Chapter 22
CHAPTER
TWENTY-TWO
DONNIE
My mouth tastes like arse. Not the good kind of arse. The bad kind where every breath makes me want to gag.
I hurt everywhere. From the hair follicles in my scalp to the tips of my toes, there isn’t a single inch of flesh in my body that doesn’t ache and protest when I move. Not that I can move. I’m trapped under what feels like two tons of blankets.
The room is mostly dark when I try to open my eyes. Connor is curled up next to me, on top of the blankets, one arm flung over me and the other hand tucked under the pillow by his cheek.
He looks so peaceful when he’s sleeping, with the bottom lip tucked under his top one like he’s sucking on it.
I’ve watched him sleep before, usually in the middle of the night before I untangle myself from his bed and come back upstairs to mine.
Except this time—I glance around quickly without daring to move my head—we’re in my bedroom, not his.
My eyes slide shut. I had lunch with Phyllis and Leonard, then we visited Roger at the cemetery. I sat in the rain and got soaked to the bone. By the time I got home, I felt like shite and had laid down to take a nap. Connor must have found me like this. How long ago was that? What time is it?
I try to get my arm out of the blanket cocoon I’m trapped in and the movement wakes Connor up. He blinks, rubs his eyes, and makes an adorable sleepy sound.
“Hey, you’re awake.”
“I kind of wish I wasn’t.” My mouth is gross and my bladder is screaming at me, but the rest of me wants to sink back into unconscious oblivion.
“How do you feel?”
“Like I got run over by a train.”
Connor chuckles and swings himself off the bed. Just watching him move so easily, so smoothly, makes my body hurt.
“You kinda look like it too.”
“Gee, thanks.”
He leans over the bed, holding an ancient digital thermometer. “Put this under your tongue. I need to take your temperature.”
I don’t need a thermometer to know I have a fever and it’s running high. Still, I open my mouth and let him stick the pointy end in. “Where’d you find this thing?” I mumble around it.
“In the first aid kit in your bathroom.”
“Hmm.” I don’t even remember having a thermometer. I can’t remember the last time I was sick enough to need one.
It beeps and Connor pulls it out of my mouth. “One-hundred-and-two. Not great but I don’t need to take you to the hospital yet.”
I groan and close my eyes. “No, no hospital. I just need rest. I’ll be fine.”
There’s a muted cracking sound and when I open my eyes, Connor’s holding a bottle of Gatorade in front of me. “You’ve been sweating buckets. You need to hydrate.” There’s a hint of glee when he says that last word.
He’s right, except drinking requires moving and moving hurts.
“Come on. Let me help you.” Connor sets the bottle down and pushes some of the blankets off me.
I gasp at the blast of cold air and my entire body throbs like I’m one giant heartbeat. Connor settles me against the headboard, propped up with pillows, and hands me the Gatorade.
I take it with both hands, even though I can’t really feel them. My fingers, my arms, my shoulders, none of them really feel connected to my brain. It’s like my body is a puppet and I control their movements, but they don’t really belong to me.
The Gatorade is heavenly, masking the taste of arse in my mouth and soothing the fire inside me. I drink down as much as I can until my stomach can’t take anymore. It gurgles. I’m starving.
“What time is it?”
Connor checks his phone. “Almost six in the morning.”
No wonder my stomach feels so hollow. I slept right through dinner and straight into the next day. “Did you eat last night?” I ask Connor.
He bites his lip and shakes his head. “I was going to stay with you for a bit and then go down to eat, but then I fell asleep.”
I notice now that he’s wearing the same clothes as yesterday. I feel awful. He shouldn’t neglect himself just to take care of me.
“Are you hungry? I can heat up leftovers for you if you want.” Connor takes the Gatorade bottle when I hand it back to him.
There isn’t anything in the fridge I want to eat—not at almost six in the morning and not when I’m feeling half-dead.
“Or do you want to take a shower?” Connor asks. “I can change the bedsheets too.”
That’s a good idea. Except I’m not sure if I can make it two steps past the edge of the bed.
“Here, lemme help.” He holds out his hand and I go to him.
I sigh when his hands touch my body, when his arms wrap around me and support my weight. I lean against him, like he’s a healing balm and the more of him I get on me, the better I’ll feel.
I float toward the bathroom, not feeling the floor under my feet, not feeling the legs under me. I’m cold. I hurt. I curl toward Connor who makes everything better.
“Whoa,” he murmurs, staring at the jumble of knobs in the walk-in shower.
I point to the big one at the top of the column. “That one. Turn it about halfway to the left.”
Connor leaves me leaning against the chilly wall and turns the water on. It comes pouring out of the rainwater showerhead with a loud splash. “And I thought the bathroom downstairs was fancy.”
I grunt. “The other knobs are body jets.”
Connor’s kneeling in front of me, helping me out of my sweats. He looks up, eyes wide. “What are body jets?”
“Turn them on and find out.”
Connor eyes me suspiciously and I laugh, only to groan at how much it hurts. He stands to help lift my t-shirt over my head. It’s excruciating trying to lift my too-heavy arms above my head. But once I walk into the piping hot water, I moan at how good it feels.
I sway on my feet and reach for the closest wall for support. My knees are weak and my head is spinning. I wish I had a chair.
Then strong arms come around me and I sigh. Connor’s wide and solid and warm, better than any chair, better than any wall. I turn into him and rest my head on his shoulder, letting him hold me up, trusting him not to let me fall.
“Turn on the body jets. The other knobs.”
Connor shifts me to one side and reaches for them. It takes him a bit of fiddling and then water comes shooting out at us from jets hidden in the walls.
“Whoa! What!”
I smile against Connor’s shoulder and finally stop shivering.
Connor’s hands run up and down my back. My dick stirs at his touch, at his naked, wet body pressed so close to mine.
Connor pauses at the small of my back before venturing lower to grab my arse, gently massaging my glutes in his large palms.
I lift my head to brush my lips along his jaw, to rub my stubbled cheek against his smooth one.
My hands come up to his hips and around to his lower back, and I let out a moan at the way Connor’s chest and stomach slide deliciously over mine.
He’s hard too and when his cock juts against my hip, I dig my fingers into his back to keep him there.
“Fuck, Donnie.” Connor’s voice is strained. “You’ve got a fever.”
“Hmm.” I’m already burning up, what are a few more degrees? I grind my hips against his and nip at his ear.
“Fuck.”
“S’okay.” I turn in Connor’s arms until we’re back to chest and I adjust us so his cock is snug between my thighs.
Christ, he feels so good back there, long and hard against my taint.
I want to tell him that he belongs there, that we’re meant to be together like this. Naked and raw, at our most vulnerable.
I want to tell him that I’m good now. I had a breakthrough. I’m ready to move forward and I want to move forward with him.
Connor pinches my nipple with one hand and wraps his fingers around my dick with the other. I gasp and melt back against him, head resting on his shoulder.
“Fuck me,” I murmur into his ear. I need him. I need his mark on me. I need him to know that I’m his. I reach up for the back of his head and pull him down so his lips are on my neck, on that spot on my neck.
“Jesus Christ, Donnie.” Connor seals his lips over his mark at the same time as his hand tightens around my cock. His hips snap forward, ramming into the back of my balls.
I latch onto his hip, to his scalp, digging my nails into him as he moves for the both of us. Water falls on my face, heavy drops splatter on my sensitive nipples. Connor sucks on the skin right above my collarbone and my whine echoes off the walls of the bathroom.
My balls ache where they’re getting battered by Connor’s dick. My cock throbs as Connor’s hand flies over it. The pressure building in my groin is strong enough to obscure how the rest of my body hurts so bad. I whine again, the sound mingling with Connor’s deep, rhythmic grunts.
“Donnie, I’m going to come.”
“Hmm.” Yes, come for me, my darling.
“Fuck, I’m coming. I’m coming.”
Scalding hot cum paints my taint, the back of my balls, so much hotter than the water sluicing over us, so much hotter than the fever burning inside me.
My stomach clenches, my thighs tense, my whole body goes taut as the orgasm incinerates me.
Pleasure courses through me, flooding my nerve endings until I feel nothing but bliss.
No more aches. No more pain. No more shivering in the cold. I smile and collapse into Connor, all those wonderful endorphins and oxytocin working their magic in my body.
I nuzzle Connor’s neck and float away.