Chapter 24 Benji
I can’t take my eyes off him.
After we finish eating, he wheels himself to the bed and parks the chair alongside it.
I watch him do it, the turn and the careful positioning.
In Tallahassee he was always in the bed.
Seeing him move through a room changes how he looks to me.
He’s not a patient waiting for help. He’s a man navigating his own space.
“Hey,” he says, glancing over his shoulder at me. “Do you mind grabbing me a clean shirt from the closet? I’ve been sitting in the sun and this one is done.”
I open the closet. He doesn’t have much. A few T-shirts, a pair of jeans, some athletic shorts. I find a soft blue one and pull it off the hanger and turn back around.
Mickey is sitting in the wheelchair with his shirt off. He’s pulled the sweaty gray T-shirt over his head and it’s balled up in his hand. He’s sitting there bare-chested in his chair and my brain just stops.
Damn.
His chest is broad and full. I’ve never seen it.
The hospital gown hid everything and now everything is right there in front of me.
He’s been pressing his entire bodyweight up from a wheelchair multiple times a day.
His shoulders are round and thick with new muscle, his arms bigger than they were in Tallahassee, the biceps and triceps defined.
His stomach is flat and tight from the core work, and there’s a trail of blonde hair from his navel that disappears into the waistband of his shorts. I stare at that happy trail for exactly one second too long. Then I look away and then I look right back because I can’t help it.
There’s a bandage on his left side, low, near his hip. White gauze taped against his skin. The wound. My throat tightens and I look back at his face.
“You’re staring.” Mickey gives me a quizzical look.
“I’m absolutely staring and I’m not going to apologize for it.”
I walk toward him and stand there for a second. I take the dirty shirt out of his hand, ball it up, and toss it toward the bed. Then I take a step backward with the clean blue shirt in my right hand, held behind my hip.
Mickey holds out his hand. “Shirt?”
I take another step back, grinning at him.
“Benji.” His hand is still out. “What are you doing? Give me the shirt.”
Mickey’s never seen this version of me. The version that flirts like breathing. I’ve never let Mickey see it because he was in a hospital bed. I wasn’t going to be a man who made a paralyzed cop feel like prey.
But he’s not in a bed anymore.
He’s sitting in a wheelchair in evening sunlight with his muscular chest out, and the rules just changed.
“I thought I was having dinner with a view tonight,” I say. I wave my free hand at his chest. “And this? This chest is my view. The food was the appetizer. You’re the main course. I’m absolutely not handing you this shirt to cover all that muscle up with.”
I take another step back. I’m almost at the wall now, the shirt dangling from my fingers like a flag I’m not surrendering.
His eyebrows go up. He looks down at his bare chest, then back at me, and grins. He’s just been challenged and his competitive instincts run deeper than a spinal cord injury.
“Oh, I see,” he says. “You’re trying to bully a man in a wheelchair.”
“Oh, and you’re playing the wheelchair card now?” My back hits the wall. I hold the shirt higher, waving it once like a matador. “If you want it, come and get me.”
The sound that comes out of him is a laugh. Low and surprised, rumbling up from his chest. Every laugh I’ve gotten from Mickey has been careful, controlled. This one isn’t.
That laugh is new. I want to hear it again.
He puts both hands on the wheel rims. He pushes once. Slow. Controlled. Then again, stronger. The chair rolls forward, and he adjusts at the last second, turning just enough to block the space between the wall and the bed.
I’m trapped. His bare chest is at my stomach height, his arms are flexed on the wheel rims and he’s looking up at me with eyes that are burning.
“What are you going to do now, Benji?” He challenges. “Climb over a man in a wheelchair?”
The heat in my face is spreading down my neck. He’s close. His knees are inches from my legs. The wheelchair is angled to block the gap and there is no way around him without going through him and he knows it.
“I might climb over you. I might climb all kinds of things. You have no idea of what I’m capable of.”
I step over the leg rest, my sneakers careful between his shins, my hip brushing the armrest, when his arm moves so fast I don’t see it coming.
His right arm wraps around my waist, his hand flat against the small of my back, and he pulls me in, holding me there. Not aggressive, but firm. His left hand stays planted on the armrest, anchoring both of us.
“Oh fuck,” I say, grabbing onto his arm for balance. “You’re strong. Turn me loose, you big caveman.”
He’s laughing out loud now. His bare chest is shaking with it and his arm is locked around me, his face tilted up toward mine. The laughter rumbles through his body into mine through the point of contact at my hip.
“What are you going to do now?” he asks.
I do the only thing I can think of. I pull my arm back and hurl the blue T-shirt across the room. It sails over the bed, clips the lamp on the nightstand, and lands in a heap on the floor by the bathroom door.
Mickey watches it fly. His arm loosens for a fraction of a second and his mouth drops open. “Did you just throw my shirt across the room?”
“Damn right I did. That shirt is dead to me now. You’ll remain bare-chested for the remainder of the evening and you’re going to like it. I’m in charge here. There’s a new sheriff in town and his name is Benji.”
His arm is still around me, his fingers resting against the small of my back. The laughter has faded and the expression on his face makes me blush. His breath is warm against my stomach through the thin fabric of my shirt.
He could pull me closer if he wanted to. It’s there in the way his grip holds just short of it. But he doesn’t have to. Because I’m already getting hard.
It happens fast and obvious, the way it always does with me. His arm is right there, his forearm pressed against my dick, and there is no version of anatomy where he doesn’t feel it.
His arm goes still. Yeah, he noticed.
“Oh shit,” I say, grinning at him. “Whoops.”
I don’t move away or try to cover it. I sure as hell don’t apologize. I stand there with my hip against his armrest and his arm around my waist.
Mickey stares at me, glances at his own forearm. Then back up at me.
“Is that—” He stops and swallows. “Is that because of me?”
Damn, how he asks it. Like he genuinely doesn’t know.
I roll my eyes so hard at him. “No, Mickey, it’s for the lamp post I almost knocked over.
It’s a very sexy lamp. Great wattage.” I wave a hand at his bare chest. “Of course it’s because of you.
What do you expect? Taking your shirt off and sitting there in the light looking sexy as fuck?
What did you think was going to happen when you touched me? ”
“Benji. I’m in a wheelchair,” he says as if that explains anything.
“Yes, Mickey. I can see that. I’m standing right next to it. And your point is?”
“My point is—”
“What? That the wheelchair changes this? That I’m not very turned on by you right now?
” I look down at my own erection, at the situation that is not resolving itself and is in fact getting worse because his arm is pressed against me.
“Because I’ve got news for you, Officer Weaver.
The wheelchair is not a factor. It has never been a factor.
You could be in a chair, on a bed, on the floor.
You took your shirt off and your body did this to me.
My body took one look at you and said, ‘oh yeah, baby. That’s what I want.
Right fucking now.’ And the fact that you’re sitting down while it happened instead of walking around changes exactly nothing about what my dick is doing right now. ”
“You’re crazy,” he says.
“Completely,” I say. “Absolutely certifiable. I’m standing in your rehab room with a big boner and no shame. No shame at all, Mickey. I don’t care.”
His thumb moves against my hip. Through my shirt. One stroke, slow, maybe an inch of movement, and the heat of it runs down my leg.
I trail my hand down his forearm. “Am I allowed to touch you?” I ask.
His thumb stops. “You are touching me.”
“I’m touching your arm. I’ve touched your arm before.
Can I touch something new? Can I touch your chest?
I’ve been staring at it for five minutes, and I’m losing my mind.
If I don’t put my hands on it, I’m going to think about it for the rest of my life.
I need you to give me permission because I’m about two seconds from laying my hands on you anyway, and I’m trying to be a gentleman even though I might be past that point already. ”
He looks up at me, his eyes dark and his mouth slightly parted. His arm is still anchored around me, and neither of us is pretending this is a game anymore.
“Yeah,” he says. “You can touch me.”
I lean over slightly and put my right hand flat against his chest. The skin is warmer than I expected, sun-heated, the muscle underneath firm and thick. His pec fills my hand. I spread my fingers and feel his heart beating under my palm, faster than his face is letting on.
“Very nice,” I say, still smiling. “I like it. In fact, I like it a lot. I’ve never dated muscular men. I could definitely get used to this.”
He doesn’t move and is watching my face carefully.
I slide my hand up to his shoulder. The muscle is round and solid under my fingers. I squeeze gently, and his eyes close.
“Your body feels incredible,” I say. “You need to know that. Whatever you’ve been telling yourself at night about what the bullet took from you, it didn’t take this.
This body is… fuck, Mickey, you feel so good under my hand right now that I can barely breathe.
I’ve wanted to touch you this way forever. ”
His jaw flexes and he swallows hard. He pulls me a fraction closer. My hand slides from his shoulder down to his collarbone and rests there in the hollow where I can feel his pulse hammering against my fingertips.
“Your heart is racing,” I say.
“No kidding.”
My other hand moves, sliding to the back of his neck, into his hair. It’s softer than I imagined, thicker. My fingers curl, my nails grazing his scalp, and the sound he makes surprises me. Low. Rough. Pulled straight out of him like he didn’t even know it was there.
I freeze for half a second, stunned at what my touch did to him.
“Mickey,” I whisper.
He opens his eyes and looks at me. Neither of us seems capable of pulling away.
“Benji.” His voice is raw. “If you don’t stop touching me like that, I’m going to do something I can’t take back.”
My fingers slow in his hair, but I don’t pull away. I’m trying to read if he means stop or if he means don’t you dare stop.
“Would not taking it back be so bad?” I ask.
“No. But I want to do it right. Not here when someone can walk in on us. And not with a clock on it.”
I nod, even though every part of me hates it.
My hand slips from his hair to his jaw, my thumb brushing along his cheekbone.
I drag my hand down his chest one more time, feeling every inch of him, the hard plane of muscle on either side.
I let my fingers trail down to his stomach where the skin gets softer and the blonde hair starts.
I stop there because I don’t know if he’d want me to go any lower.
“Your happy trail is making me want to do things I shouldn’t,” I say. “I can’t stop staring at it. Your happy trail should be illegal.”
I reluctantly lift my hand off his stomach. I want to keep going, to slide lower, to find out what his skin feels like under my fingers where the hair thickens and the waistband starts. But I stop. He’s gone through enough, and the last thing I want to do is put pressure on him.
“I don’t want to stop,” I tell him. “I need you to know that. I’m not stopping because I don’t want this. I’m stopping because I want it so much, but I need you to be the one who decides when.”
His eyes are dark and open, and I can see the war behind them.
“Benji,” he says. “You’re not pressuring me.
This is the best I’ve felt in my own skin since the bullet.
Your hands did that.” He swallows. “I’m just not physically ready for where this goes next.
And I hate that. I hate it so much that I’m not ready.
My mind and upper body are ready and willing. The rest of me is not. Not yet.”
“Then we wait until you’re ready,” I say. “And if that’s next week or next month or never, I’ll still be here with cream and my hands will go exactly where you tell them to go and nowhere else. You’re in charge of this. You hear me? Not me. You.”
His grip tightens on me. One squeeze. Then his hand loosens and his thumb traces one more line across my hip, slowly.
“You probably should turn me loose now,” I say. “So I can pretend I’m capable of doing what I just said.”
He holds me for one more second. His fingers press flat against the small of my back, spread wide, holding as much of me as his hand can cover. The touch stops my mouth mid-ramble. Then he slowly lets go. His arm slides away. The space where his arm was feels cold immediately.
“Is it okay if I still do the cream?” I ask.
“Always,” he says.