hate her.’ One football player grabbed my breast in the hallway and said he was just trying to decide if I was truly a girl.”
“What a shitting bastard. Please tell me someone kicked his ass.”
“I never reported it.”
“You’re not flat-chested.” It hurt Thor to imagine a teenage Samantha enduring assault and taunts. He understood now why she had so little confidence. “They bullied you. Wasn’t your mother a teacher? Didn’t she try to stop it?”
Samantha shook her head. “I didn’t tell her. Are you kidding? It would have been so much worse if I had.”
Thor couldn’t imagine that. “That’s just wrong. In Denmark, children are taught not to bully as soon as they start school. They’re also taught to intervene if they see another child being bullied. We believe that everyone has a right to be a part of things. No one should be left out.”
“That’s wonderful.”
“If people can’t learn at an early age how to be kind and get along with one another, how can you have a functioning society?” It seemed obvious to Thor.
She tilted her head back, looked up at him. “I like that.”
“So, Scott was a bastard. Who else?”
“Nathan and I met in grad school. My parents thought we’d get married, but everything was a competition with him. If I got a better grade than he did, it made him angry. He would yell and tell me the professors were going easy on me because I was a woman. When I got the post-doc at the University of Chicago, he said it was only because of my sex. Then he packed and left. I was … crushed.”
The hurt in her voice made Thor want to punch the fucker. “What a fragile ego. He believed he had to compete with you. You’re better off without him.”
“After that, I stopped dating.”
She’d been with two men—only two—and both times they’d hurt her badly and put her down. Thor couldn’t undo the damage they’d done to her spirit, but, for the short time he was here, he could show her that not all men were like that.
He drew her close, stroked her hair. “Want to know what I see when I look at you? I see one of the most brilliant people I’ve ever met, man or woman. I see a woman with a sweet body, delicate breasts, a pretty face, and beautiful blue eyes. I see a loyal friend and a hard worker. I don’t know what was up with the kids at your high school or those two men, but there’s nothing wrong with you.”
For a moment, she was silent. “You’re not just saying that?”
“I never say things I don’t mean.” Thor kissed her forehead. “I also like that you’re real.”
“I’m real?”
“You don’t wear makeup or talk about clothes or waste time on things that don’t matter. You’re not super… superfiscal.” That was the word, right?
“I think you mean superficial.” There was a hint of laughter in her voice.
He repeated it. “Superficial.”
“Thank you. For some reason, I’ve never had an interest in any of that. I thought most men like women who do all the girly stuff.”
“I don’t believe that. But who knows? My last girlfriend broke up with me because I didn’t notice her new shoes.”
“Are you serious?”
“She cried and told me I was cold and uncaring.”
Samantha sat up. “But you’re not any of those things.”
Her distress on his behalf made him smile. “Thanks, but it wasn’t a great loss.”
Lying here beside Samantha, the end of that relationship seemed like nothing.
Thor drank in the sight of her—rosy nipples peeking out between strands of blond hair, the curve of her shoulder, guileless eyes. And the sexual thirst that had just been slaked flared to life again, blood filling his cock. He brushed her hair over her shoulder, exposing her breast to his touch. “See? I want you again already.”
Her eyes drifted shut, her nipples drawing tight as he caressed her.
“Come here.” He drew her onto him, helped her straddle his hips. “Now I can touch you anywhere I want.”
She sucked in a little breath, her hands splayed against his chest for balance. “You have the most amazing body. I just want to play with it.”
“Don’t let me stop you.” He let her explore him with her hands, her caresses striking sparks from his skin. It turned him on just to see how much touching him turned her on, lust in her eyes, hunger on her face.
But he was hungry, too.
He stopped her when she started to go down