Rowe winced as he straightened up. “I’m fine,” he said. “Just a bit of fatigue. I’ll be better after I sleep.”
He took a step towards the bathroom and his leg nearly went from under him again.
That was it.
I rushed for him, catching him in my arms before he could fall properly and hit the floor. I eased him back to sit on the bed.
“Sit down,” I said, couching my concern in a more authoritative tone so he wouldn’t think I was looking down on him. I took a breath. “Don’t push yourself too hard. I can help.”
“I was going to get changed,” Rowe said, making a frustrated gesture toward the bathroom.
I took another, deeper breath. “Like I said,” I told him. “Let me help.”
Rowe
What could I do but let him help me?
I was tired, dead tired, and there was so rarely someone around to even ask for help. In the last few years, with my parents gone and Daisy in the hospital, and all my friends and ex-boyfriends more or less left at the wayside so I could work and look after her, I had gotten used to being alone.
At least, I thought I’d gotten used to it. But the truth was that you never really got used to something that was slowly crushing your soul. You just blinkered your eyes and tried to stop feeling it.
Xavi’s hands were gentle as he knelt on the floor to pull off my shoes, one by one, setting them aside neatly by the bed. A small frown line appeared on his forehead as he concentrated, sitting up and reaching to unbutton my shirt. I watched his face, how he was concentrating so hard on being helpful, on not hurting me.
It wasn’t until the last button popped open and he carefully pushed the shirt back across my shoulders that I realized I was actually getting undressed in front of him, and I looked down at myself reflexively. A few years ago, before everything started to go wrong, I might have been vain about this – worried about rolls on my stomach where I was sitting down or thinking that I wasn’t tanned from the summer, having spent it mostly working inside.
But it had been a few years since I’d had the luxury of thinking like that. A few years since I had anyone to care about myself for. And in that time, I’d had to skip enough meals that there were definitely no rolls to be worried about. Just my ribs, a little too visible as I took shallow breaths, trying to tell myself that none of this was meaningful. None of this was layered with innuendo or suggestion. It didn’t matter how I looked.
Xavi was just learning to be helpful, to think of others. He folded my shirt and set it aside, and I swallowed when I realized he was coming back to help me with my jeans.
Maybe I wasn’t as tired as I had thought I was.
Xavi reached for my belt and undid the buckle, leaving it lying loose around my hips as he unbuttoned and unzipped my jeans. I held back a hiss as the zipper glided down, his hands too close for comfort. Or maybe not too close at all. Maybe not close enough.
One part of me was definitely fully awake, and things like this were not helping.
“Scoot forward,” Xavi murmured. He put his hands on my hips to support me, guiding me right to the very edge of the bed as I shuffled. “Up.” As soon as I levered myself up on my hands just a bare half-inch above the bed he pulled my jeans out of the way, then down my legs. His hands brushed my calves as he smoothed the material down to the floor, taking hold of my ankles to carefully lift my feet and pull the denim over them.
I watched as he folded the jeans away, my cheeks burning. Because, if he hadn’t noticed already…
He turned back and I saw him take in the fact that I was hard, with nothing but my underwear now to hide the evidence. Given that I’d opted for tighter briefs in order to avoid ruining the lines of my dress pants with the suit, there wasn’t a lot of hiding going on.
He looked up and met my eyes, and I knew I had been caught. It wasn’t like there was any way that anyone, and especially not Xavi with all his experience, could misinterpret the bulge of my cock sticking up, trying to burst through the material to the sky.
I bit my lip. “I, uh…” I started, trying to find a way to finish the sentence.I’m sorry I had this inappropriate reaction? I wish you would ignore that? I should go into the bathroom on my own on a totally unrelated note and when I come back we won’t ever speak about this again?
“It’s okay,” Xavi said. He bit his lip and sank down, right down onto his haunches.
“Just, um…” I started, again finding myself unable to finish.
I knew what I should say. But that would end this, and I didn’t want to end it. I wanted him. I wanted to kiss him again. I wanted to find out if kissing him felt just as good when I gave into it – or if it would be even better. I wanted to know how he tasted when he gave himself over with abandon. I wanted to know him, all of him, and none of these thoughts were helping me get any less hard, and we were right here together, and was there really any point in fighting it?
Was there any point in trying so hard to avoid what might be a mistake, when soon enough I’d be able to run away from my mistakes anyway?
“Let me help you,” he whispered, looking up at me with his head between my knees in such a way that there could be no mistaking his meaning. But the way he said it… it was like it wasn’t me getting the help. It was like he was asking me, begging me, for a chance to be useful.
The words Xavi had christened on himself came back into my head.Stupid, slutty bitch. He wasn’t slutty. Not at all.
He was needy and vulnerable and craving for love, and there were a lot of men out there who would be happy to take advantage of that and leave him high and dry the next morning.
