How Cassie Got Her Grind Back (24 page)

That evening, he’d found that he was putting himself more and more in the shoes of the strangers who called in, needing the police or emergency medical aid. The little girl who spoke no English, calling because her mother had passed out on the kitchen floor. And the couple who had been rushing to the hospital because the wife was about to give birth until they’d had a blowout and needed an ambulance. It didn’t matter that he’d never been in those identical situations. It was life. Crazy stuff happened. Life began…and it ended. How intentionally life was lived between those dates was what made the difference.

He’d been to several foreign countries and had found himself in difficult and sometimes life-threatening situations both in the United States and abroad. He’d always followed the orders of others, earning commendations and respect for his service. Yet he wondered if he’d truly been living. What had the BDSM been about? Control? Power? Would he give it up, as Joseph had asked him, if it meant having Cassie in his life? Was all of that a replacement for having no real life to go home to in his quiet, cold apartment?

“Where did they take the Tarringtons?” he asked when his coworker walked past.

“They’re way out on the county line. Divine Memorial was closer.”

He nodded, hoping Sunny would be all right. Sunny probably felt as though she’d lived life intentionally. He hoped she had a few more years of intentional living alongside Casper.

Checking his watch, Samson thought of Cassie and Ivan, probably nice and cozy by that point in the evening. Part of him was envious. There was no denying it. Ivan had let him know they’d left a key out in case he decided to join them, but it was probably good Ivan was alone with her. Every time they’d been around each other, he’d scared her off, offended her, or pissed her off.

They’d been on the right track that day until her mother had collapsed, though. Ivan had a way with words, and the tenderness Samson had always noticed Ivan projected toward her was finally out in the open. It was a safe bet she was already convinced a ménage was a good idea, so him working that evening and giving them the time alone was probably a good idea for all three of them. If things worked out, time alone with each other would be expected anyway, so he might as well start out on the right foot…now that it was no longer shoved in his mouth.

Ivan’s gaze travelled up and down her body with agonizing thoroughness, and then he looked into her eyes for several long seconds.

While he stared, all her body image worries catalogued themselves in her head. Only this time she noticed the voice was Bill’s.

A man doesn’t want to see a woman’s ass wobbling while he fucks her.

I miss when your breasts were firm before the kids came along.

I’d gladly pay for breast implants.

Lubrication is your responsibility, not mine.

A Stairmaster might improve your stamina so you can keep up with me. It’d tone those thighs, too.

All that body acceptance garbage in the media is just politically correct bull crap. Men are not attracted to women with extra meat on their bones.

And her father’s voice in her head surprised her.
No more
sopapillas
for you! No man will marry you if you are fat.

You’re sagging.

Old.

Cassie blinked in surprise when Ivan interlaced her fingers with his and said, “Come with me.”

“Where? What are you doing?”

“You’ll see.”

She resisted when he tugged her hand but followed when he tightened his fingers and pulled her around the room, maneuvering her in front of the full-length mirror on the back of her closet door. A mirror she usually checked her appearance in before walking out the door…
fully clothed
.

Taking her by the arms, he adjusted her so she stood in front of him. She locked eyes with his reflection over her shoulders.

“I can’t believe this is the only long mirror in your house. You can’t see anything in the small mirror in your bathroom.”

By design.

“Close your eyes,” he whispered right next to her ear. She gratefully complied, and he continued. “Just breathe for me right now. You’re as rigid as a two-by-four.”

She gulped as she listened to her rushing heartbeat in her ears. He was right. It was difficult, but she managed a slow intake of air and shuddered as she tried to release it just as slowly, feeling as if she was suffocating.

“You’re safe with me, Cassie,” he said as he stroked her hair over her shoulders so it all hung down her back and then ran a hand over the length, giving her goose bumps and sending a delicious wave of shivers up her spine in response. She took another slow breath, counting to four, and then let it out with a bit more ease. By the fourth slow in and out of air, she felt a little more settled and smiled when he whispered, “Good. Now, I want you to open your eyes, but keep them on me.”

She nodded and opened them. He returned her smile and gave her shoulders a gentle squeeze. He stood at least half a foot taller than her, and she drew warmth and a little courage from him standing so close. A tingle flickered under her skin as his gaze roved over her naked skin.

He looked away for a second, as if gathering his thoughts, and then looked into her eyes again. “You don’t like looking at your naked body, do you?” She shook her head. “Using your fingertips, I want you to touch a spot on your body that makes you not want to look at yourself naked.”

Gulping again, her fingertips twitched before she placed them against the soft, stretch-marked skin, the slight crease above her mound. She hated the way the skin folded when she bent over or sat down, as well as the small spare tire that had developed above it, which made her jeans snugger than they used to be.

“Okay,” he murmured, and then kissed her temple. “What else?”

She turned slightly in his loose embrace and touched the side of her breast, where the flesh had lost its firmness and sagged, then showed him its twin on her other side. “I never appreciated my breasts—the way they were shaped I mean—before I had the first baby. I remember looking in the mirror when he was less than a week old and noticing this had happened.” She shook her head when her voice cracked a little. She hadn’t been emotional about it in years and couldn’t imagine why it hit her fresh right then. She glanced up at him and saw compassion in his eyes.

“What else?”

Uh, everything else. Seriously.

Lifting her hands, she placed her fingertips against her jawline, right above her chin, to the point where the flesh had begun to sag just a little, giving her a slight jowly look. Without pausing, her fingertips drifted to the dimples on her thighs and around to her butt. They’d always been that way. She couldn’t blame that on age, but she still hated it.

He nodded, the beginnings of a smile flickering in his eyes. The slight raising of his brow asked if there was anything else.

Biting her lip and firming her chin, she closed her eyes as she cupped her breasts, lifting them so they were supported the way her bra would’ve if she’d still been wearing it. Doing so made her conscious of her arms, and she finally shook her head. “It’s not just a few things, Ivan. It’s everything.”

“Tell me,” he whispered, reaching forward to wrap his forearm around her shoulders in a decidedly protective manner.

She drew a blank at first, but then one at a time, the litany of criticisms she’d leveled on herself a few minutes before began to come from her lips. He listened and didn’t argue. When she ran out of steam, he brushed a tear from her cheek with the backs of his fingers and tilted his head against hers. “Can you show me anything you like while you’re standing here in front of the mirror? Look at yourself and show me, by pointing or touching. Any part, no matter how miniscule you think it is.”

She shook her head. “I can’t.”

“Take your time. Start at your feet and follow your legs upward.”

She had to take several more steadying breaths before she moved, lifting and tilting her foot upward so she could lay her fingers against the arch of her foot. “I like the way my feet are shaped. My arches are nice.”

“They are,” he said with a soft growl that made her smile. “Show me something else you like.”

Feeling as though she was somehow tooting her own horn, she blushed as she leaned forward a bit and touched the back of her knee and her upper calf. “I like the way this is shaped. It feels…”

“Feels what?”

“Delicate.”

“Show me more,” he asked, and she noticed the bulge in his groin had gotten downright hard as she stood straight and brushed her behind against him.

Bypassing her entire thigh-butt-hip area with a disgusted shake of her head, she paused at her ribs and then caressed the area from just beneath her breasts, over her ribs, down over her belly button to the flare of her hips. His devilish grin told her he liked it, too, and her softened nipples tightened to nubby peaks as he licked his lips and nodded. Next, she stroked the slight indentation at the base of her throat and downward to her cleavage. “When I wear a bra, I do like my cleavage. It’s…pretty.”

His slow intake of breath accompanied by a soft rumble in his chest as he exhaled told her he agreed, too.

She ran her hand over her arm and then looked at it more closely, along with the other one. “The skin has grown thin and translucent, and there are a few age spots and wrinkles where before the skin was firm and more opaque, but I like my hands and my fingers.” He slid a hand up the tender underside of her forearm and cupped one in his palm, rubbing it gently with the pad of his thumb, and then he glanced up at her, waiting.

Gazing at the reflection of her face, she touched her lips. “They’re even and full and have a nice color. I do like my lips. And my brows, although they’re getting thin. I like the way they’re shaped.”

“And?”

“And?” she asked, glancing at him before looking back at herself one more time. “And my eyes. My eyes and my hair are pretty good, too,” she added, feeling self-conscious for cataloging all her assets in front of him. “That’s all.”

“It’s a good start, love. A very good start.”

She looked up into his eyes over her shoulder. “Why did you call me love?”

“Because ‘angel lips of love’ borders on idiotic and ‘baby’ is so overused,” he replied, gaining a chuckle from her.

She chuckled until she was giggling then laughing out loud, and he joined her. “‘Angel lips of love’? Someone uses that as an endearment? Really? You?”

He laughed even harder and then said, “Hell no. I’m not that desperate, love. Anyway,” he said once he’d regained his breath, “a guy will do idiotic things for a woman sometimes. Now, back to what we were talking about.”

She met his eyes in the mirror and nodded, slightly more at ease once the levity settled.

He pulled her hair back from her shoulders again, and she shuddered when she felt his warm breath along her neck. Still stroking her hair, he said, “What do you see?”

With a minute frown, she said, “Me.”

“What else?”

“Nothing.”

He shook his head. “Look at your face. Look into your eyes. What do you see?”

If he was going for the abstract, she was about to get ticked. The last thing she wanted was some question and answer in-her-heart BS about what
he
actually saw in her. And if he made her cry, she was going to be super pissed. “I see a woman who gives…and gives.” There.
Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

He surprised her with a wide grin and sparkling eyes. “There she is!” Evidently he liked that she’d shown some spirit. He wasn’t just trying to bolster her spirits with some “in her heart” mumbo jumbo. “What else?”

Biting her lip, she gazed into her own eyes. “Compassion.”

“A ton of that stuff. Yes. Go on.” He caressed one shoulder as he leaned down and pressed a very warm kiss to the other and looked up at her, the plea in his eyes for her to see what he did, perhaps. He slid a hand down her arm, scattering a wave of tingles in its wake. He laced his fingers with hers, giving them a slight squeeze, and she looked back up at her reflection. She wanted him to put his hands on her body, and looking into her eyes, she thought he must be able to see it in her eyes, too. “Love.”

He nodded. “And desire?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“What about her? Cassie. Is she desirable?”

In the dim lamplight, the woman in the mirror was more relaxed, ready to be loved, and she nodded. “Yes.”

“Deserving of love?”

She’d given a lot over the years, to many people—some whom she knew loved her, like her kids, and to others who had just used her for their own ends. And she’d loved them and given of herself, only to be left hanging. How might it have been if what they were embarking on, a ménage a trois, had been more accepted thirty years ago? No one could answer that, but she could answer it now. Her brown eyes caught the light, and she whispered, “I deserve love, too.”

He lifted her hand clasped in his, wrapped his arm around her shoulders, and wrapped the other around her waist.

“Excellent. Now listen to me. You deserve love. I want to give it in all forms, and you denying that I would want to love on any and every part of you is the same thing as saying what I want is foolish…or, worse, that I’m lying. Am I lying?” His arms tightened fractionally.