I paused at that. “Really?”
“Ya gave me enough shit about it,” he said with a huff.
That was neither strictly true nor a lie. I hadn’t been riding his ass about it since I’d brought it up a few weeks ago, but I hadn’t dropped the subject. His mobility was fine, but there was a stiffness to his movements that didn’t need to be there. The only time I had ever seen him move smoothly had been when he’d sneaked up on Logan and me to ambush the guy. There were also times when I could tell he was getting worn downwhenever he had to walk for extended periods and especially climbing stairs.
“I only wanted it for you so you’d have some extra help,” I told him.
“I know,” he grumbled, and then shot me an apologetic look. “Sorry, it was…not great today.”
“I take it they had you doing it while you had the leg on?”
“Yeah, told me to take it easy.”
“Good, then take the leg off and come lie down, or sit. Whatever you want.”
“It’s fine,” he grumbled.
I eyed him suspiciously. “Are you going to be a pain in the ass?”
“I’ll sit down,” he said with a growl, hobbling to the bed and dropping with a groan. When I approached him, he eyed me suspiciously. “What’re you doin’?”
“I’m going to help you get the leg off,” I told him.
“Don’t,” he said with a sudden intensity that made me hesitate as he twitched the leg away from me as if I could just reach down and snatch it off him. Though it fit what remained of his upper thigh, it had a harness that wrapped around his waist to help keep it in place, so it wasn’t like I could run off with it.
“What?” I wondered in surprise. “Cade, what the fuck, man?”
“It’s fine where it is,” he said with uncustomary sharpness as he glared at me. “Leave it.”
“Absolutely not,” I told him. “If they said to rest with it off, there’s a good reason. They probably want to give the skin a rest and air to breathe, which it’s not going to get if you’re sitting there with your pants and leg on.”
“It’s fine!” he snapped again when I reached out, and this time I saw the worried glimmer in his eyes.
I huffed. “Cade, is this some self-conscious thing?”
“No,” he said, but he had never been good at lying, at least not to people he trusted.
“Cade, I have seen you completely naked and vulnerable, both platonically and sexually. I am well aware of what you look like, and being without a leg isn’t going to suddenly change what you look like to me, alright? Now let me help you so you can recover properly!”
“Would ya stop bein’ my goddamn medic for five fuckin’ minutes?” he snarled, swatting at me now I was growing closer with more persistence.
“No,” I told him, dropping onto the bed on my hands so that my face was near him. I knew I was pushing him too hard, and what he needed wasn’t me riding his ass. I softened my voice. “But I can also be your friend…and maybe something more.”
“Something more?” he wondered.
That would require getting onto the topic that the shift from a nonsexual relationship into a fully sexual one had changed things in my head. It wasn’t as if I’d told him my feelings for him hadjustbeen sexual back then and now, but neither had I elaborated that there had always been the chance of something more. This wasn’t the time to bring it up, though, and not just because there was something more important to deal with, but because…well, because.
I kissed him gently, putting my weight on his chest as I let our lips explore one another carefully. “I want to help you, and not just because I’m a medic who doesn’t know how to quit, but because I care, okay? Ipromise, nothing is going to happen in my head that will be disgusted or pity you for it; give me some credit. Trust me.”
“I do,” he said, but he was clearly uncomfortable with the idea. “I-I guess.”
“Good,” I said, kissing the corner of his mouth, which I had discovered by accident was a way to make him grin bashfully.Apparently, he was a sentimental romantic, but that wasn’t all that surprising. That wasn’t really my style, but I wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity to get him to do what I wanted…for his own good, of course.
I eased back and let my hands slide from his chest over his stomach. Smiling, I pushed my hands up his shirt to run my fingertips back and forth over the hard muscles, letting them play through the dark red hair. I had always been a fan of body hair, not excessively so, but I was glad guys had stopped trying to get rid of it all the time.
“This supposed to be helpin’?” he asked, but there was no irritation in his voice as he watched me, and was in fact, trying to hold back a smirk. It had been a little over a week since we had first broken through a barrier that I wouldn’t have dared touch, let alone put a crack in, and he had adapted well. I wasn’t sure how long it would last, if it would last at all, but for now I was happy to see the interested glint in his eye.
“Fine, fine,” I said, tugging his pants to loosen them. The next step required him to lift his hips off the bed so I could remove them. It was tempting to remove his underwear as well, but as tempting as it was to start something, I wanted to get him comfortable first.
