Because why else was he sitting there so close, so intimately, his eyes holding hers as if by a silken thread that was drawing her towards him, closer and closer yet? Why else—unless he desired her?

Wonder and hope welled up in her. Was this truly happening? All those long, lost years when she’d been trapped in despising her body, her face...were they really over? Was it possible that she could now reach out and take what was surely every woman’s right—could taste and enjoy the sensual pleasures of the flesh?

A memory pressed at her of her time at university, studying sports science, when all about her everyone had...