Having a woman willing to muddle through that with him had meant so much. His feelings for Amanda Brewster would forever dwell in the same room in his heart reserved for firsts—first loves, first kisses. His love for her wasn’t an “in love” love, and it didn’t come close to the intensity he felt about Daralyn. But with Amanda, he’d confirmed that sex, while forever different for him, could still be intense and satisfying. Fulfilling.
Even more vital, it could be intimate.
That said, explaining how sex worked for him wasn’t such a common conversation that it came easily, particularly with a woman he wanted to be strong for, to care for. But being around other disabled guys who’d gone through it had helped him realize the stumbling points were often self-generated. If the person was worth talking to about it—and Daralyn was—it would ultimately turn out the way it should.
“You noticed when you touch me above the waist, I get pretty stirred up. Right?”
She nodded, her eyes serious. “It doesn’t work the same way for every guy with an SCI, spinal cord injury,” he said. “It depends on where our injury is, what kind of sensation we have left, but for me, when you’re touching my chest, my throat, it feels to me the way it does to another guy, when his arousal shows itself in his cock. I’m just feeling that somewhere else, if that makes sense.” Much like women could feel it in a lot of different places.
“When you were taking off your clothes,” he said, “touching yourself, it felt like my skin, wherever I could feel it, was catching fire, sensitive to everything. And when you touched me in those places, it felt so good I didn’t want you to stop.”
Her lips parted, hazel eyes heating. He loved that she had moved her hand back up his chest, caressing him in reaction to his words, before she consciously thought of it. He closed his hand on hers, gave her a smile. “Don’t distract me. I have to finish getting this out.”
He glimpsed that little smile again, the one that hinted at the day, maybe closer to the near future than anticipated, where she might feel safe to tease him.
“You know how when I say certain things to you, or you imagine me touching you, you get aroused?” Before her past could yank her back to that automatic shame and anxiety, he reminded her how he felt about it. “Something I love to see happen. You’ve seen that, haven’t you?”
Her brow creased, but she nodded again, her eyes clearing and body relaxing once more.
“Well, I can’t do that.” He tapped his head. “That’s called a psychogenic reaction, when it comes from here. But I can get hard with direct contact. Like when you were touching me there just now. That’s reflexogenic.”
He brushed his knuckles over her cheek, smiled. “Stop trying to spell it in your head. I’ll give it to you for your book. Later.”
Her lips tipped up slightly. Time to get deeper into it. The stuff that was a pain in the ass, something else he doubted anyone would ever see in a romance novel.
“When I decide it’s time to be inside you, there’s a little more to it. There are things I have to do before sex to make sure it’s good for both of us.”
“Can I help with any of it?”
Why was he not surprised that was her first question? “I love that you asked that, but they’re things I can handle. They just require a little bit of time beforehand. To keep an erection good enough for sex, I take a pill, which requires about fifteen minutes to kick in.” He moved his touch to her neck and shoulder, caressed with purpose. “There are a lot of ways to occupy those fifteen minutes.”
Her chin lifted, reacting to his touch, but he thought the way she pressed into it was also a reaction to the edge he put into his words, a sensual threat.
Once hard enough, he’d slide a well-lubricated, flexible silicone ring on the base of his cock, over a condom, to maintain his erection. He told her that, and lifted her hand, kissing her fingers. “That’s something you can help me do, especially if I tell you to do it. Right?”
“Yes.” She gave him that breathy syllable, while she watched his lips play over her fingers. The blanket was pulled up under her arm, but the tops of her breasts quivered with the lift and fall of her breath, and he could feel the tightening of her nipples against his side.
Now the last part of it. “I also have to do some things in the bathroom to prepare for sex, to keep other less romantic things from happening during.”
Like empty his bladder, his bowels beforehand if needed, depending on the time of day. He was lucky enough not to have to wear a catheter bag, but he still had to cath himself to void his bladder. He wasn’t going to go into detail on those things with her, though. Not if he didn’t have to do so.
“So that’s it. The high level.” He stroked the tops of her breasts, moved up to the pocket at the base of her throat, logging every reaction, the glazing in her eyes as he teased her flesh. Maybe he would deep suckle those two pretty breasts she kept innocently flashing at him, or put his hand between her legs and bring her to climax again. Her arousal was a need he craved to satisfy, much as he wanted to keep driving it back up for his viewing pleasure, again and again.
“We don’t have to take that step today, tomorrow, or anytime soon,” he said. “We can give one another pleasure without it. But there’s a caveman part of me that wants to do it as a claiming, Daralyn.” He paused, his thumb resting on her neck pulse, stroking in a slow firm way that had her breath shortening. “I do want you to belong to me,” he said.
Her dark eyes glowed with a fire that shot straight through his center. A neon sign in his book that she wasn’t just accepting that statement with meek resignation. Then her words confirmed it. Her fingers curled over his hands, holding them. “Are you sure we can’t do those things now?”
It was the closest she’d come to saying she wanted something with words. And it figured, that the first thing she straight out asked him for, no way to interpret it any other way, was something he wasn’t so sure was a good idea for her yet.
Falling out of one’s chair was one of the most important fears to overcome. The best way to do it was to learn how to get back into the chair when it happened. Because then that fear wouldn’t stand in the way of anything you wanted.
She needed to know he wouldn’t back off every time she had a breakdown. That he trusted her to decide whether she could get up, dust herself off and keep going, or if she needed to try another day.
She needed to know when he read those messages from her as clearly as he did right now, he wouldn’t back away from them.
“No,” he said. “We don’t have to wait.”
Chapter Nine
Now it was his turn to prop himself on an elbow. He put his hand on her chest, exerting pressure to tell her he wanted her flat on her back. She obeyed, resting nervous hands on her abdomen. He moved his hand from her chest there, curling his fingers over her overlapped wrists, a light manacle that captured her attention. He felt the texture of the scar on the underside of her forearm as he ran his thumb over it.
“I’m going to go into your bathroom,” he said. “I’ll be a few minutes. While I’m in there, I want you to be warm.” He reached over, lifted his dress shirt off the end of the bed. “Put this on.”