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While Dancing
It felt good to hold a woman whose curves hadn't been ravaged by malnutrition. Whose bones, though delicate and fine, were not so brittle that he was afraid they'd break at his touch. Whose breasts hadn't withered from bearing too many children she hadn't been able to nourish properly. Who didn't shrink in fear when a man touched her. Who smelled of flowers, not poverty.
"Stop it," he said, inhaling the sweet fragrance of her hair.
"Stop what?"
"Thinking. I can hear your brain working overtime."
"Well, I can't help wondering—"
He pulled her closer, enough for her warmth to melt the block of ice he carried inside and make him whole again. Whenever he returned from a particularly harrowing assignment, a woman's soothing voice and generous, vital body always helped erase the hopeless misery he never got used to witnessing; the wasted lives, the terror, the shocking evidenc
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