Chapter 17
CASH
I stood in Thad’s doorway staring at him.
Him.
Covered in cum.
My name still hovered between us.
And he stared back.
And neither of us moved.
For once in my fucking life, I had nothing glib to say.
Nothing. Nada. Zilch.
Thad stared at me from the bed, his face a mixture of horror and something else I couldn’t quite name.
Holy shit. There were moments when your brain should probably do something useful. Tell your feet to move. Tell your eyes to look away. Remind you that privacy was a thing and maybe standing in a man’s bedroom after walking in on him jerking his dick was a…well, a dick move.
My brain didn’t get that memo. It just kept replaying one thing. My name.
Cash had come out of Thad’s mouth.
My name.
On his lips.
Not imagined. Not implied. Not something I’d convinced myself I heard because I wanted to hear it.
He’d said it. Gasped it.
More than once, but that last one…holy hell. My name had come out of Thad’s mouth.
“Wow…um…fuck.”
“Shit,” he said.
“Yeah.”
His eyes closed.
I should leave.
That thought penetrated the whiskey haze before anything else did. I hadn’t meant to walk in on him. I’d knocked. Apparently not loud enough, but I’d fucking knocked, and when he didn’t answer, my slightly drunk brain had decided opening the door was the next logical step.
It had not been the next logical step.
I shifted my crutches. The movement made Thad’s eyes open.
“I was looking for you.”
His eyebrows rose.
Brilliant, Benjamin.
“Obviously I found you.”
“Cash. Out.”
“Right. Leaving.”
I backed up, nearly clipped the doorframe with my crutch, corrected, then pulled the door closed behind me.
And stood there.
One second. Two. Three.
My heart thundered like ten or twelve herds of fucking elephants, and it wouldn’t slow the fuck down. I looked toward my bedroom, then back at his closed door.
Well. That had happened.
I’d known Thad wanted me. He knew I knew. Hell, I’d told the man I wanted him in my bed and my life, and he’d told me he wanted me. But did he want all of me? All the time. Pushing away the concern, I sighed.
We’d had the conversation. We’d made the choice. I’d chosen him as my surgeon, knowing exactly what that meant.
None of that prepared me for what I’d just seen.
Or heard.
My name.
Jesus Christ.
He wanted me.
The thought made me giddy as fuck. He didn’t want me theoretically. Not maybe. Not because I flirted until he got flustered. He wanted me.
Really wanted me.
Even when I wasn’t there to provoke him. When there was nobody to perform for. Nobody to tease. Nobody to catch the way his eyes sometimes lingered too long.
He wanted me.
Fuck.
I scrubbed a hand over my face and headed toward my room. I made it three steps down the hall before a grin pulled at my mouth. A second later, a laugh escaped before I could stop it.
Oh, Doc. You are so completely fucked. The look on his face. The flush of his skin that the orgasm couldn’t explain because it bloomed once he realized I caught him.
Poor bastard. He was probably in there contemplating changing his name and leaving the country.
I would be. Maybe.
Probably not. I wanted to get him filthy as fuck and clean him up.
I pushed open the door to my room with a crutch, stepping inside. I stopped and glanced around the room.
What the fuck had I been looking for him for?
Another look at the room and its furnishings left me baffled. I had no fucking clue.
Did I know before I went next door to the room he’d been sleeping in since I told him I was a big boy and didn’t need a night nurse?
Had I just not been ready for the night to end?
Rubbing my hand over my face as I racked my brain, I realized that whatever it had been, seeing Dr. Thaddeus Vale jerking off, calling my name, and covered in cum my mouth still watered to lap up like a damn dog had apparently wiped it from existence.
I maneuvered to the bed and sat, dropping my crutches within reach before stretching my right leg out. The brace kept it straight as I leaned back against the headboard.
My brain immediately replayed what I’d seen.
Nope.
I grabbed my phone. Thirty seconds of scrolling, and I hadn’t absorbed a single fucking thing on the screen. Not even paused on any of the curated hockey content on my social feeds.
All I saw was his head tilted back. Buried in the pillow. Neck arched. Eyes closed. Cock glistening. And…my name on his lips. A garbled cross between a moan, a groan, and a shout.
“Fuck.”
I tossed the phone beside me, slid off my pants, and opened the nightstand drawer.
There would be no sleeping until my body stopped reminding me there was an extremely attractive solution sleeping down the hall.
Not happening.
Couldn’t happen. I’d chosen this. More importantly, I still chose it. Every damn day.
But…that didn’t mean I was fucking dead.
Or blind.
Or immune to the fact that the man I’d been trying very hard not to fuck for months had apparently been taking care of the problem himself.
Lube drizzled over my throbbing dick from the upended bottle I held with one hand. The coolness made me shiver. My hand wrapping around my shaft drew my body taut until I arched. My eyes closed so tight a kaleidoscope danced in the darkness.
Bad idea.
Thad was immediately there again. His face. His voice. My name.
Fuck.
“Cash, about earlier—”
My eyes flew open.
Thad stood in my doorway.
His gaze landed on me.
Dropped.
And I froze, my hand strangling my leaking dick.
For one spectacularly fucked-up second, nobody moved.
Then Thad’s eyes snapped back to mine.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.”
I stared at him. He stared at me. And despite everything, a grin started pulling at my mouth.
Thad saw it. “No. This isn’t fucking funny.”
That made the grin bigger.
He scrubbed both hands over his face. “Don’t. Do not laugh.”
I couldn’t help it. I also couldn’t help the fact that my dick was still rock hard and bubbling precum like a leaky faucet. Rolling my lips into my mouth to stop the laughter, I sighed, then said, “You just fucking walked in on me.”
“I can fucking see that,” he groaned.
“After I walked in on you.”
His eyes closed.
I started laughing. Fuck holding back.
“Cash.”
“This is fucking amazing.”
“This is not amazing.”
“This might be the best Christmas Eve I’ve ever had.”
Thad turned toward the door.
“Wait.”
“No.”
“You came in here for something.”
“I no longer remember what it was.”
I laughed harder. Glad I wasn’t the only one to develop amnesia after walking into a room and seeing something about me but not intended for me.
His hand tightened on the doorknob.
“Doc.”
He stopped but didn’t turn around.
I pulled the blanket over myself because, funny as this was, there were limits.
Probably.
Maybe.
Fuck if I knew.
“What?”
“What were you going to say?”
A long pause.
Then he finally looked over his shoulder.
“I was coming to apologize.”
My smile faded. “For what?”
“For earlier.”
“Why?”
His brow furrowed like the answer should’ve been obvious. “Because you walked in on something you shouldn’t have had to see.”
“I walked into your bedroom.”
“And I just walked into yours.”
I spread my hands.
One of his eyebrows went up as his eyes dropped to my hands.
I looked down. Oops. My palm was shiny and wet, a combination of lube and precum.
His lips twitched, his tongue peeking out and swiping across the twin pillows I wanted against my flesh. All my flesh.
“Fuck.”
“Not currently an option, kid.”
My eyes narrowed, and Thad smiled.
Oh, so now he wanted to be funny.
“Good night, Cash,” he said, closing the door behind him.
I lasted maybe two seconds before the laugh broke loose again. I dropped my head against the headboard, grinning at the ceiling.
Jesus Christ.
Tomorrow morning was going to be interesting.
I woke up and gagged. My mouth tasted like something had crawled inside it and died.
Worth it.
Mostly.
The only thing that could’ve made it better…
Don’t go there, Benjamin.
I stayed in bed long enough to determine the room wasn’t spinning, my head wasn’t going to explode, and my stomach had no immediate plans to revolt. My knee felt stiff but otherwise fine. After taking care of the usual morning shit, I got dressed, grabbed my crutches, and headed out.
Thad’s door was still closed across the way.
Last night came back with absolutely unnecessary clarity. Both fucking parts of it. A grin pulled at my mouth as I headed for the kitchen.
I started the coffee, then looked across the dining area toward the tree standing in front of the wall of glass. Morning sunlight poured through the windows, making the Christmas lights completely unnecessary.
By the time I settled on the sectional with my coffee, the presents I’d bought Thad were under the tree and the lights were on.
Because it was fucking Christmas. Which I loved. Why I don’t know. Most of the ones I celebrated as a kid sucked. But the spirit bit my ass every year.
I’d been sitting there maybe ten minutes when sound carried from the other end of the house. Thad was up.
I took a drink and waited. It took long enough for him to reach the kitchen that I almost laughed. Then I heard the coffee maker, followed by the unmistakable sounds of someone finding the mug I’d left waiting for him.
A minute later, Thad came into view beyond the floating stairs, coffee in hand.
“Morning.”
“Merry Christmas.”
His gaze dropped to my leg stretched across the sectional, then came back to my face. If he was embarrassed about last night, he hid it better than I would’ve. No awkward throat clearing. No avoiding my eyes. Nothing.
I was almost disappointed.
Almost.
Then his eyes narrowed. “What?”
My mouth was doing something. I flattened it. “Nothing.”
“You’re smiling.”
“It’s Christmas.”
“You don’t smile like that about Christmas.”
I lifted my eyebrows. “You’ve known me for two months. How the fuck do you know how I smile about Christmas?”
“Because I’ve seen that smile.”
“Maybe I’m happy to see you.” I lifted my mug and took a drink, watching him over the rim.
There.