Again the Magic (Wallflowers 0.5)(93)

“Let me,” he murmured.

She obeyed clumsily, raising her h*ps while he pulled the drawers over her bu**ocks and stripped the garment from her legs. The hem of her skirt was pushed to the tops of her thighs, the cool air washing over her exposed skin. A profuse sweat of anxiety broke out on her face and neck, and she used her sleeve to blot her cheeks and upper lip.

Kneeling before her, McKenna took hold of one of her icy feet in his warm hand. He brushed his thumb over the pink tips of her toes. “You were wearing shoes when it happened,” he said, staring at the pale, smooth skin of her feet, the delicate tracing of blue veins near the arch.

Perspiration stung her eyes as she opened them to look at the top of his dark head. “Yes.” Her entire body jerked as his hands slid to her ankles.

McKenna’s fingers stilled. “Does it hurt when I touch you?”

“N-no.” Aline blotted her face again, gasping as the slow, easy exploration continued. “It’s just…Mrs. Faircloth is the only one I’ve ever allowed to touch my legs. In some places I can’t feel anything…and in others, the skin is too sensitive.” The sight of his hands sliding along her ravaged calves was almost more than she could bear. Transfixed and miserable, she watched his fingertips pass over the rough, reddened scars.

“I wish I had known,” he murmured. “I should have been with you.”

That made Aline want to weep, but she set her jaw hard to keep it from quivering. “I wanted you,” she admitted stiffly. “I kept asking for you. Sometimes I thought you were there, holding me…but Mrs. Faircloth said they were fever dreams.”

The motion of his hands stopped. The words seemed to send a tremor across his wide shoulders, as if he had taken a chill. Eventually his palms resumed their progress along her thighs, pressing them apart, his thumbs skimming the insides. “So this is what has kept us apart,” he said unsteadily. “This is why you wouldn’t let me come to your bed, and why you refused my proposal. And why I had to hear the truth from Livia about what your father did, instead of hearing it from you.”

“Yes.”

McKenna rose on his knees, gripping the chair arms on either side of her, his face just inches from her own.

Aline had been prepared for sorrow, sympathy, repulsion…but she had never anticipated rage. She had not expected the gleam of primitive fury in his eyes, and the grimace of a man who had nearly been pushed beyond the limits of sanity. “What did you think I meant when I said that I loved you? Did you think I would give a damn about your scars?”

Stunned by his reaction, Aline responded with a single nod.

“My God.” The blood rose higher in his face. “What if the situation were reversed, and I was the one who had been hurt? Would you have left me?”

“No!”

“Then why did you expect anything less of me?”

The explosive outburst caused her to shrink back in the chair. McKenna leaned forward, following her, his fury now edged with anguish. “Damn you, Aline!” He took her face between his shaking hands, his long fingers cradling her cheeks, his eyes liquid and glittering. “You’re the other half of me,” he said hoarsely. “How could you think that I wouldn’t want you? You’ve put us both through hell for no reason!”

Clearly he did not understand the source of her fear. Taking hold of his broad, hard wrists, Aline gripped them tightly, her throat working.

McKenna glared at her with ardent, angry concern. “What is it?” He kept one hand at the side of her face, while using the other to smooth the hair back from her forehead.

“It was one thing to make love to me when you didn’t know about my legs. But now that you know…you will find it difficult, perhaps even impossible…”

McKenna’s eyes gleamed in a way that alarmed her. “You doubt my ability to make love to you?”

Hurriedly Aline pulled the gown back over her legs, infinitely relieved when they were covered once more. “My legs are horrible, McKenna.”

He uttered a curse that startled her with its foulness, and gripped her head between his hands, forcing her to stare at him. His voice was savage. “For twelve years I have been in constant torment, wanting you in my arms and believing it would never be possible. I want you for a thousand reasons other than your legs, and…no, damn it, I want you for no reason at all, other than the fact that you’re you. I want to shove myself deep inside you and stay for hours…days…weeks. I want morning and noon and nightfall with you. I want your tears, your smiles, your kisses…the smell of your hair, the taste of your skin, the touch of your breath on my face. I want to see you in the final hour of my life…to lie in your arms as I take my last breath.” He shook his head, staring at her like a condemned man who beheld the face of his executioner. “Aline,” he whispered, “do you know what hell is?”

“Yes.” Her eyes overflowed. “Trying to exist with your heart living somewhere outside your body.”

“No. It’s knowing that you have so little faith in my love, you would have condemned me to a lifetime of agony.” His face contorted suddenly. “To something worse than death.”

“I’m sorry.” Her voice cracked. “McKenna—”

“Not sorry enough.” He pressed his wet face to hers, his mouth rubbing over her cheeks and chin in feverish, rough half kisses, as if he wanted to devour her. “Not nearly enough. You say you’ve had to live without your heart…how would you like to lose your soul as well? I’ve cursed every day I’ve had to live without you, and every night that I spent with another woman, wishing that it was you in my arms—”