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His hands caught them before she could blink “You can’t really want to touchthis”

“Did indescribable and irresistible have too many syllables for you to understand? I would find you both even if you were scarred all over I don’t only want to touch you, I’ve been waiting all my life to do it”

This ti on the opening it afforded her, she persisted, “Will you let me touch you? Please?”

A full-scale war seeaze the darkest it had ever been, he let go of her hands

Her first instinct was to pounce on hi-woman-at-a-buffet routine would be too much for hi as they made that first contact With the scar at his heart

The moment her flesh e, her whole being seized, as if her essence flowed through her fingertips into hiive endlessly of it, if it would only erase his suffering, past and present

On the verge of breaking down, her voice wobbled on the question that seared her “Does— Does it still hurt?”

“No”

Theit had hurt

“What does it feel like?”

A shudder coursed through hi so hard She couldn’t tell where the tre when they know it’s not painful anymore” His voice was thicker, impeded “They don’t think any other sensation but pain htened her throat “I’ that you feel matters to me Matters, period” Unable to hold back any his head down so her lips could follow her fingers in exploring that scar that made her only far more appreciative and protective of his every other inch This tih hie of his jan to the root of his powerful neck She held hiainst his da her discover every inch of his scar, his voice ragged, he said, “If I’m totally still, I can convince htest s to me It sometimes feels like a chas malicious seeps into my body, infects me with its poison”

So he did feel possessed She’d do whatever it took toaround him, her lips followed the scar as it flowed from his neck to his back, as if she would kiss it better, suck all the negative energy into herself

“How do you feel when it’s touched?” she whispered

She felt his tension spike before it resuh a maximum-resistance cable His voice was a hoarse rasp when he answered “The few times it was touched, it felt like a jolt of acute discomfort and revulsion It made me feelviolent”

Her lips stopped over his shoulder blade, along with her heart “Do— Do you feel like that now?”

“No”

Her heart clanged at his instantaneous negation