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“You want to know what I saw in those pictures?” I ask, tightening my fingers beneath her hair when her attention tries to fall away from the glass. “You want to know what I see every time I look at you?”
Her breathing catches as I turn her toward the mirror and position myself behind her. Charm tries to lower her gaze, but my hand remains firm against the back of her neck while our reflections settle together inside the glass.
“Look at yourself in the mirror, Charm.”
Her breath stops somewhere inside her chest. “Ryan—”
“Keep your eyes open and look.”
Our reflections stare back at us. Charm’s eyes are wide and wounded while mine are dark with hunger, anger, and an ache I cannot explain without making this another wound she believes she caused. She tries to turn her head, searching for the floor or the wall, anything that will save her from seeing herself.
I press my fingers gently but firmly over her lips. Her breath hitches against my skin, though I feel no fear in the body pressed against mine. Shame has taken its place, the same vicious shame that convinced her she needed to starve every soft, beautiful part of herself out of existence.
“Be quiet long enough to hear me,” I say, lowering my voice while my thumb strokes her cheek.
I move my hand from her mouth to cup her jaw and guide her face toward the mirror. She could pull away, yet her fingers close around my wrist instead, holding on while tears gather in her eyes.
“Keep looking at yourself.”
She shakes her head as a tremor moves through her. “Ryan, please. I can’t.”
The words cut deeper than anything she screamed at me during our fight. I turn her face enough that she has to see me behind her. “Do you want me to stop touching you?”
Her answer comes immediately. “I don’t want you to stop. I just can’t look at me.”
“Then look at me until you can.” I rest my forehead against the side of her head and breathe her in, taking the first softness she has given me since I walked into her room and asked her to come with me. “Stay here with me and let me show you what I see.”
My hands move to the straps of her yellow satin tank. I slide them from her shoulders one at a time while watching her face in the mirror. The fabric catches at the fullness of her breasts before pooling around her waist. Her hands rise instinctively to cover herself, and I catch her wrists before she can disappear behind them.
“Don’t hide your body from me.”
Her chin trembles while her eyes search mine in the glass.
“I’m not asking you to love what you see tonight. I’m asking you to let me look at you without listening to you tear apart every fucking thing I love touching.”
Her hands gradually relax inside mine. I lower them to her sides and wait until she nods before releasing her. When I push the fabric down, it whispers over her hips and gathers around her ankles.
Charm stands naked before the mirror, rigid and trembling, her breathing shallow enough to make something inside my chest pull tight. I have seen this body beneath me, above me, spread open for me, and soft with sleep inside my arms. I have never seen her look at it like it belongs to someone she has spent her entire life hating.
My hands settle on her bare shoulders. “I’m standing right here with you.”
She shudders beneath my palms before leaning back until the length of her body rests against mine. The contact sends something warm and painful through me. I needed her arms around me tonight. I needed her to touch the blood on my mouth and remember I was the one hurting, yet the weight of her body against mine gives me enough comfort to keep taking whatever she can offer.
“Look,” I murmur as my hands slide down her arms and come around her front.
One palm spreads over the soft curve of her stomach, covering the same place she grabbed while calling herself disgusting. I press my hand flat against its warmth and feel the uneven rhythm of her breathing beneath it.
“This softness is where I feel you breathe. It’s where I feel you come alive beneath my hands, and it’s fucking beautiful.”
A tear slides down her cheek. I catch it with my mouth before returning my attention to our reflection.
“You fought to keep this body alive, Charm. Don’t stand here and speak about it like it betrayed you.”
My other hand rises and cups her breast, full and heavy in my palm. Her nipple tightens instantly beneath my touch, and her breath catches for an entirely different reason.
“These breasts drive me out of my fucking mind. I love their weight, the way they fill my hands, and how your body arches into me when I put my mouth on them.”
I squeeze gently and watch pleasure move across her face before shame can erase it. Her fingers curl around my forearms, holding me against her while I let my hands travel down her sides and settle over the pronounced swell of her hips.
