by Honor James
“As long as I don’t start smelling like a flower garden, go for it,” he called back. “If I do, there will be some seriously strong words coming out of my mouth. Just warning you now.” She listened to him as he laughed.
“No, no scents.” He knew how she was. She wasn’t a big floral kind of gal. “Silly man.” She rolled her eyes, and she could since he wasn’t in there with her. Once she had the water and jets going, she walked back out to him. “Okay, let’s get you out of the brace and into the bathroom. You going to be okay or should we wait for Bryce?”
“Nope, I’ll be fine. I’ll use the crutches to get in there, then wiggle my sexy butt into the tub.” He grinned at her and pointed down toward his foot. “Can you get the doohickeys down there for me, and I’ll do the ones up here. We’ll meet in the middle then pull the locking pins, and in theory it should pretty much fall off. Some days it does, and others not so much. I swear that there’s some mysterious phenomenon going on with it.”
“How much longer do you need to wear this?” she asked as she began to undo the clips on his brace. She winced as she saw his leg and touched it. “Oh, honey.” She had pure sorrow in her heart as she spoke. “The pain that you have gone through, and are. I’m so sorry.” She wished she had been there for him, damn she wished she had.
“It’s fine,” he said, catching her hands in his. Squeezing, he lifted them to press a kiss to her fingertips. “I have to wear the brace for another couple of months. The settings will change along the way as I’m able to put some weight on the leg, and actually start using it. For now it has to be bent at the angle it is so I can use the crutches without dragging my toes around. ‘Cause I need more issues,” he said with a laugh.
“Yeah, not a good thing at all.” She helped him out of the brace fully and ran her hand over his skin. “I have some lotions that would be good for this as well. I have to use them every night or my burn scars get very hard and hurt, a lot.” She was covered in scars and didn’t know how that would go over with her protector, Keagan.
Pushing himself to the edge of the bed, he grabbed up his crutches and leaned them against the edge. “Not a bad idea, actually, though I do need to be careful. I have to wrap the leg up each night to protect the new skin and scars, so as long as your stuff doesn’t say that it needs to be left uncovered, or loosely covered, I’m in.”
“Nope, I had to have wraps at night for the longest time as well. It should be good for you. Might help with a bit of the surface pain as well. If it’s anything like mine the skin hurts as well.” She moved to his side so that if he fell, he would fall on her. “All right, bath is ready. Lights are low and the jets are running. Let’s get in the tub, shall we?”
“Jets are set low, too, right?” he asked. Taking up the crutches, he got to his feet easily, balancing himself well enough. Tucking the crutches under his arms, he began to move toward the bathroom. “Oh, this is nice,” he said as he went in. “Pretty damn fancy,” he commented with a grin in her direction.
“Thanks. I knew what I wanted when I bought this place. I had it totally gutted. I used the commission I made from my first couple of sales to buy it and have it redone.” She had been pregnant at the time and they had gotten it ready for her before the accident. “Now it’s just home.” It had a sorrow hanging over the home before, now she was feeling that sorrow lift. “It’s better now, though,” she said and once he was in the tub, stripped quickly and got into the tub before he could really look at her. She sat with his bad leg over hers and his good leg under her other leg. She began to rub his lower leg gently but firm enough that it didn’t tickle.
“Damn, that feels good,” he said quietly. He rubbed a finger up and down her arm lightly. “You want to talk to me, or are you going to keep hiding behind that hair of yours?” he asked, his finger rubbing higher on her arm.
“I’m not sure what you want to talk about.” She moved her hair and allowed him to see all of her. She didn’t like it, but he deserved to be able to see her. “I know I look a mess, but I’m okay. It took a long time to get here, but I’m here now.” She had scars that ran up her arms from where she tried to slice her veins open, and succeeded but sadly was found before she could give in to death. Something she was now profoundly grateful for. “I was weak,” she admitted quietly. “After I learned I lost them I hadn’t wanted to go on.” She touched the scars on her arms. “No cross cuts for me. I had truly wanted to leave this life but there was always someone there, or something that kept me here.” She looked at him and smiled a small smile. “I’m glad now, though.” Her smile increased. “Now I get a second chance at love. That’s more important than the grief at the time, right?”
He shifted around, using the buoyancy of the water to his advantage. Keagan cupped her face gently, rubbing his thumbs over her cheeks before letting his hands slide down her throat and then over her shoulders. His fingers ghosted down her arms to capture her hands. Lifting her right one, he leaned in, his gaze locked with hers, and brushed a kiss to her inner wrist. He did the same with her left and even nipped lightly. “You are beautiful to me, Sadie. You always have been, you always will be,” he said quietly. “I’m not a shallow man, or at least I try not to be, sweetheart. Looks don’t last forever. Life or time will always ravage us.”
“That’s why it’s so easy to let you in, both of you, all over again. It hurts that we lost so much, but we live for the here and now from this moment on. Right?” She shivered when he had kissed her wrists and when he nipped, she melted. Moving in closer to him, she touched his chest lightly, running her fingers over his scars and tattoos, and leaned in. She said more without speaking than she ever could by speaking. Her mouth moved across his collarbone and to his neck, nipping ever so lightly as she did so. She had shifted so that she was practically in his lap now, face to face with him once more and loving the feeling of his body against hers. She shivered with the feel of his cock pressing hard against her bare pussy and nipped his lower jaw once again. To her this man was part of her soul that had been missing for far too long. “Is it bad that I never once stopped loving you?” Her words were given as she whispered kisses along his shoulder, her fingers in his hair and holding him close to her body.
“Not in the least,” he said on a low moan. He jolted and grabbed her hips. “Weight off my leg, love,” he told her in a tight voice. “I can’t handle any pressure on it, Sadie. I hate to stop you, or put a crimp in your plans, but stay over on my right leg. We’ll both be much happier if you do.”
“Sorry.” She shifted so that she was no longer on his left leg and leaned in. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.” She would never hurt him, she hoped he understood that. “I hate that you are hurting so badly. Is there anything at all that I can do to help you?”
“You could kiss me again,” he suggested with a smile. “Keep your weight off my left leg, and we’ll be fine. You’re still a slight little thing, but even that’s too much for me currently. So give me some loving, sweetheart.”
“Oh, I’m all for kissing you again and again.” She moved in closer to him and brushed her lips over his and nuzzled him slightly. “Especially since it’s been so long since I’ve kissed you.” God, she loved this man, wanted every moment with him she could get.
“Thank God,” he muttered. Catching her lips with his, he kissed her back, teasing her tongue gently. Keagan let out a low growl that seemed to vibrate through her entire being when he pulled her in closer and helped her keep her balance all at the same time.
She was whimpering, rubbing against his erection and then reaching between them and taking him into her hand. “I need you.” She wanted to feel Keagan completing her and had missed him so badly all of these years. “Please tell me you need me as much as I need you?” She knew he did, she could feel how much he wanted and needed her and loved it.
“You know I do, Sadie. Hell, woman, you’re the only one I’ve dreamed of having in my bed again. But we can’t,” he told her in a pained voice.
This time she knew it wasn’t from his leg, though. “At least not with me sitting up, and even lying down it’s going to be a tough one.”
“Goodness, very true.” She rubbed her hand up and down his cock. “Then let me at least relieve you of the pressure and ache that you have right now? Let me help you to come? I want to feel every part of your release, please?”
“Turn the jets off,” he told her quietly. “Then you can do whatever you want to, Sadie. But you will very definitely not get me out of this tub without a lot of help if we do it in here. Personally, I think we should move to the bed, sweetheart.”
She turned the jets off and grinned at him. “The bed is good. Are you sure that you want to do this?” She wanted to. God, she wanted this man, she wanted him more than she wanted her next damn breath and that was the god’s honest truth. “Okay, I will help you out and into bed then after I’ve dried you off.”
“I can haul myself up, but I’ll need assistance swinging my leg over to the floor. I’m feeling very relaxed in some ways, a little tense in others. It’s an odd combo, actually.” He grinned at her. “So hop out, and I’ll get my ass up onto the edge.”
That had her grinning. “Well, I hope to help with your stiffness in just a bit.” He hadn’t said stiff, but that’s how she was viewing it and that’s all that mattered. She got out of the tub and quickly got dried off. Once she was dry, she grabbed a big towel to dry him with as well and helped him to get up and sitting on the tub. “Stay there,” she commanded him as she began to dry him.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said with a laugh. He watched her as she dried him off, doing whatever she said, when she said it. Finally he got himself up on the crutches and she dried the last of his backside off. When she was finished, he made his way slowly to the bedroom and her bed.
She pulled the bedding back for him and shot him a worried look. “Maybe we shouldn’t do anything. Maybe I should just let you get some rest. Bryce should be back soon with your pain pills, too, so that should help, right?”
Keagan gave her a glare. “Babe, the only pain I’m feeling currently is higher than my leg. I’m only going slow because I can’t afford to bang it around, and without the brace I have no control over how it hangs there. So either you deal with my ache, or I’ll take matters into my own hands.”
“Mercy.” She sat back on her heels and looked at him. “Should we put your brace back on so that you don’t accidently hurt yourself while I’m helping you to take matters into hand with your aches?” She licked her lips and her eyes drifted down to the part of his body that was standing to attention, the thick shaft raised against his hips and touching his belly. “Goodness I’ve missed you, all of you.” Not just his cock but every single part of him. His laugh, his smile, and even the pranks he would pull on her. She missed him, period.
“No, I don’t wear it at night,” he said. “Harker will bring the stocking I have to slip on, and then I stick it up on some pillows and sleep on my back as I drool. I hate sleeping on my back,” he muttered. She knew that. Keagan was a stomach sleeper, and Bryce was a back sleeper.
That had her grinning. “I loved sleeping between the two of you.” It was the only time that the men would sleep on their sides, mostly because they wanted to keep her close. “Maybe you will be able to sleep on your side? You already know that I don’t move a muscle once I fall asleep.” She was strange like that. Once she was asleep she didn’t move.
“Unfortunately, I can’t. I tried, oh, believe me I tried,” he said with a pout. “But the pressure of lying one way, or the other wakes me up, and I end up settling on my back. We will need extra pillows though, sweetheart. I use about four for my leg, and I’ll have to be on this side of the bed. That way when the blankets irritate the living shit out of me around one or two in the morning I can wiggle them off, and not freeze the rest of myself.”
“Damn, I’m sorry, honey.” She nodded and looked to the closet. “I have a shit-ton of pillows so I’m not worried about it,” she assured him. “And you know I sleep in the middle of the bed, so you can take wherever you want.” She was thankful that she had a massive bed, one thing she had insisted on when she moved to her new home.
“Well, this edge will do me just fine. Help me swing the dead weight up here, would you, love?” He shot her a grin and wiggled his eyebrows. “And I didn’t even wait for Harker to be in the room to say it this time, I’ll have you note for the record.”
That had her smirking. “You are awesome. Just so you know, I think you are spectacular.” She helped him get into the bed and then asked, “When do you go back to the doctor for your leg? What’s your recovery time looking like?” Sadie was amazed. She didn’t have the least bit of self-consciousness around him. Typically she would be hiding herself, but right now she couldn’t hide from him. At all.
“Mm, the next appointment is I think two weeks from now. I’d have to check my calendar to be sure, but that sounds about right. Given how the legs looking, he’ll likely want to stick me in physio in about another two months. They figured a year, to be safe, on the full recovery. I was warned that I’d likely have some odd numbness here and there, occasional weakness, and a few other fun things as I get up there in the years. But I figure I’ll get back in shape, rebuild the muscle, and do what I do best to look as pretty as I do.”
“As long as you are happy with how you look. You know as well as I do that you are what matters, not your looks. Just like you told me, it’s you that I need, not the looks that will change. As long as you are able to walk without pain. This matters to me, babe.”
“Which is my goal, Sadie.” Reaching out, he tugged her up next to his right side and wrapped an arm around her. “Once I regain the full use, I’ll have to do quite a bit of time in the gym to get the leg back where it should be. Then, when it’s where it should be, I’ll have to keep working it so it doesn’t weaken. Unfortunately it would lose that muscle strength faster than my right leg. The fact it’s also not my dominant side is another strike against it. But I’ll get there, and have the sexiest little cheerleader to give me encouragement.”
“Which takes time. I was there.” She did, however, blush at his cheerleader comment and leaned in to kiss him. “I will always be there at your side to cheer you on. No matter what I’m always going to be on your side. Promise.”
Smiling at her, he caught her chin, and pulled her in close for another kiss. Letting her go, he lay back to give her, then his cock, a pointed look. “I’d rather have this all under control before Harker gets back, sweetheart. Not meaning to put any pressure on, but we are under a little bit of a time crunch here.”
“True.” She shifted and took him into her hand again. “Although why do we have to finish before Bryce gets home?” she asked and leaned down, putting her mouth on his cock and moaning at the first taste of him in far too many years. She began to lick and tease him because she couldn’t do anything but just that in that moment. She needed to give him pleasure because it gave her pleasure as well.
“Holy hell,” he moaned out. “Because uh, shit, what was the question?” he asked. Letting out another moan, he slid a hand into her hair, pushing it back from her face. “Damn, you are gorgeous, Sadie Green. For the record, I’m never letting you go again, no matter what I have to do.”
She looked up at him, moving up and down on his cock as she did so. She didn’t release him but smiled around his cock. She moved like that for several minutes and then pulled her mouth from him, her hand stroking him. Breathlessly, she spoke. “I don’t want you to ever give me up because I’m damn sure never giving you up. I want forever, Keagan. You and Bryce promised me that before and I need it.” Once more she went back to working his cock in her mouth, deep throating him and moaning or humming as she did so.
“Jesus, Sadie!” His free hand was practically clawing at her sheets as he rocked into her mouth. “Fucking hell, babe, I’m coming already,” he warned her. The hand in her hair tightened, and a glance to his face showed he was tr
ying to fight the orgasm.
She wouldn’t let him fight it. She wanted it, demanded it with her mouth and hands. She rocked harder on him, her hands squeezing his cock a bit more and humming when he tightened his hands in her hair. She opened more and took him deeper, letting him know he needed to come. Now. She wanted to taste him again, needed to imprint every single part of him onto her body once more.
A garbled sound escaped his mouth as he tensed under her. A moment later his semen began to jet down her throat as he let out a moan. He loosened his hold on her hair until his hand slid free and flopped onto the bed at his side.
Sadie licked him clean, loving the taste of him, the salty and slightly spicy taste that was all Keagan alone. She moved so that she could lie on his good side and curled up against him. Her eyes were closed and a smile on her face with her head on his shoulder, happiness all but bursting out of her. “I’ve missed that so much.” It was only right he be the first head she gave when they walked back into her life because he was the first one to make her orgasm so many years earlier.
He let out an indecipherable sound before pressing a kiss to her hair. His chest was rising and falling rapidly. Keagan took a deep breath, letting it out slowly, and finally wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “I missed you,” he whispered, his voice a little gruff sounding. “I missed being able to hold you, kiss you, and snuggle with you. The snuggling was the worst to get over.”
She felt herself tearing up and nodded. “I agree,” she whispered, sniffing as she did so. “God, I’ve missed everything with you.” She gave him another hug and pulled back. “I need to get my lotions so that I can rub it in before I start to ache. I will put some on your leg as well if you want me to?”
“Sounds good to me,” he said softly. Brushing his finger to her cheek, he smiled. “Smile for me, sweetheart. We’re not going to dwell on regrets, or the past, we’re going to start looking forward to whatever the future might bring for us all. So give me one of your gorgeous smiles, and then strut your naked self off to get your goop, or whatever it is.”