Page 47 of Sterling Touch
Vale looks at me, her eyes steady but brows pinching. “It’s not just something you can give me. Like you can’t hand it to me.”
Instantly, I roll my lips inward, because Icangive her orgasms with my hands, and I fight a retort until I can’t hold it back anymore. “What about if I use my mouth?”
Vale’s mouth pops open. Her eyes are bright a second before she narrows them. “Are you teasing me?”
“I was hoping you’d take it as flirting.” I glance sheepishly at her, ducking my head while fighting a small smile.
“Cortland Haven,” she scolds, tugging at her hand in my grip one more time, while attempting to step back, but I hook my feet around the back of her knees, keeping her close.
“You’re helping me get over my touch aversion,” I admit, clinging to her hand, proving that I might not be as averse as either of us thinks. Maybe it just took the right hands to be on me. “Let me help you never feel deprived again.”
She pulls hard at our clasped hands, swatting at my shoulder with her other one. “I’m not deprived.”
But isn’t she? I am. I might be averse to touch, but onlybecause it turned hurtful and hateful. A weapon instead of Cupid’s arrow of love.
With the right Valentine, everything could change.
For both of us.
19
[Vale]
As the conversation with Cort finally concludes, he tugs me toward him, captures the back of my head and wraps his arm around my lower back. And just holds me. Like really hugs me.
Still, I’m stiff for a second. I consider myself affectionate. I hug Hudson all the time. I’m loving toward my brothers and have offered them more hugs than they’ve given me. However, none of that feels like what’s happening here.
The way Cort is holding me, like I’m precious, like I’m fragile. For all my insistence that I’m a strong independent woman who can take care of herself, who doesn’t want to be hugged once in a while?
This is no hug, though. It’s a full body experience, in which Cort’s legs are still wrapped around the back of my knees, locked at his ankles. His fingers are on my nape. His palm against my lower back.
“Vale, honey.” Cort pauses, still holding me. “Get out of your head.”
Slowly, I release a deep breath and settle against him. Then, I let out a low exhale and fully melt. With my head on his shoulder, I hear the racing of his heart near my ear. My arms feel trapped a second, but as if sensing what I need, Cort slips the hand from my nape underneath one of my arms, allowing me to wrap around his neck. Then he returns his hand to my head and presses me tighter to his chest.
“This okay?” he whispers before tucking his face into my neck, his nose against my throat.
“Yeah.”Yeah, this is good. My eyes fill with tears once again, and I rapidly blink at them. Feeling silly, while giddy; foolish, while light.
For a man adverse to touch, Cortland Haven knows how to hug.
However, too soon, I’m glancing back at that ceiling corner where security cameras are in place for both my safety and the safety of patients. Hesitantly, I push at Cort’s shoulders, gently releasing myself from the first real hug I’ve had in ages.
“Your time is almost up,” I whisper, hoarse and low, like I’m afraid to snap whatever is happening between us. Waiting for this weird tension to fling back at me like a rubber band and sting.
Cort simply nods, slipping his hands to my shoulders, then stroking down my arms to circle my wrists.
“We good?”
I nod without looking at him because I don’t know how to respond.
Are we good? On which topic? My diagnosis? His suggestion? He wants to help me get over myself.
I’d laugh if I didn’t think he was serious. I just didn’t know what that could possibly look like.
Or feel like.
By the time he leaves Reflexology, I’m a mess of emotions.
