“Mickey… your mouth,” I moan. “Jesus Christ, your mouth feels so fucking good.”
His eyes stay locked on mine as he takes me deeper, sucking harder, tongue doing something wicked at the tip on every upstroke that sends sparks shooting up my spine. The wet, obscene sounds of his mouth and hand working together fill the small bathroom.
The pressure builds fast and intense. My stomach tightens, thighs trembling.
“I’m going to come,” I warn, voice breaking. “Pull off. Mickey, I’m—”
He doesn’t pull away. Instead, he takes me deeper. The orgasm crashes through me so hard my vision whites out. My back arches and a raw, shattered sound tears from my throat as I pulse hard into his mouth. His mouth stays on me through every shudder until I’m completely spent. Then he eases off carefully. He presses one last kiss to the inside of my thigh and rests his forehead against my leg.
His hand gentles on my hip. His thumb traces a circle against the bone. “Still good?” he asks against my skin. Barely a whisper.
“Yes, better than good,” I manage. “So good.”
My hands move from his hair to his face. I cup his jaw and tilt his head up until he’s looking at me. His mouth is flushed, his chest heaving.
I lean down and kiss him. I taste myself on his mouth. I kiss him deeper, my thumbs on his cheekbones, and the kiss says everything that words can’t reach. He pulls back just enough to press his forehead against mine and we both just breathe.
I stay on the counter for another minute. Climbing down will end this moment and I’m not ready. His hands rest on my thighs, and I run my fingers through his hair.
Then my stomach growls loudly, breaking the moment.
Mickey looks up at me and grins. “Are you hungry?” he asks, amused.
“Starving. You made me forget about food. I brought Italian subs and they’re getting soggy while I’m naked on a bathroom counter. This is my life now. And I’m absolutely not complaining.”
I hop off the counter and pull my jeans up. My legs are shaking. Not from the position. From everything. I find my shirt on the floor behind the toilet, which is not where I expected my dignity to end up, but here we are. His shirt is on the towel bar. I toss it to him and he pulls it over his head in one motion while I’m still trying to get mine turned right-side out.
I check my face in the mirror. Disaster. My lips are swollen, my face is flushed, my hair is wrecked from his hands. He flips the armrests back down, releases the brakes, and wheels toward the door.
We go back in the room. Everything is the same except us.
I unpack the subs. Italian with everything, the vinegar soaking through the paper. Mickey bites into his and nods, the one I always wait for. For a few minutes, we just eat. The silence between bites isn’t awkward. It’s full. The silence of two people who just made a promise in a locked room and are now honoring it by sitting across from each other eating sandwiches like civilized adults.
After we eat, I reach for the cream and take his right hand without asking. His hands first. Then I pull his shirt off again. He lets me. His chest, his shoulders, the knots at the base of his skull. Then I go to the floor. Cross-legged, the way I always sit for the feet. I unlace his sneakers, peel the socks down, and wrap my hands around his right foot.
He watches as I finish the feet. Both calves. The long slow strokes from ankle to knee. And then I keep going, the way I did last time, above the knee, onto his left thigh, my palm flat against the quad. His hand comes down and covers mine. Presses it harder against his leg.
I look up at him. His face is different. Not the flushed face from the bathroom. Something careful and fragile and trembling at the edges.
“You know what I’ve been doing at night?” he murmurs. “I lie in that bed and replay every place your hands have touched me. Your fingers on my wrist. Your thumbs on my neck. And my body is starting to respond.”
My stomach flips. “Respond how?”
“Sensation. Below the waist. Not every time. But when I think about you, when I replay the things we do in this room, there’s something happening. It’s not what it used to be. But a signal is getting through.”
I pull back and look at him. “Are you telling me your body responds when you think about me?”
“It’s trying to. Not all the way. Not even close to what it was. But something is there that wasn’t there before. And it started with your hands on my skin.”
“You held back the biggest news of your recovery from me because you wanted to be sure?”
“Yes.”
“That’s the most Mickey Weaver thing I’ve ever heard, and I’m both mad and in love with it at the same time.”
The word slips out. Not the big one, not the full sentence, but the shadow of it. I said in love with it and the “it” is doing the heavy lifting but we both know what’s underneath. His eyes catch on it.
He reaches for my hand. Both of his around one of mine. He lifts it and presses his lips against my fingers. The knuckle kiss that’s all ours.
