“Eric,” she gasped and pulled away. He bent to nibble on her earlobe. She shuddered violently, her fingers digging into his hard chest. “Eric, not here.”

“This is what I want to do to your clit right now,” he whispered. He sucked on her earlobe and stroked it rapidly with the tip of his tongue.

“Oh God,” she panted, her clit swelling in response.

“And your pussy.” His tongue dipped into her ear.

Her pussy pulsed in response. “I need…” Oh, wow. “I need to tell you.”

“Tell me?” The husky timbre of his voice had swollen, pulsing parts throbbing incessantly.

She nodded, still clinging to him and not really wanting him to stop his glorious assault on her ear, though he really should. They were standing in the middle of a stadium making out on a soundboard.

“About my s-sexual problem,” she said.

“I don’t see any problem. I sure as hell don’t feel a problem.”

“L-listen. O-okay?” On the verge of tears, she took a deep shuddering breath. “T-this is h-hard for me.” Damn it. Why did she always stutter when she was upset? She hated it.

Eric stopped and gazed into her eyes. She really did feel like she could tell him anything. They’d known each other for less than two days, and yet…

“I have cancer,” she blurted.

The blood drained from his face, and he swayed against her.

“What?”

“I’m in remission now. Maybe it won’t come back. Maybe it will. I can’t know for sure.”

“I think I need to sit down.”

She pressed on. “I went t-through treatment. I’m not sick anymore. I fought it. I won. But…”

“Are you going to die?” he asked, his voice cracking.

“No. No! That’s not why I’m telling you this. I’m fine. Really.

I… The reason…” She took a deep breath and forced herself to push on. “I don’t feel comfortable having sex because… I’m missing things. Inside.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I had a hysterectomy.”

“To save you from cancer?”

“Y-yes.”

He hugged her until she feared her ribs would crack. “Good.”

Good? There was nothing good about it. “I can never have children.”

“So? As long as you’re here, who cares about that stuff?”

A tear slipped down her cheek. She had to tell him all of it, because she knew for certainty that she wanted him—Eric—in her life. “It feels weird inside. For a guy, I mean. Isaac said…”

“Who’s Isaac?”

“My boyfriend. Ex-boyfriend,” she clarified quickly. “He wanted me to marry him, but I made him wait to ask me until the cancer was gone. He stayed by my side the entire time. Through the treatments and the surgery. The radiation and the healing process.

He waited for me to get better, and then afterward, when we tried to, you know…” She blushed. Talking about ex-boyfriend sex with your hopefully new boyfriend was beyond weird.

“Do the horizontal mamba.”

She laughed. “Yeah.”

“But it was horrible, right?” he asked hopefully.

“Appalling,” she said truthfully. “He said it felt weird when he was inside. It was so unsettling for him that he couldn’t even keep an erection. He said he couldn’t bring himself to do it with me anymore. Ever again.”

“Well, he’s obviously a limp dick and a moron.”

“Actually, he’s a doctor.”

“Doctors can be limp-dicked morons.”

She laughed and hugged him. “Sometimes. They told me I was going to die, and I didn’t. Anyway, Isaac wanted a family and I can’t give him that, so we broke up and he left. It was for the best, I suppose. But it still hurt that he found me so unappealing. I didn’t think I’d ever want to have sex again after that.”

He rubbed her back and held her for a long moment. His strength was so comforting, her eyes drifted shut and she melted into him.

“So you can’t get pregnant?” he asked, a soothing hand on her hair.

She shook her head. “I’m not supposed to have much of a sex drive either, but you definitely have my thoughts for sex in drive.”

“You have my thoughts for sex in warp drive,” he murmured.

“Even now that you know about… m-my deformity?”

“When you’re ready, I’d like to feel if it’s weird for myself. Like everything else about you, I have no doubt that being inside you will be perfect.”

She sniffed, trying to keep the tears in check, but they fell anyway.

“Thank you,” she whispered, “even if you don’t really mean it.”

He pressed her head against his thudding heart. “Have you ever known me to lie?” he asked.

She shook her head.

“Well, there you have it. Just let me know when you’re ready.

You know I’m willing and able. My dick is never limp.”

She laughed and lifted her head to look at him. “You promise not to lie if it feels weird? I don’t want you to lie about that either.

Even to save my feelings.”

“I promise.”

And when he kissed her with incomparable tenderness, she knew he was the one to make her feel whole again.

After the concert—which had been utterly phenomenal—Eric ducked behind the low, tiled wall in the shower room and peeked at Rebekah. She glanced at him briefly and winked before she turned her back and started to remove her clothes. She’d found him backstage after the show and asked if he really wanted to watch her in the shower. Well, duh, of course he did. She told him she wanted to pretend she didn’t know he was there until he couldn’t keep his hands off her and had to join her. She didn’t really need to instruct him on what she wanted him to do. That’s exactly how he would have responded to watching her shower.

Rebekah pulled her T-shirt over her head. She looked so sexy in her lacy white bra and blue jeans. Eric licked his lip and tried to keep his excitement contained. She unbuttoned her jeans and slid them slowly down her thighs. She wriggled her hips as she bent at the waist to release one leg from her pants and then the other. She folded her clothes and put them on a bench, before reaching behind her back to unfasten her bra. Eric held his breath, waiting for a glimpse of her beautiful breasts. Would her nipples be hard? Would it excite her to know he was watching? She kept her back to him when she removed her bra. She was so good at pretending he wasn’t there, he could almost believe that she was unaware of his presence.

She turned slightly, and he caught a brief glimpse of one pert breast and her flat belly. She twisted her shoulder-length hair and clipped it to the back of her head. Every movement was mesmerizing.

Exposing her neck like that? Somewhat cruel. Her panties joined her pile of clothes on the bench, and then she approached one of the heads in the community shower. When the first blast of water struck her skin, she emitted a shriek of surprise. “C-cold!” She danced away from the water, and Eric chuckled.

She paused and turned in his direction. “Is someone there?”

Well, duh, she knew he was there, but he ducked behind the wall and pretended to hide.

“Guess not.” She reentered the stream of steaming water and sighed in contentment. She had one of those poofy things to spread liquid soap lather over her body. She dumped a healthy amount of soap on her poof and drew it slowly over her skin. Her arms.

Her breasts. Her belly. Her breasts again. Transfixed, Eric watched, his hand pressed against his already bulging fly. He had to practice making himself last so she would teach him lessons on a regular basis. No matter how much he wanted to pull his throbbing cock free and stroke it while she soaped her body, he wouldn’t. Not yet.

Must. Maintain. Control.

Damn, she sure didn’t make it easy.

Rebekah turned her back and bent to wash her shapely legs.

He strained his neck to see the mysteries between her thighs. Still bending forward, she spread her labia with one hand and soaped her tender flesh with her poof. He could see everything, and though he knew no woman washed herself like that unless she wanted someone to see what she had to offer, it didn’t make it any less sexy.