See What I See -Libby
Twenty Five
The high of the orgasm slowly receded, and with it came the wave I never managed to outrun, no matter how good the moment before had been: shame. Quiet and insidious, like a silent poison.
I crossed my arms over my chest and curled inward, suddenly aware of everything—every flaw, every mark, every way this body had been handled before him.
His release still sat warm inside me, leaking slowly down my inner thighs, and instead of the intimacy it should have carried, it only made me more conscious of how exposed I’d let myself become. How messy. How seen.
His hands found mine and gently drew them away from my chest. His voice dropped low and steady.
“Libby, you’re beautiful.” A deliberate pause. “Don’t you get that?”
I dropped my head, unable to lift my eyes to his. The old voices rushed in to fill the silence, sharp and practiced—ugly, worthless—and the tears that came next humiliated me almost as much as the thoughts themselves.
Finn sat up, pulled me against him in one motion, and then stood, lifting me effortlessly from the bed.
I grabbed his shoulders. “Finn—”
“Shush. Trust me,” he said, his breath warm against my ear.
He carried me to the vanity against the far wall—the wood soft and pale where my elbows had worn it down over years of sitting there.
He lowered himself onto the bench without releasing me, turned me in his arms until my back found his chest, then caught my legs over his and opened them toward the mirror.
Every instinct screamed to close, to cover, to disappear. My breath hitched sharply.
He pulled me back against him, rested his chin over my shoulder, his cheek warm and solid against mine.
“Look,” he said. “See what I see.”
I found his eyes in the reflection first—steady and burning, so protective. Then, slowly, I let myself gaze at the rest.
The woman in the mirror was not the one I knew from the bathroom light after a shower, cataloging damage. She was flushed and soft and still faintly shaking. His hands moved up my sides and closed around my breasts, stealing my breath.
“You’re so fucking beautiful,” he murmured against my ear.
The words moved through me slowly, finding places I’d walled off so long I’d forgotten they were there.
His arms tightened around me. “Look at what you did. You kept her safe. You kept her alive.” His voice dropped lower, rougher.
“Do you understand what that is? What you are?”
His palms gently lifted my breasts, thumbs circling the stiffening peaks, and heat pooled low in my belly despite everything we’d just done—my body answering him before I could think to stop it, before shame could get there first. It tried anyway. His voice was faster.
“See that?” His voice was low, almost reverent.
“Before I’ve even—” He let the sentence go, fingers rolling slowly, deliberately, and the sensation coursed through me.
The sound I made wasn’t graceful. My back arched hard into his hands, and I couldn’t have said whether I was trying to get closer or trying to escape the feeling of being, for once, completely found, completely seen.
“Don’t look away.” Low and certain, his breath warm against my ear. “Watch what happens to you when you stop fighting it. Watch.”
Tears slipped down my cheeks. I didn’t try to stop them.
“There she is,” Finn said, almost to himself.
Nobody had ever touched me like this. The men before Finn had taken what they wanted and left, and I had learned to be grateful for the leaving—had learned to lie still and wait for it to be over and call that intimacy.
But his hands moved over me as if I were something worth the time.
Like I wasn’t a problem to be solved or a need to be met and forgotten. Like I was the point.
His voice was low and rough, his mouth pressed close against my ear.
“You’re mine to take care of. You hear me?
” His arms tightened around me, and something in the word—not the possessiveness of it but the weight of it, the way he said it like a vow.
“Every inch of you. You’re safe, Libby. I will protect you and Lily with my life. You are mine.”
Sitting bare and completely open in front of that mirror—his arms around me, his heartbeat steady and unhurried against my back, his eyes holding mine in the reflection with an expression that expected nothing and offered everything—I believed him, well, mostly.
I knew he would protect me; I had no doubt about that, but the rest? That part would take time.
His hand slid lower, fingers gliding through the wet between my legs with no apology or hesitation.
“So wet still,” he murmured against my skin.
“That’s us.” His mouth found my neck, lips slow and deliberate, and his eyes never left mine in the mirror—watching me, watching me try not to come apart from something as simple as being claimed.
My breath stuttered. I couldn’t decide if I wanted to lean into him or look away.
Two thick fingers pushed inside, sudden and deep. A broken gasp tore from my throat. My walls clenched around the sudden fullness, greedy and slick and still pulsing from everything he’d already given me. He didn’t rush. Just started moving, sliding those long fingers in and out with patience.
I couldn’t look away anymore.
My eyes locked on the reflection and stayed there.
The woman looking back at me was spread wide across his lap, thighs draped open over his, his fingers still moving inside her—inside me—slick and unhurried, like he had nowhere else to be.
The sight should have sent shame roaring back louder than ever.
Instead, something else fought to the surface.
Something warm moved in to fill the space shame left behind—the possibility that I might actually be beautiful to someone. To him.
I met his gaze in the reflection.
His stare held mine—dark and steady, laced with hunger.
The intensity stole my breath completely.
There was nowhere to hide in that mirror, no angle that concealed anything, and he saw all of it—every scar—and he didn’t look away.
Didn’t flinch. Just held me tighter and kept his eyes on mine, as if letting go wasn’t an option.
“You’re so perfect like this,” he said, his voice rasping against my ear as his thumb found my swollen clit and circled it with slow, relentless pressure while a third finger pressed inside and stretched me wider. “You’re not broken, baby. Not with me. Not ever with me.”
I watched myself in the mirror—chest heaving, nipples red and tender from his constant attention, face flushed and tear-streaked and open in a way I didn’t recognize at first because I’d never seen it before.
His fingers pumped deeper.
Our eyes stayed locked—his dark and commanding.
The shame still whispered. His voice drowned it out completely.
“Come for me, Libby.” Low and commanding, and tender underneath both. “Let me watch you. Watch how stunning you are.”
The orgasm crashed through me without warning.
My walls clenched hard around his fingers, and I cried out—hoarse and unrecognizable—my hips rolling against his hand without permission, chasing it, taking it, my eyes locked on his in the mirror the whole time.
I sagged back against his chest.
“Look,” he whispered, lips pressing to my shoulder and lingering there, warm and unhurried. “So beautiful, so perfect.”
I looked. I let myself watch.
I turned my head just enough to press my lips against his. My voice came out hoarse, carrying more than I had words for.
“Thank you.”
Two words. Barely a whisper. But they held the entire weight of what he’d just given me—something that had nothing to do with the orgasm and everything to do with what he’d shown me.
The first fragile proof that maybe the girl in the reflection deserved to be looked at.
Deserved, possibly, to be kept.