Chapter 9 Tender Damage #2
He returned with a first aid kit that looked professional-grade. Set it on the table and started pulling out supplies with the efficiency of someone who'd done this before.
“How do you know how to do all this?” I asked. I needed to say something before the silence turned into a thing I couldn't ignore.
“I own a rehab and recovery center,” he said, opening an antiseptic wipe. “Work with injured athletes mostly. Fighters, runners, anyone who's pushed their body too far and needs help putting it back together.”
That stopped me. “You own a recovery center?”
“Yeah. Been running it for about five years now.” He moved closer again, back to crouching beside my chair so he could reach my ribs. “This is going to sting.”
The antiseptic hit the scrape on my side and I hissed, muscles tensing automatically.
“Easy,” Declan said. His free hand settled on my shoulder, steady and grounding. “Just breathe through it.”
I breathed and tried to focus on anything except the way his hand felt on my bare skin.
“Why a recovery center?” I asked.
He was quiet for a long moment. When he finally spoke, his voice was softer. Sadder.
“Your mother believed in helping people heal,” he said. “Not just physically. She thought everyone deserved a chance to rebuild after they'd been broken. After she died, I needed to do something that mattered. Something she would have believed in.”
“She wanted to be a nurse,” I said, remembering. “Before she got sick. Used to talk about going back to school for it.”
“I know. She told me about that. About wanting to help people find purpose again after trauma.” His hand moved lower, pressing gently against my ribs to check for breaks. “The center is my way of keeping that alive. Keeping her alive, in a way.”
I didn't know what to say to that. Didn't know how to process the fact that Declan had built an entire business around honoring my mother's memory while I'd spent years resenting him for surviving her.
“Does it hurt here?” he asked, pressing slightly harder.
“Yeah.”
“Here?”
“Yes, that hurts too.”
“Okay. Nothing feels broken, but you've got deep tissue damage. You need to ice this every few hours. Heat after forty-eight hours. And if you start pissing blood or the pain gets worse, you go to a hospital. Understand?”
“Yeah. I got it.”
He moved to my face next. Cleaned the cut above my eyebrow with the same careful attention, one hand cupping my jaw to hold me steady while the other worked.
I was acutely aware of how close he was. How his breath ghosted across my skin. How warm his palm felt against my face. How his thumb rested just below my ear, fingers spread across my throat in a way that should have felt clinical but didn't.
My body was responding in ways I couldn't control. Heat was building low in my stomach. My cock was starting to fill out in my underwear, interest I had no business feeling making itself known.
I tried to think about anything else. But it didn't work.
Because Declan's hands were on me. Gentle and careful and thorough. Touching me in ways that felt like care and devotion and all the things I'd been starving for without knowing it.
His fingers brushed the edge of my jaw and tilted my face slightly to get better light on the cut. The movement brought us even closer, close enough that I could see the tension in his shoulders, the way his breathing had gone shallow.
I looked down without meaning to. Couldn't help it. And yeah. There it was. The evidence that I wasn't the only one affected by this.
Declan was hard. I could see the outline of his cock straining against his jeans, could see the way he'd shifted his weight trying to hide it.
My mouth went dry.
This was bad. This was so fucking bad.
“You always this reckless?” Declan asked. His voice was rougher than it should have been. His hand was still on my jaw, thumb pressed just below my ear in a way that felt too deliberate to be accidental.
“What?”
“Buying a bike and immediately riding through Chicago alone when someone might be after you. That's fucking stupid, Troy.”
I pulled back slightly, irritated. “I didn't know someone was after me when I bought the bike.”
“But you knew after the first tail. And you still didn't call.” His fingers tightened fractionally on my jaw. “You could've been killed.”
“I handled it.”
“You got your ass kicked. That's not handling it.”
“I'm alive, aren't I?”
“Barely.” His other hand pressed against my ribs again, checking the damage with more force than necessary. I winced. “This could've been a lot worse.”
“Well it wasn't. So stop acting like I'm some fucking kid who needs a lecture.”
“Maybe if you stopped acting like one, I wouldn't have to.”
“I don't need you telling me how to live my life.”
“No, you just need me to patch you up every time you make stupid decisions.”
“Nobody asked you to.”
“Yeah, well. Too fucking bad. You're in my house, bleeding on my kitchen floor. I'm involved whether you like it or not.”
We glared at each other. Too close. His hand still cupping my jaw, fingers warm against my throat. His breathing had gone shallow, chest rising and falling too fast for someone who was just angry.
I could feel the heat radiating off him.
“You done lecturing me?” I asked. It came out sharper than I meant it to.
“For now.”
“Good. Because I don't remember asking for your opinion.”
“You never do. Doesn't stop me from having one.”
“Yeah, well. Your opinions don't mean shit to me.”
Something flashed in his eyes. Hurt, maybe. Or anger. Hard to tell when we were this close and my brain was scrambling from the feel of his hands on my skin.
“Right,” he said quietly. “Good to know where I stand.”
“Declan—”
My phone rang.
The sound cut through the moment like a knife. Loud and sharp and perfectly timed to ruin everything.
We both froze and stared at each other across two inches of space that might as well have been miles.
The phone kept ringing.
“You should get that,” Declan said finally. His voice was wrecked. Rough in ways that had nothing to do with anger and everything to do with restraint.
“Yeah.” I didn't move. Couldn't make myself pull away yet.
Declan stepped back and put space between us. His hand dropped from my face and I felt the loss of contact like a physical ache.
I grabbed my phone from where I'd left it on the counter. Luka's name was on the screen.
I answered. “Yeah.”
“Troy. Good, you're alive.” Luka's voice was all business. “I need you to meet me tomorrow. There's a hotel in River North. The Drake. Two o'clock.”
“What's going on?”
“I'll explain when you get there. Just be there.”
The call ended before I could ask what the hell that meant.
I set the phone down and looked at Declan standing there with his hands still hovering near me like he had forgotten what to do with them.
“Luka wants to meet tomorrow,” I said.
Declan's brow furrowed. “Who's Luka?”
“Someone I work with,” I said, keeping it vague. “He's in town. Wants to talk.”
Declan studied me for a long moment, like he was trying to decide whether to push for more information. Then he cleared his throat and stepped back into clinical mode. “Let me finish checking you over. Make sure there's nothing else I missed.”
I nodded and didn't trust my voice.
Declan moved closer again, all business now. His hands went to my ribs again. I focused on breathing through the pain instead of the heat building in my stomach every time he touched me.
“Turn slightly,” he said. “Need to check your lower back.”
I shifted. His hand slid around my side, fingers splaying across my hip to steady me while he examined the bruising that wrapped around to my spine.
Then his knuckles brushed against the waistband of my underwear.
Just a graze. Accidental. His hand shifting as he pressed against a particularly dark bruise on my hip.
But the angle was wrong. Or right. Or so fucking perfect that when his knuckles dragged across the fabric, they caught the head of my cock through the thin material.
The sensation hit me like lightning.
My entire body went rigid. Every nerve ending fired at once. The pleasure was immediate and overwhelming and completely unstoppable.
I came.
Right there in his kitchen, standing in nothing but my underwear while he touched me, I fucking came like a teenager who'd never been touched before.
The orgasm ripped through me hard and fast. I bit down on the inside of my cheek hard enough to taste blood, trying desperately not to make a sound. Trying not to move. Trying not to give away what was happening while my cock pulsed and spilled into my underwear.
My vision went white at the edges. My legs shook. Every muscle in my body locked up tight while pleasure crashed through me in waves that wouldn't stop.
Declan kept working. Kept pressing against the bruise on my hip, completely focused on checking for internal damage, utterly unaware that I was falling apart under his hands.
“Does this hurt?” he asked, pressing slightly harder.
I couldn't speak. Could barely breathe. I just shook my head while my cock kept pulsing, kept spilling, kept making a mess that I had no way to hide.
“Good. That's good.” His hand moved lower, checking my pelvis. “No fractures I can feel. You got lucky.”
Lucky. Right. That was one word for it.
I stood there trembling while the aftershocks rolled through me, trying to look like I was just in pain instead of coming down from an orgasm I'd had no control over.
Declan stepped back and started packing up his supplies with the same methodical care he brought to everything.
“Ice the ribs,” he said, not looking at me. “Heat tomorrow. And stay off the bike for a few days. Let your body heal before you go doing anything stupid again.”
“Yeah. Okay.”
He finally looked up. His eyes scanned my face, looking for signs of pain or distress or whatever the hell stepfathers looked for when they were playing doctor.
I kept my expression neutral. Focused on breathing steady. On not looking down at the wet spot spreading across the front of my black underwear.
“You good?” he asked.
“Yeah. Fine.”
“Alright.” He grabbed his first aid kit. “I need to get back to work. There's leftovers in the fridge if you're hungry later.”
He left. Walked out of the kitchen without looking back, taking all the air in the room with him.
I stood there alone, half-naked and covered in bruises and come, trying to process what the fuck had just happened.
I'd come from a single accidental touch. From Declan's knuckles brushing my cock through fabric while he was checking my injuries.
Like my body had been wound so tight that the barest contact had shattered every bit of control I had left.
I looked down. The evidence was obvious. Dark wet spot spreading across black fabric, my cock still half-hard and sensitive.
I was so fucked.
So completely, utterly fucked.
And the worst part was that some broken part of me wanted it to happen again.