16. CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Mark does well enough with his exercises to prove he can manage his therapy at home under Tom’s supervision. The next day, Shane hands him a printed schedule detailing the incremental increases for the pounds of pressure and how long to hold them. “If you want to be walking independently by December, this is your golden ticket,” he says, meeting Mark’s gaze.
Mark nods. “I want that more than almost anything.”
I wonder what he wants more than that, because that’s been his primary goal since his initial injury. For a half second, I wonder if he’s flirting with me, but his face is serious, and he doesn’t look my way.
Dr. Walters sets us up with follow-up appointments, discharge instructions, and prescriptions before releasing Mark. A nurse wheels him downstairs while I bring the car around and load his overnight bag and walker/ scale contraption into the car. After he’s seated and his crutches are stowed away, I glance at him.
“To the hotel for another night, or a long drive today?”
“I’m not sure I’m up for a long drive today,” he says, staring out the window.
Today I’m with quiet Mark again, not regular Mark. He’s not angry, but he’s withdrawn. I stifle a sigh and drive back to the hotel.
I’m unlocking the door to our room when he speaks. “You never told me why you changed rooms. I thought you’d left me.”
You told me to leave.
I hold my tongue. I don’t look at him as I carry our things in, holding the door open for him with my foot. “I had night terrors and other guests complained about the screaming. I offered to pay for their rooms for the rest of my stay. The night manager was a veteran, and he offered an alternative. They’re remodeling this wing, and the other rooms won’t be reopened for a few days. This way, I’m not bothering anyone.” I don’t meet his gaze.
He raises an eyebrow. “He said you were bothering people?”
I shake my head. “He was very kind. He put us in here for free as VIP guests of the hotel. He said you and I had paid more than enough.”
Mark’s eyes travel over me, and some emotion I can’t decipher swirls in them. Then he turns and goes to one of the beds, tugging down the covers before stretching out. “I’m going to lie down. It’s been a long week.” As soon as he’s in the bed, he shuts his eyes without another word. His dismissal stings, but I push it down.
He just needs time to adjust.
He stays in bed the rest of the afternoon, eyes closed, though by the twitching of his eyelids and his breathing pattern, I can tell he’s awake. I work on my laptop at the desk across the room, keeping the blinds drawn and the lights low.
I order takeout for us, and he gets up long enough to eat silently and do two PT sessions back to back. I know he should split them up, and so does he, but I say nothing. He’s a grown man, and he’s the one who’ll be hurting later for overdoing it.
By the time he finishes thirty minutes of pressure, he’s pale and sweaty, his right thigh spasming. “Come on,” I tell him. “A hot shower will make you feel better.”
“I’m not sure we should –” his voice trails off.
Oh.
Disappointment spears through me, although the way he’s behaving around me today, that’s not exactly a surprise.
I keep my expression neutral. “I meant a regular shower. I’ll set you up and leave you alone. It’s safe for your incision to shower now as long as you wash it gently. I won’t intrude.” I turn away, my face growing hot, and set out clothes and towels for him.
I’d meant what I said innocently – a hot shower would relax his thigh muscle – but my eyes sting and a lump builds in my throat at his reaction. Ever since his surgery, Mark flips from affectionate to indifferent in the blink of an eye, and I never know which version I’m facing until he opens his mouth. It’s a milder version of his behavior at Brooke before he started his antidepressant, though he was much more volatile and angry then. He’s not angry now. Not yet, at least. He’s just withdrawn.
I sit at the desk while he showers, my mood sinking. He’d looked forward to this surgery for months, and now that he’s had it, he’s pulling away from me. When he shuts off the water, I straighten his tangled sheets and flip his pillow over.
He emerges from the bathroom dressed in shorts, his hair still damp, and goes straight to the bed. “I’m going to turn in.”
“Do you need your pain medication or a muscle relaxer?”
His jaw tightens. “I guess.” I bring them to him, and as soon as he swallows the tablets, he climbs into bed and pulls the covers up.
Apparently, I don’t even warrant a “goodnight” now.
A sigh escapes before I can stifle it. I turn away and gather my own clothes and head to the shower. Maybe he’ll really be asleep by the time I come out. A large part of me hopes he is. I wonder what that says about me.
About us.
I stay in the shower until I turn pruny, then find excuses to linger in the bathroom, gathering wet towels, lotioning my entire body, blow drying my hair, and packing up the toiletries I won’t need tomorrow morning.
When I leave the bathroom, he’s pretending to be asleep, lying on his back as still as a statue.
This is the same man who said yesterday he’d give his left ass cheek to get me back to the hotel and have his way with me.
Screw this. His head may be pushing me away, but I’ll bet his body can’t.
I check the locks on the door before turning off most of the lights, leaving one lamp on across the room so it’s not totally dark. Then I peel back the covers on my side of the bed, strip off my clothes, and crawl in next to him, facing the door. I wriggle into place, pushing the leg of his shorts up with my hip so my bare ass rests on his thigh, skin to skin.
I hear his sharp intake of breath behind me and smile. “Good night, Big Guy,” I murmur.
No answer.
That’s okay. I can wait. He stiffened as soon as I touched him. After a few minutes, I shift my upper body away, angling my hips so that instead of my ass, it’s my womanhood against him.
He’s silent, but the tension radiating from him ratchets up a thousand percent. His entire body is on high alert.
I smile, letting my body relax into his as though I’m getting sleepy.
Ten minutes later, I roll toward him, tossing my left thigh over his waist and nestling my breasts into his muscled chest. I tuck my head into the crook between his shoulder and neck, purposely breathing into the curve of his neck. He sucks in a deep breath. His cock is rock hard beneath my leg. I sigh softly, relaxing into him, and his entire body tenses.
I let him suffer a couple of minutes, feeling his chest heave and his fists clench and unclench.
When I decide I’ve tormented him enough, I kneel beside him, pulling the covers back but keeping his right leg covered so he won’t feel self-conscious. I press my lips to his chest, kissing my way south, over his abs, down his happy trail. His entire body freezes when he realizes where I’m headed.
“Charlie?” His voice is rough with desire.
I don’t answer. Instead, I tug at the waistband of his shorts. After a split-second’s hesitation, he raises his hips so I can remove them. When I reach my destination, I kiss down the length of his hard shaft before swirling my tongue around the head. When I take him into my mouth, he inhales sharply.
I work him over like my life depends on it, licking, swirling, and sucking without letting up. His hands fist the sheets as he groans and pants. I take him all the way to the back of my throat again and again, hollowing out my cheeks. It’s a heady power, watching him fall under my spell.
His breathing turns harsh as his fingers tangle in my hair. “Christ, Charlie, I’m gonna come. If you don’t want me to, stop now.”
I slide my hands beneath him, my nails digging into his ass as I pull his hips forward, urging him on.
“Fuck, Charlie.” His body stiffens as he comes with a growl, his orgasm ripping through him as I watch his face, gripped in ecstasy. His seed shoots deep into my throat in waves, and I swallow every drop.
He relaxes the hand in my hair, and I crawl back up the bed, nestling into his still-heaving chest and tugging the covers over us.
“Charlie?”
“Good night, Mark.”
“But I haven’t touched you.”
I shake my head. “That was just for you.”
He grabs my chin, capturing my mouth in a searing kiss. “Do you have any idea what you do to me?”
I grin. “I know what I did a minute ago. Does that count?”
“Come on. It’s your turn,” he urges, but I shake my head.
“There’ll be plenty of time to make it up to me later.” I kiss him again, slowly, tenderly, before snuggling back into his chest. His arm comes up to pull me against him, and I smile.
Seems there’s one sure-fire way to improve his mood.
I’m awake long after Charlie’s gone to sleep, her breathing even, her body melted into mine. I can’t stop inhaling her scent and stroking her soft skin.
The things she does to me… It’s both incredible and terrifying.
It’s incredible because I never expected to experience anything like what I feel when I’m with her. All of my adult relationships have been casual, short-term fun. I’ve never had someone who knows me the way she does, who reaches me the way only she can, who cares more about my needs than her own.
It’s terrifying because I’m in way over my head, especially now that I know I’ll never be normal. I’ll never be able to be what she deserves.
Because Charlie deserves perfection, not some cyborg-looking freak.
With each passing day, my mood spirals lower and lower. I was counting on this surgery to fix things. Instead, it’s made them exponentially worse.
Reality is like being dropped naked into an icy pond. It clutches my body with its frigid fingers, leaving me gasping at its brutal harshness.
But I can’t let her see it. After my injuries, I was an emotional mess, and Charlie bore the brunt of my turmoil. It culminated in a verbal explosion I’d give anything to take back, a day when I crushed her intentionally because of my inner demons.
I can’t bear to hurt her like that again. I love her too much for that.
And there’s the crux of the problem. Charlie’s my drug, the person I need more than life itself, but I love her enough to admit she’s entitled to someone who can give her more than I ever can.
To give Charlie the type of future and happiness she deserves, I need to let her go. Holding onto her because of my desperate addiction is wrong.
But like most addicts, my willpower is weak when it comes to giving up my drug.
I tried in the hospital to send her away. That lasted about twenty-four hours before I broke down, and as soon as I saw her, she immediately bewitched me again. This morning, I doubled down on my resolve to put distance between us. All she had to do was snuggle her sweet ass against me, and I was done. Charlie deserves nothing less than perfection, and I need to pull back, but my body and my heart betray me at every turn.
I’m also not sure when I lost the upper hand in our sexual relationship. When she and I started this “friends with benefits” arrangement, I was confident. I set the pace by giving her the power to select the limits and then working within them to show her what a sexual goddess she really was. She just needed to remember how to access that part of herself. But I was in charge then…wasn’t I? I was the one who’d slow things down, keeping her safe from her own desires, making sure things didn’t progress to something she’d regret.
At some point, being in charge went out the window. I’ve lost control, and I don’t know how or when. I only know that Charlie owns me, heart and soul. I’m as addicted to her as surely as if I were addicted to heroin. She’s in my blood, seeping into every part of me, and I can’t get enough of her.
I could never get enough of her.
I wake up to soft whiskers nuzzling my neck, and I shiver at the scent and feel of Mark.
“Good morning,” he murmurs into my skin, and I shiver again.
“Is it? Morning, I mean?”
“I don’t know. I couldn’t wait any longer, though.”
My giggle quickly becomes a moan as his mouth moves down to fasten on my breast. His hand reaches for its twin, rolling the nipple between his fingers to match the tempo his tongue and lips are setting. He nips my peak with his teeth, and electricity fires straight to my core, flooding me with damp heat.
I want him. Now.
Right now.
His erection presses into my thigh, and I snake one hand between us to grasp it. The bead of liquid on him tells me he wants me as badly as I want him. I stroke his length and feel his body shudder as he draws a ragged breath.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” I whisper.
“Roll to your side, Baby Girl. We’ll go slow.”
He spoons behind me, his thick cock perfectly positioned at my slick entrance. When he pushes into me, I can’t stifle my moan. It’s only been five days, but it feels like an eternity. He shifts my leg, driving deeper, stroking that place just inside me with each movement.
It’s heaven.
Every thrust is pure pleasure, and that deep ache inside me is building quickly. I clench my inner walls tight around his shaft until he gasps.
“Fuck, Charlie, I’m so close.”
I’m panting, unable to answer, my body hovering on the edge as I desperately clutch his hip, pulling him deeper. That’s when he sinks his teeth into the sensitive spot where my neck and shoulder meet. It’s primal, animalistic, like he’s marking me as his own.
Like he’s claiming me forever.
His bite and my thoughts nudge me over the edge. I come apart in his arms, barely managing to keep the words “I love you” from flying out of my mouth. Stars explode behind my eyes as my entire body shakes from the force of my climax. It ripples through me in huge waves, and Mark follows immediately, gripping my hip tightly, his teeth still sunk into my flesh as he growls out my name.
I want him to claim me forever.
The thought intrudes, but I push it down. Now is definitely not the time to talk about feelings, not with Mark’s moods running hot one minute and cold the next. I need to focus on this moment, on enjoying the right now instead of dreaming about a possible someday.
We lie together skin to skin in the afterglow. I’ve missed this so much these past few days, being in his arms while he absently strokes my body or plays with my hair. Most of the time, he doesn’t even realize he’s doing it.
Maybe he’s more connected to me than he knows.
God, I hope so.