Dark, curly lashes fell over his eyes. “Like you could carry me.”
Well, this was going to go well, I could already tell.
This was a shitty idea, and I knew it. He should be in a hospital, or with other people who at least had a fragment of an idea what they were doing, notme. Someone who could actually lift him would be a better caretaker.
Just about anybody would.
“Do you want to go ahead and do it now?” I asked.
He grunted. Again.
All righty then.
The bed it was going to be because the couch wasn’t big enough to spread out on, even for me. At least my room was clean, and I’d changed the sheets a few days ago. I didn’t have another set to swap them out, so he was going to need to suck it up.
Silently moving around behind him, I grabbed the handles on the back of the wheelchair and put my hamstrings into it as I started pushing, huffing and puffing as I turned it in the living room to go down the hall. And if he groaned under his breath more than once, I pretended I didn’t hear it. He’d asked for this.
At the bedroom door, I put my back into it and pushed him the rest of the way in. The urge to ask him if he was sure this was a good idea was on the tip of my tongue, but his perfect pale face was so grouchy, I kept it to myself. But really, what the hell had I done for him to be this pissy? All I’d done was try to help himbecause he’d asked.I hadn’t shot his ass out of the sky.
Bending down, I snuck my arm under his armpits. It took a while and a few groans before he managed to stand, his long legs shaking. This was such a shit idea, but this was what he wanted, so….
One step after another was difficult for him from the harsh way he started breathing, and we were both panting the three steps it took to get to the bed. Thankfully, I didn’t live in a mansion and it didn’t take long to turn him around. Then it was more struggling, and that too-tall body shook as he slowly lowered himself to sit on the edge.
“Suit’s ruined. I want… to take it off,” he huffed the second he was settled.
Off? As in off his body? It was a fucking miracle my eyebrows didn’t jump off my face.
I’d helped my grandparents undress. This was nothing new. I could do this clinically.
I pushed the chair back and dropped to kneel in front of him, trying my hardest not to panic or let my heart start beating fast with nerves. “Where should I start?” I asked him in the fucking funniest voice of my whole life because… because…
I was going to undress The Defender.
Me. Gracie.
I gulped.
It was going to be a sacrifice in the name of humanity.
And it was the closest I’d been to a man in a really long time.
He wasn’t just a man though, was he? He was all muscle and nice skin and a beautiful face that the world had no idea what it was missing out on, and… everything. And I was about to help him take off his suit. That world-renowned, charcoal suit and blue cape, or what was left of it.
Me.
“By my neck,” he grumbled, raising a hand and pulling at the loop of material that barely managed to keep the cape on him. It ripped easily, way too easily, but he made a little sound like even that hurt.
Right, Mr. I Am Stronger Than Every Human On This Planet.
And really, maybe it was the pain—I hoped it was—but he was seeming like he really might be—I whispered it in my head just in case he could hear me—kind of a dickhead.
Thinking it felt like blasphemy, but also like the truth.
I nodded, side-eyeing him for clues he might have known what I’d just called him, as I reached for his face. He was back to staring-slash-glaring, so I ignored him. It didn’t take long at all to pull the rest of the thick, heavy material off him. He’d done all the hard work ripping it, and I dropped it beside him on the bed. Most of the sleeves of the suit had gotten lost or burned at some point, so all I had to do was peel what was left down toward his middle section.
I kept my eyes glued to the dark material, making sure to pretend like stripping him wasn’t blowing my mind. Like it was every day I got an up-close and personal view of a body I was trying my absolute hardest to pretend was nothing special when I 100 percent would have gotten a microscope and checked him out if I could’ve gotten away with it. Like I wouldn’t have had a poster of him under a waterfall if my grandma would have let me get away with it as a teenager. Of course, this was a once-in-a-lifetime chance to see one of the most incredible bodies in the universe, and I couldn’t even properly enjoy it.
What a fucking shame.
