Omkar had rented the room for a night. It was only natural for Aria to expect him to make love to her there. But to her surprise, Omkar had initiated nothing. Instead, when she stripped down to her underwear, he kept his clothes on for good measure and pulled her backward against the curve of his body, like a pearl against the bend of a clamshell. She could hear the excitement in his breathing; it was like a sea sliding when the ocean wants to claim something on shore for its own. But he would not allow his body to follow suit. They slept a fitful night, churned in the stimulation of being so near each other. And now, it was the morning.

His fingers adored her. They slid across the silk of her, cherishing each freckle and pore. They traced the lifted pathways that had been carved into her arms by glass and steel. Omkar could not imagine the kind of pain that could drive her to such an action. All he could imagine was to rescue her from it. He carried the grief of her scars with the tribute of his fingertips and the kisses that he placed on them. He was not trying to arouse her with his touch. Instead, he was calming her. There was a poem in his touch and the verses of that poem spoke of solace.

Aria knew what to do with herself when it came to sex, but not to this. Not to being loved by a man. Aria was conscious that she loved the smell of him. She listened to those verses he spoke through his touch as if they were spoken in a foreign tongue. She was out of her element and out of her depth. When they spoke to each other, their words felt so shallow compared to the conversation of touch.

“Did you sleep OK?” Omkar asked her. Aria nodded. “Did I crowd you?” he asked.

“No,” Aria answered. She wanted to thank him. She wanted to tell him that spending the night next to him had made it the best night of her life. She wanted to tell him that he was the first straight man who had slept with her without “sleeping with” her. But those deeper words wouldn’t come. They would make her so vulnerable that some part of her would not let them out.