The kiss is deep. His fingers slide into my hair and grip. The pull sends a current down my neck and across my shoulders and into my chest. My hands go to his narrow waist that my hands fit around like they were made for it, and I pull him closer.
He swings one leg over and settles onto my lap. Knees on either side of my thighs, his weight on me, his face above mine. But this time there’s a bed behind my back instead of a wheelchair.
“Shirt,” he says against my mouth.
I grab the hem of my shirt and pull it over my head. He’s already shirtless, the chain swinging against his bare skin. Hedrops my shirt off the side of the bed and his hands are on me immediately. Palms flat against my chest, sliding up to my shoulders. His fingers trace the curve of muscle and his touch leaves a trail of heat.
I pull him in. Chest to chest. Feeling the heat of him pouring into me, the lean planes of his body pressed against mine. My arms lock around his back and his arms go around my neck. We hold each other and breathe the same air.
“I want to see you tonight,” he whispers against my neck. “All of you. Will you let me this time?”
My stomach clenches. This is the door I closed at rehab. The one I told him I wasn’t ready to open. The one that’s been standing between us for weeks, locked by my own hands.
Benji pulls back enough to look at me. His face is flushed, his lips swollen from my mouth, and he’s asking.
“Yes,” I say. “You can see me.”
He moves off my lap. His hands go to the waistband of my shorts and he pauses there, his fingers resting on the elastic, looking at me one more time. I nod. He slides them down, lifting the fabric over my hips and guiding them down my legs. His hands doing the work my legs can’t do. The shorts come off, the boxers follow, and I’m naked on the bed in front of him.
My legs are much thinner than they were. I hate how they look now with the muscle loss from weeks in a bed and a wheelchair. My thighs were thick and powerful from years under a squat bar. They’re smaller now. The quads are softer. The calves have lost definition.
Benji doesn’t rush. He puts his hand on my left thigh. Palm flat. The spot where I first felt his touch on my leg, and his fingers tremble against my skin.
“Can you feel that?” he asks, glancing up at me.
“Yes.”
Pressure and the weight of his hand on the muscle. It’s muted, like feeling through a layer of heavy cloth, but it’s there.
He slides his hand higher. The inside of my thigh. His fingers press and the sensation sharpens, not by much, but enough.
“There,” I say. “I feel that.”
“More than before?”
“Clearer. Like the volume’s been turned up.”
He blinks twice, fast, and looks away for a second. When he looks back his eyes are wet and he’s smiling, but the smile is barely holding together.
“Sorry,” he says. “I told myself I wasn’t going to cry during this.”
“It’s okay, you can cry.”
“I don’t want to cry. I want to be sexy and desirable. I had a whole plan, Mickey. I was going to be smooth.”
“You’ve never been smooth a day in your life.”
“That’s accurate and you’re ruining my moment.” He presses his hand flat against my thigh and holds it there, hisfingers spread wide. He moves to the right thigh. Outer edge, the spot that was faintest. His palm presses flat and I close my eyes and focus.There.Fainter than the left side but present. A pulse where there used to be nothing.
“Yes,” I say. “Right there.”
He presses his forehead against my thigh for a second, just resting, his hand still on my skin. I put my hand in his hair and hold him there. He lifts his head and keeps touching me. His palms move from thigh to knee to calf and at the calves the sensation thins and fades. Below the knee is still silent. But above it, on the thighs, nerves are firing under his palms.
“Tell me where,” he says. “Talk to me. I want to know everywhere you can feel.”
“Inside of the left thigh. Strongest there. Outside of the right, it’s fainter but it’s there. Higher is better. Closer to the hip the signal gets stronger.”
“Here?” He presses the crease where thigh meets hip.
