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