Lucas must have gone temporarily insane. Carefully, monitoring her every twitch, he did as she asked. The bright steel touched her, making her eyes close and her breathing hitch.

When she ensnared his wrist, he nearly cracked and yanked back. But instead of cutting herself, she shouted "No!" and shoved the knife away.

Instantly, he transferred it to his other hand, as far from her as he could get it. And though she tracked his movements, she didn't seem as terrified.

Ellie looked up at him, smiled wanly, then kissed his cheek. "You have no idea how good it feels to rewrite history like that. I obsessed about it. Daydreamed about how I'd overpower him the next time he threatened to slice my head clean off. I would have used that fucking knife to slice his dick off. Of course, I never was able."

Could Lucas fully comprehend her logic? No. But he witnessed the transformation coming over her and figured it wasn't his place to judge. Whatever remedy it took to facilitate her healing, he was willing to administer it.

Shifting, he brought his hands together, his arm still looped around her, pretty much squishing her to him. With a few quick strokes, he sliced the apple into reasonable wedges then washed the blade off with a single splash before tucking it away again.

Relief had Ellie melting into his chest.

Without speaking, Lucas fed her some of the apple, barely resisting the urge to lick her lips when a trickle of juice escaped a particularly crisp bite. She ate from his hand with complete trust and absolute faith that he wouldn't harm her. It was a beautiful gift.

He took his share before collecting the block of cheese. This time, when he revealed the blade, more subtly this time, she averted her stare for a moment-like someone choosing not to watch the needle go into their skin when having blood drawn-but didn't lose her mind. Again, he divvied up the food, taking perverse pleasure in the way her lips curled around his fingers as he nourished her.

Lucas realized it was probably sick that caring for her made him feel more like his old self than he had since his accident. Somehow, though, granting her strength increased his own like an echo that kept bouncing between them, benefitting them both.

The more comfortable she became, the more her hands roamed.

From his ribs and chest and abdomen, she moved lower.

Not in an overtly provocative way. More like she was intending to soothe him.

Could she tell how conflicted he was? Simultaneously, he wanted to shove her away and tug her closer. Selfless versus selfish. How fucked up was that?

Particularly when selfish won out.

Lucas allowed her to explore. Her fingers trailed over his thigh then lower, reading the topography of his scars like twisted Braille. The entire time, they stared into each other's eyes as if to see who would cry uncle first in this game of emotional chicken.

It was likely to be him.

Certainly, it made him defenseless when she touched his stump. No one but doctors had done that. However, her gentle massage felt so motherfucking good that he couldn't budge or order her to stop.

"E," he moaned, his eyes closing while his head tipped back to rest against the edge of the tub.

"Too hard?" she asked in a low hum that had him in danger of taking things way too far.

As if they hadn't ventured there already.

"No. Keep going." He tried to think of anything except how right it felt to have her with him. Touching him and not screaming in horror. Overwhelming bliss left no room for doubts or worry about the future. All he could do was sit back and enjoy.

When her fingers paused in their swirls, he moaned. Though the sound morphed into something like a growl when he realized why she'd slowed. She had risen to her knees, carefully straddling his thigh so that she could reach his mouth with hers.

Ellie plastered their damp torsos together and kissed him.

For a moment, nothing else in the world mattered except their full-on, skin-to-skin contact.

He opened his mouth, allowing her free rein over his body since she'd already taken something inside him hostage permanently. If she noticed his hard cock occasionally tapping her thigh as it bobbed in the roiling water, she didn't seem afraid and certainly didn't retreat.

Some of his fears eased, though they didn't vanish entirely. If a knife made her flash back to her time spent imprisoned and brutalized, what would having sex do to her?

He wasn't an expert, but he figured they shouldn't rush into anything.

If she'd been anyone else, he'd have lifted her into his lap and filled her from below. Imagining the tight clasp of her silky pussy as he plunged deep inside her made him groan between her parted lips, which he now plundered, unable to hold himself back.

Then again, if she'd been any other woman, he never would have let her get so close.

When she finished gliding her mouth over his, she rubbed their noses together and patted his shoulders. He stole a few more pecks before she withdrew.

His eyes opened then, allowing him to peer directly into the bright pools of her eyes. Rich and still, they said so much, allowed him to believe in her as much as she'd trusted him with the knife. Surely, she could cut him as deeply. But she didn't.

Ellie put only enough space between them as was necessary to return to doing a fantastic job of rubbing his stump. The ache in his knee eased, releasing some of the tension in his remaining calf muscle. When she slid lower, he swallowed hard, waiting for the moment her touch glided over his truncated flesh.

It was weird. When her fingers wandered over the bottom of his stump, which used to be the back of his leg, everything got kind of topsy-turvy. It didn't matter, though, when she made him feel pleasure from every direction.

Lucas stretched his arms out along the top of the tub, to either side of him, his fingers clamping on the edge. It was the only way he could stay still.

"Am I hurting you?" she asked.

"God, no," he practically panted.

Gentle caresses from her fingers made him wonder at the way she seemed to worship his body. How could she keep from being repulsed by what he was now?

"What are you...some kind of devotee or something?" He apparently was a little too relaxed if his rogue thought winged from his mouth so freely.

Ellie paused. "What does that mean?"

"Never mind." He figured the chances she'd let it drop were a hell of a lot lower than the odds she'd beat on the slot machines the night before.

"Tell me."

Fuck.

"There are people out there with all kinds of kinks," he started.

"No kidding." She wrinkled her nose. "I had to hear more than I wanted about my brother's-and the things he and Lily and Ben did together while they were working to take down the Sex Offender ring from the inside-during the statements we gave to the police. I was too scared to be alone, so he stayed with me and we did ours together. Awkward. If I could do it again, I'd have kicked him out so he didn't have to know every detail of what they did to me. At least the stuff I could remember."

How could Lucas have forgotten that? Ryan had gotten sucked into the same sex ring as his sister. Kind of on purpose. To try and get her out. Lucas would bet unwarranted guilt over his own injury hadn't been the only kind eating Ellie up inside.

"Besides, Lily tells me plenty about her Domme sessions when it doesn't breach confidentiality." Ellie shrugged. "I think it's cool that she provides a safe place for her clients to find what they're looking for."

"Well, there are some women...and men...out there who are exclusively attracted to people with disabilities." He lifted one shoulder. "To each their own. Let's just say that I'm glad you didn't flip to the page of my browser that has messages from strangers who cross the line after viewing articles about me online."

"I watched some videos Jambi and Lacey recommended earlier." She bit her lower lip. "It did seem like there were a lot of comments that ignored the content and went straight to some perverted stuff that seemed like unwanted advances."

"If I had a dollar for every time someone asked if they could lick my stump..." He sighed, laughing a little.

"Look, I don't have anything against mutual fetishes." She put her fingers on his cheeks, making sure he couldn't avoid the truth in her eyes. "But that's definitely not what this is. I care for you. Not because of your leg, or in spite of it. It's actually one of the least important factors in how I feel about you. So get that crap out of your head. I don't think you were really serious, but I don't want you to be so damn shocked that I'm not grossed out or that I don't pity you either. Do you think so little of me?"

"I think more of you by the second." He took her hand and slid it to his mouth so he could press a soft kiss on her palm. "And I started with an extremely high opinion."

"Thank you," she murmured. Then as if they both needed a break from the seriousness, she smiled.

The full impact of her happiness stunned him, so he didn't react fast enough when she said, "And I can't wait to see how this improves your estimation."

She moved fast, considering her hands had plunged back under the water.

Abandoning her massage of his leg, she moved a couple of inches to her right. Her fingers encircled his cock instead. The top of his head nearly blew off as she spiked his blood pressure with a single light caress.

"E?" The question was strangled.

"Shh." She silenced him with another chaste kiss at odds with her skilled grip. Her hand fisted him and began an entirely different sort of rubdown.

Lucas should have stopped her.

His voice refused to cooperate with his brain's instruction to tell her not to stroke him so fucking well. By the time she'd reached lower with her other hand to cup his balls, he had forgotten entirely about doing the right thing.

Instead, all he cared about was releasing the flood of lust she'd inspired in him for the better part of a year. Simply by being.

Every story his friends had told him of what she was up to had increased his longing to blockbuster proportions, as he was sure they'd intended.

"You know, Lucas, there is something of yours I want to lick." She turned coy, showing him an entirely new side of her. One that he couldn't resist. "Sometime when it wouldn't mean drowning in the process."

"How can you, after what those assholes did to you tonight? And before?" He winced. "I never want to make you uncomfortable or scared. We don't have to do that."

"It's not the same thing at all. Do you really think it is?" She paused and looked away. "Unless it bothers you. The things I've had to do..."

It would be easy to prove to her that he loved every second of what she was doing. As soon as he was sure he wouldn't cause her any additional harm. "E, no. That's not it."

"If I scratched off every act I've been forced to perform from my list of things I enjoy, there'd be nothing left. It's like the difference between running from my house tonight and going for a jog on a pleasant spring day."

"Well, shit." If she put it that way...

"Can we not talk about this right now, Lucas?" She redoubled her attention in a very successful attempt at distracting him. "I'm doing exactly what I want to be doing right now. Is it what you want too?"

He couldn't keep up with what she was saying. All he needed was more of her rhythmic pumping. So he lifted his hips, fucking into her hold.

"You like that?" She knew damn well he did, but her satisfied smirk made him enjoy her ministrations even more.

"Hell yeah." His jutting cock had to be proof enough. The intuitive accuracy of her handling, doing exactly what felt best, kept diverting blood flow, making him feel huge and heavy, compared to her delicate grip.

With other partners, he could have lasted like this forever.

Something about Ellie's intimate contact had him riled in an instant. She didn't boost his stamina when she leaned in and tasted his neck with a combination of licks, sucks and glancing rakes of her teeth. Direct hits on one of his most sensitive areas, as if she had a user manual for his body.

Lucas kept his hands where they were, practically drilling holes in the tub. Afraid to bury his fingers in her hair or trap her to him in any way, he allowed her to play with him however she liked. When he bent his knees and put his sole on the tub floor for better footing, he tipped slightly to one side.

It caught him at the oddest moments, probably because he had his brain completely switched off as instincts took over. Refusing to let his momentary lapse steal his enjoyment, he concentrated on Ellie and the bliss her touch brought him.

Except that had him rushing toward orgasm entirely too fast.

Her fingers bumped the ridge made by his engorged head while the water swirled over his sensitive tip and his balls, which drew closer to his core with every pass of her hand over his straining shaft.

When she added a flick of her thumb to the underside of his cock at the apex of each stroke, he knew it wasn't going to be long before she made him come. Hard.

"E," he warned.

Instead of slowing or drawing away, she began to pump him in earnest, making it clear what she desired from him. And he was perfectly happy to oblige.

Lucas opened his eyes and stared at her, watching her breasts bounce as she worked him beneath the surface of the bathwater. Ellie bit her lip as if she focused on making her strokes as smooth and languid as possible while increasing the pace of her jacking.

When she approached again, this time to take one of his nipples gently between her teeth, he couldn't resist another second. He growled her name then quit resisting the rapture she brought him. He surrendered to the inevitable tingle building at the base of his shaft.

In a rush, his orgasm crashed over him. His cock jerked in Ellie's hold as streams of come launched from his body. Though he couldn't see them, he knew she'd milked him dry because he could feel the pleasure zinging through every molecule of his body, lighting a fire for her that wouldn't easily be snuffed.

When he sagged, completely relaxed, she gave him one final tug.

"Next time I want to see you shoot. With an orgasm that powerful, it probably was an impressive display," she purred. It shouldn't have shocked him that she was so organic and open in how she dealt with pleasure, yet it did. He'd always thought of her as innocent despite the unwilling experience he knew she had.

Her frank admission had his cock twitching already.

Ellie started to stand, a proud grin gracing her adorable face.

Oh no. He wasn't about to be the only one utterly wrecked.

"Where do you think you're going?" He put his hands on her waist and lifted, shoving her against the wall. All that weightlifting was finally paying off. Not that her slender body was a burden, but his enhanced strength helped him keep his balance as he situated her.

To her credit, she didn't freeze. Instead, she perched on the edge of the tub, with her shoulders resting on the tile, and spread her legs, welcoming him between them.

Lucas could smell her arousal-sweet and somewhat sharp. Just like her.

He longed to bury his face in her folds and devour her. But he didn't. For now, this first time he touched her, maybe the only time, he had to see her face. Make sure she wasn't getting lost in the shadows of her memories while he-hopefully-delivered pleasure instead of terror.

It was critical that he got this right.

So he held her waist in one hand as he eased his other between her thighs. With his good foot planted on the bottom of the tub and his knee steadying him from behind, he wobbled a little. But their connection kept him upright.

At the first glance of his fingertip against her labia, she shivered. Not in fear, either, if her encouraging moan was any indication. "I didn't tease you, Lucas. Don't make me wait. It's been long enough."

He stared at her in awe. How could she be so resilient, so willing to have faith in his abilities and his ultimate goodness? The latter of which he figured she'd highly overestimated.

It was only because he cared so much for her and her long-term well-being that he abstained from taking her right then and there. Lucas settled for slipping his fingers through the slickness of her arousal before nudging against her tight opening.

When her body yielded to him, little by little, his fingers sank into her hungry pussy.

She clamped around him, already drawing on his digits with rhythmic pulls that made him feel better about coming so quickly in her grasp earlier.