How Cassie Got Her Grind Back(Divine Creek Ranch 23)(66)

“What else?”

Uh, everything else. Seriously.

Lifting her hands, she placed her fingertips against her jawline, right above her chin, to the point where the flesh had begun to sag just a little, giving her a slight jowly look. Without pausing, her fingertips drifted to the dimples on her thighs and around to her butt. They’d always been that way. She couldn’t blame that on age, but she still hated it.

He nodded, the beginnings of a smile flickering in his eyes. The slight raising of his brow asked if there was anything else.

Biting her lip and firming her chin, she closed her eyes as she cupped her breasts, lifting them so they were supported the way her bra would’ve if she’d still been wearing it. Doing so made her conscious of her arms, and she finally shook her head. “It’s not just a few things, Ivan. It’s everything.”

“Tell me,” he whispered, reaching forward to wrap his forearm around her shoulders in a decidedly protective manner.

She drew a blank at first, but then one at a time, the litany of criticisms she’d leveled on herself a few minutes before began to come from her lips. He listened and didn’t argue. When she ran out of steam, he brushed a tear from her cheek with the backs of his fingers and tilted his head against hers. “Can you show me anything you like while you’re standing here in front of the mirror? Look at yourself and show me, by pointing or touching. Any part, no matter how miniscule you think it is.”

She shook her head. “I can’t.”

“Take your time. Start at your feet and follow your legs upward.”

She had to take several more steadying breaths before she moved, lifting and tilting her foot upward so she could lay her fingers against the arch of her foot. “I like the way my feet are shaped. My arches are nice.”

“They are,” he said with a soft growl that made her smile. “Show me something else you like.”

Feeling as though she was somehow tooting her own horn, she blushed as she leaned forward a bit and touched the back of her knee and her upper calf. “I like the way this is shaped. It feels…”

“Feels what?”

“Delicate.”

“Show me more,” he asked, and she noticed the bulge in his groin had gotten downright hard as she stood straight and brushed her behind against him.

Bypassing her entire thigh-butt-hip area with a disgusted shake of her head, she paused at her ribs and then caressed the area from just beneath her breasts, over her ribs, down over her belly button to the flare of her hips. His devilish grin told her he liked it, too, and her softened nipples tightened to nubby peaks as he licked his lips and nodded. Next, she stroked the slight indentation at the base of her throat and downward to her cleavage. “When I wear a bra, I do like my cleavage. It’s…pretty.”

His slow intake of breath accompanied by a soft rumble in his chest as he exhaled told her he agreed, too.

She ran her hand over her arm and then looked at it more closely, along with the other one. “The skin has grown thin and translucent, and there are a few age spots and wrinkles where before the skin was firm and more opaque, but I like my hands and my fingers.” He slid a hand up the tender underside of her forearm and cupped one in his palm, rubbing it gently with the pad of his thumb, and then he glanced up at her, waiting.

Gazing at the reflection of her face, she touched her lips. “They’re even and full and have a nice color. I do like my lips. And my brows, although they’re getting thin. I like the way they’re shaped.”

“And?”

“And?” she asked, glancing at him before looking back at herself one more time. “And my eyes. My eyes and my hair are pretty good, too,” she added, feeling self-conscious for cataloging all her assets in front of him. “That’s all.”

“It’s a good start, love. A very good start.”

She looked up into his eyes over her shoulder. “Why did you call me love?”

“Because ‘angel lips of love’ borders on idiotic and ‘baby’ is so overused,” he replied, gaining a chuckle from her.

She chuckled until she was giggling then laughing out loud, and he joined her. “‘Angel lips of love’? Someone uses that as an endearment? Really? You?”

He laughed even harder and then said, “Hell no. I’m not that desperate, love. Anyway,” he said once he’d regained his breath, “a guy will do idiotic things for a woman sometimes. Now, back to what we were talking about.”

She met his eyes in the mirror and nodded, slightly more at ease once the levity settled.

He pulled her hair back from her shoulders again, and she shuddered when she felt his warm breath along her neck. Still stroking her hair, he said, “What do you see?”