosthetic a familiar pressure. “I have spent an impressive amount of time thinking about every way my body could fail me in bed. Leg gives out. Balance goes toshit. Phantom pain flares at the wrong second. I go numb or too sensitive or nowhere at all. You could see the not-fantasy version of sex with me and realize you signed up for a horror show instead of a highlight reel.”
Her expression softened in a way that made it hard to breathe. No flinching or pity. Just a steady, clear look.
“Wes,” she said quietly. “I am not afraid of the not-fantasy version of you.”
I looked away, toward the window where the night pressed close and the snow outside glowed faintly. “You should be,” I muttered. “I am.”
She took a breath, slow and measured. “Then that’s what this was about,” she said. “What I was trying to offer.”
I glanced at her. She stood a little straighter, shoulders rolling back despite the fact that she was wearing nothing but a towel.
“You keep framing this like a performance,” she said. “Like you have to show up already knowing the choreography, already hitting every mark, or you’ll get booed offstage.” Her brows drew together. “This isn’t an audition, Wes. This is practice. For you. With someone who already knows you’re a stubborn ass and wants to be here anyway.”
Heat flickered in my chest at the same time embarrassment crawled up the back of my neck.
She took a careful step closer. The towel shifted with her, exposing another inch of thigh before she hitched it up again.
“I meant it,” she went on, voice softer but steady. “I want to help you figure out what works now. What feels good. Where the limits are and where they aren’t. Not for some hypothetical future woman you’re going to date someday. For you. So you know your body isn’t the enemy.”
My jaw clenched. The quiet in her tone cut deeper than any lecture could have.
“We go at your pace,” she said. “We stop when you say stop. We laugh if something’s awkward. We try again or we don’t. You’re in control the whole time, okay? Not your fear. Not the accident. You.”
The accident landed between us like a ghost. I swallowed hard.
“You really think it’s that simple?” I asked.
“No.” Her mouth twitched. “I think it’s going to be messy and weird and probably a little hilarious. I also think it could be really, really good.” Her gaze held mine. “Think of it as ... a series. Lessons. Only as far as you want to go.”
My body already knew exactly how far it wanted to go. Right up against the wall of this room, into that bed, down every road I hadn’t let myself consider for months.
“They say exposure therapy works,” I tried to joke. “Set me loose in the deep end, see if I drown.”
“This isn’t throwing you in the deep end,” she said. “This is stepping into the shallow end together and letting you decide if and when we go deeper.” Her throat bobbed. “It’s not charity, Wes.”
My head jerked up at that.
“It’s not pity. It’s not me doing a good deed.” She took a breath, eyes dropping briefly to my mouth before returning to my eyes. Her voice dropped. “I want this too.”
Her words hung there, vibrating.
Then she let go of the knot. The towel slid. It loosened around her chest and whispered down her body in one clean line, pooling at her feet in a small, defeated heap of white terry cloth.
My lungs stopped working.
Clara stood in front of me, bare and unashamed, skin still flushed from the shower. My gaze dragged over her in slow, helpless passes, as if my eyes had their own gravity and she was the only thing they recognized.
Water still clung to her collarbone, beading along the delicate notch before sliding down to the swell of her breasts. Her nipples were tight and flushed, pretty and obscene at the same time, and all I could think about was how they would feel against my tongue. She was all contrast—strong thighs and generous hips, soft skin over quiet muscle, the kind of body that looked made for being touched and held and ruined in the best possible way.
My gaze caught on the slick shine between her legs, and my lungs forgot how to work. Every possessive, filthy thought I’d tried to choke down roared back all at once—on your knees,taste her,make her fall apart on your tongue until she forgets her own name. Underneath it, threaded through the heat, was something that scared me more than the wanting did.