Incense and Sensibility (The Rajes #3) - Sonali Dev Page 0,108

felled by tickles and completely vulnerable, was something she would never forget as long as she lived.

This close, his scent, all that masculine vibrancy, made a heady mix with the gentleness with which he clutched her hands, the trust with which he leaned into her. Pain and pleasure gathered where their bodies touched.

Moving to face him, she let him go slowly, her hands taking cues from his. Finally he was standing, and she could tell that he was fine.

Her hands stayed in his.

“Better?” she asked.

His gaze dropped to their joined hands. He nodded.

“And the male ego?”

“Absolutely battered.”

She found herself grinning as she left him to retrieve the oats from the fridge.

He took out two bowls from a drawer as though they’d done this a million times. “Will you have some?”

“No, thank you.”

Slipping the extra bowl back, he handed her the other one. “I’m being a coward again.”

She took the bowl. “Yash, not being able to talk about something that hurt you isn’t cowardice, it’s self-protection. You don’t have to tell me. But if you want to, it will help me understand, and I do need to understand.”

When she handed him the full bowl, he put it down and took her hand instead. He needed the contact. She did too.

“That night . . . you . . . you knocked the breath out of me. It was the first time in my life I had felt like that. You already know that I didn’t exactly have a normal dating history as a young person. The accident happened when I was fifteen, and for the rest of high school I was trying to figure out how to get back on my feet and not disappoint everyone in my life and do all the things I wanted to. Through college I was trying to get rid of my limp—it made me too self-conscious to date. I . . .” He stopped, and she knew this part was harder than the rest.

“I have scars. A . . . a lot of them. They were fresh then. And still painful.” He let her hand go and touched his collar as though making sure it was there, covering him up, and she had to work hard to keep from wrapping her arms around him.

“I was also trying to get through college and law school at an accelerated pace, because I was in a hurry and because it gave me somewhere to put my energy, so I didn’t have to think about the things that were broken. I let myself heal wrong, then I overcompensated for it. My first job out of law school was with the U.S. Attorney’s Office. I loved that job, it was like finding myself.” He stopped and took a breath, an ujjayi one, like she’d taught him.

He was fully inside himself, his face tight, his aura drained of its glow. It was the palest she’d ever seen it, almost every hint of gold gone. The desire to comfort him raged inside her, but she held still.

“I . . . I’ve never told this next part to anyone. Only my family and Naina know. When Trisha was at Berkeley, I spoke to a pre-law class. Afterward I took Trisha and her roommate out to dinner. Her roommate—Julia—developed something of a crush on me. She reached out for an internship and I took her on because she was bright and because she was my sister’s friend.” His hands shook, but he pressed them into the countertop and kept going.

“One evening she called me and said Trisha was in trouble and she wanted to meet and talk to me about it. Then she drugged me and . . . and recorded me having sex with her. I remember nothing of the actual incident except for the splitting headache and throwing up all of the next day. But I do remember the terrible sense of violation, a disconnection from myself that I didn’t understand, couldn’t shake off.”

Rage shook inside her. Never in her life had she truly wanted to hurt someone. But what that woman had done to him made her want to hunt her down. She took his hand and he pulled their joined hands to his heart, as though he’d been waiting for her to.

“Naina and I were friends and Julia thought we were together, so she sent the video to Naina with a threat to release it to the press if Naina didn’t break up with me. I was running for my first