Chapter 20
You And Me, Some Stiff Drinks, No Clothes, And A Whole Lotta O’s
"One more, now," Sasha insists.
Right now, he's standing on my toes and catching a ten-pound medicine ball as I sit up and throw it to him, and then dropping it into my hands so I can lie down with it and do another sit-up-and-throw.
This is my third round of ten reps, and my abs are in agony.
My hip flexors, the one on the injured side in particular, are on fire.
I've done kettlebell swings, chin-ups, squats, deadlifts, push-ups, presses, rows…
he's put me through a truly brutal circuit, using much lighter weights than usual in deference to my recent injury, granted, but still.
On the other side of the gym, Uncle Duke is putting Killian through a similar routine, with a bent toward rehabbing Killian's particular injuries and rebuilding his strength base.
Obviously, the extent and severity of our injuries has precluded any kind of sexy time business for Killian and me, but we've bonded emotionally even further, if only because we've spent just about every waking moment together, recuperating, talking, watching TV, helping each other get dressed and shower and go to the bathroom, and then, once we got the green light from Mom to start rehab and PT, we bonded over that, if only in a love-to-hate-it way; there’s also been a distinct—and I think intentional—lack of privacy.
But I am, to put it succinctly, done waiting.
I can tell Killian has been intensely frustrated with the difficulty of the healing process, as he's never broken anything before; he was especially frustrated with having to still go easy even after he could get rid of the sling.
Having broken my ankle, I'm more familiar with the broken bone timeline on a personal level, as well as, a medical professional.
My ribs are mostly healed, although I feel them after too much exertion, but that's what Sasha is helping me with.
I know I can handle getting physical without discomfort, and I need it. We exchange kisses a lot, but since we haven't been able to go beyond kissing, we've had to pull ourselves back from going any further. Which, to put it lightly, has been seriously difficult.
I wake up from wet dreams about Killian's mouth between my thighs nearly every night.
I crave him. I crave his body. His kisses.
His touch. Just him. We tried sleeping together—as in just sleeping, just to be close—but being that close and not able to do what we really need was too hard for both of us, so we went back to sleeping separately.
Which means that despite everything, we're back to having to act like kids with crushes, essentially.
We spend every possible moment together, but we don't dare let things go too far, or we'll get carried away, and until recently, my ribs in particular were too fragile, and the pain from even slight movements was excruciating, which simply precluded me from being able to do anything fun, no matter how badly I want to.
And then once the worst of the pain was gone, I had to keep being cautious to avoid overdoing it and setting myself back; the same has applied to Killian.
Suffice it to say, we’re both rabid.
Mom has been monitoring our progress, and told us that she'd give us the green light to resume “all normal activities,” as she put it—with a knowing gleam in her eye—once we can both move normally without pain, at least to a reasonable degree.
Of course, Killian being Killian, he went too hard his first rehab workout and nearly re-injured himself because he underestimated how much the muscles had atrophied. Which meant he had to take it even slower and pushed that green light back. I may have gotten a little pissed at him for that stunt.
Now, Mom is watching both of us from her treadmill, where she's running at a pace no woman her age should be able to maintain for as long as she is.
As I catch the med ball, press my shoulder blades to the floor, and then sit up and toss the ball to Sasha, I see her give me a wink and a nod, and then a significant glance at Killian—who is going full beast mode.
After my last rep, Sasha takes the medicine ball and crosses the room to put it away, and I just sit, catch my breath, and watch Killian.
He's clad in a pair of maroon shorts that are so short and so tight it's truly indecent. They cling to the taut half-moon bubble of his iron-hard ass cheeks and the dense, thick, sinewy tree trunks of his thighs; I’m pretty certain he wore them just to taunt me.
He's drenched in sweat, droplets running down the channels of heavy muscle of his back.
My mouth is dry just watching him, and my core is hot and wet, and my breasts feel heavy, and my nipples tingle, diamond-hard.
Fuck, I want him.
He finishes a racked forward lunge and drops the kettlebell to the thick rubber mat, gasping raggedly, hands laced on his head.
He pivots away from Duke and paces my way, and I let myself stare, let the need consuming me show on my face, in my eyes.
His abs ripple, sweat trickling down his smooth, slick brown skin, glistening and glittering in the late afternoon sun streaming in from the open, west-facing door-wall.
He crosses to within a foot or two of where I'm still seated on the floor, arms around my upright knees.
I intentionally let my gaze lock and linger on his bulge.
And dear god…it's taunting me. Tempting. Tantalizing. The shorts are thin, and he’s not wearing underwear, since the shorts have a built-in liner, but that just means everything is, ahem, outlined. Very visibly, very clearly.
"Hey," he says, panting. "You done?"
I nod. "Yeah, I am." I glance at Sasha. "Right, Sash? I'm done?"
Sasha nods, wiping the medicine ball down with an antiseptic wipe. "Da. Done for today. Tomorrow we challenge your chest and back, and I kill your legs with the jumping squats. You will extra hate me tomorrow.”
"Sounds horrible in the best possible way," I say. Then I look back to Killian. "You? You're done?"
He has black sweatbands around his wrists, and uses them to dab and wipe sweat away from his eyes. "Nah, I got one more round of the snatch-press-lunge complex."
"Looks pretty killer, Killy."
He huffs. "Fucking nasty. But I love it. It feels so good to be able to fully fucking send it again."
I let my eyes scan his body, lingering on his hard, powerful chest, rippling, carved-from-marble abs, his huge thighs, and, last but lingering longest, the outlined bulge of his package. "I know the feeling," I murmur.
He doesn't miss the look, or the expression. "I'm about to go crazy, Story," he mutters, sidling closer, so he's towering directly above me. "I know I had a rough start to rehabbing, but I'm good now. And so are you. I saw you tossing the med ball like it was a softball."
I trace a finger down his shin, and I trace around his kneecap.
At the light, innocent touch, Killian's jaw ticks, and I nibble my lower lip.
"Yeah, I'm good. I wouldn't want to take any body blows from Tyson, but I'm moving comfortably and without any real pain.
" I glance around—Duke and Sasha are deep in conversation on the other side of the gym, and Mom is locked in on her run, now, feet and legs a blur as she pushes herself to the max, arms pumping and black ponytail swinging.
"I'm giving myself the green light to resume… normal activities."
Killian arches an eyebrow. "And me?"
"I think you're good." I cup the backs of his calves, slide my hands up to his thighs, glance around again to make sure no one is watching us, and then slip my hands up and under his shorts to grip the sweaty bubbles of his ass. "Very, very good."
He gazes down at me, drops his hands from his head, and fists them at his sides—right at eye level, his bulge is moving. Shifting. Unfurling. "I know a place where we can be alone."
"For how long?" I ask.
He rolls a shoulder. "As long as we want. You trust me?"
I slide my hands out and extend them in an ask for help up—he tugs me to my feet and tucks me against his chest, my hands trapped between our equally sweaty bodies. "That's not a real question, is it?" I ask. "Because obviously.”
"Then pack a bag and meet me at the docks in twenty."
"I need a shower," I say.
He shakes his head. "Nah. We're just gonna get all sweaty and…
sticky…anyway." His eyes flick to my chest—I picked my sports bra with him in mind, so while it's meant for compression and containment, it’s a sexier one, with a lot of very complicated straps and more cleavage than a sports bra technically needs; I caught his eyes following the bounce as I did certain impact-heavy movements.
"What do I need to pack, then?"
A shrug. "Whatever you think you may need on an uninhabited Caribbean island, alone with me.”
"For how long?" I ask.
"Until we run out of supplies?" he says. "I was thinking a few days. Two or three."
"Three or four, you said?" I tease.
“What’s that you say? Five or six…weeks?” he says, laughing.
"We'd miss Wi-Fi and A/C, eventually,” I say. I cup his face and kiss him, slowly and deeply. "I love you."
"I love you more." He brushes a thumb over my lips. "I know it's been a long wait for us, but I am kinda glad we've taken the time to heal fully. I don't want either of us to have to worry about hurting each other by accident because we got too carried away."
I nuzzle his chin with my nose, slide my lips over his jawline. "I know. Me too. Plus, I think we've gotten to know each other emotionally a lot better. Which is important to me. I know I know you, but…" I trail off, start again. "I don't know what I'm trying to say."