Page 107 of Plus One

“What do you need, my love? Tell me.”

No lover had ever asked her that and meant it. “Make me feel good, Mo. Will you do that for me, please?”

“Yes.” His voice was gruff. Lust-addled. “I’d do anything for you.”

“Then make love to me.”

His breathing stopped and so did his movements. “Are you sure?”

“Come on, it’s not like we haven’t done everything but the deed. Don’t put on your chastity belt now, Reverend.” His control and discipline made her want to be open and wild. “Stop being careful with me. I promise I won’t break.”

“But I might,” he said, crashing his lips against hers, tongue hot, wet, and wild. His hands were everywhere, but not giving nearly enough. “Take this off,” he said, tugging on her slip. “Lemme see you.”

She stood from the bed and stepped out of her slip and underwear.

His eyes were more thorough than the TSA body scan.

Insecurity tried to enter the chat. “You’re staring,” she said.

“I’m memorizing.”

Something shifted inside her. Not confidence, exactly. More like acceptance. This was her body. Battle-scarred and middle-aged and alive.

“Teach me how to love you,” he said, his finger tracing the scar along her lower belly that ran from hip to hip.

Monique hissed at the contact.

He leaned forward and kissed her hysterectomy scar, radiation burns, and stretch marks. His mouth, moist and warm, was so different than the persistent itching she’d been living with. His fingers pressed into her soft belly as he explored the tapestry of her body. A tingling began somewhere deep inside her, right there where he touched her. “You are so beautiful here.” He kissed her belly again, and then her heart. One hand slid over the swell of her hip, and the other cupped her breast.

The overwhelm buckled her knees, and she grabbed onto his shoulders. The solidness of him. The warmth. The realness of his strong, steadfast, healthy body.

“Stop thinking so much, Monique.” The scrape of his teeth against the underside of her breast made her squeak in surprise, and arousal built between her legs.

“You have too many clothes on.”

“I can fix that,” he said as he stood.

She pushed the shirt off his shoulders and watched it float to the floor. Her hands mapped his chest, enjoying the ridges and planes beneath her fingers. Brown, white, and pink scars littered his body. She recognized cigarette burns and cuts that didn’t heal correctly. Her fingers went to a ridge on his side.

He stilled her hand. “I got stabbed during a riot my first year inside.” He took her hand and placed it on a mark at his right shoulder. It looked like a lightning bolt, bright and jagged. “And here at about year fifteen, and I’d just been ordained.”

He led her fingers to his right collarbone and brought them around to the back of his neck. Multiple comet-shaped scars. “When I was fifteen, and he was choking me.”

Monique shuddered, and his eyes closed. For a long moment, she just rested her head there against his wounds. He’d been just a little bit younger than her kids when she was first diagnosed. So similar. Children who’d been forced to make a choice and be strong. She hadn’t understood a thing until now.

Her mouth went to every scar she found, and there were many. Each one a vivid story. Proof of survival.

She sat back and looked at him—really looked at him in that way she examined something worth keeping, even if she couldn’t understand why she couldn’t let it go. “You have no idea how beautiful you are, do you?”

She didn’t wait for him to answer. Her mouth swallowed whatever he meant to say—his moans, his yes, every bit of it. Her hands went to his belt and worked it loose, and he let her, because she knew the way and he had asked her to show him. His erection bobbed between them, thick, heavy, and leaking. She gripped him and watched his eyes roll.

“Come here,” she said, moving to the bed.

He followed, and when they came together, skin on skin, he was warmth. He was presence. He was relief. He was somebody who wanted her without reservation.

She pushed him onto his back and straddled him.

His length pressed between them. She’d been wet since she saw him. If she was being honest, since the elevator. The first slip of her sex against his wasn’t intentional. Just clumsy. They both grunted as their bodies caught the beat together. Her body had known what it wanted way before her mind caught up.