by Lissa Kasey
He insisted on returning to our normal routine. We ate together. I called my nutritionist and got the first available appointment, which wasn’t until late next week. But he smiled and nodded like just setting it up was a victory. I felt like I’d disappointed him by backsliding, but he didn’t lecture me, just held my hand and gave me lots of warm smiles.
The first headache since finding Kade began while we were at lunch. We’d stopped for Thai food per Kade’s request. I tried to ignore the growing throb as best I could, but on the way home my head began to pound. Once again my vision narrowed. We stopped at a light, and I rubbed my forehead.
“Baby?” Kade asked.
“I’m fine. Just a headache.” I could feel his eyes on me. Thankfully we were almost home. I pulled into the garage, turned off the SUV, and closed the garage door, which was an instant relief as the darkness rolled over us.
It took me a minute to get out. Kade was already out and balanced on double crutches. He moved efficiently with them, but they made me sad because he couldn’t hold my hand. He did wait for me by the door to the house. I opened it for him and stepped inside, to be greeted by Newt’s chirping meows of hello, hammering from upstairs, and too much light. I flinched.
The house smelled like cookies. Warm chocolatey goodness that almost made up for the pounding from the second floor that rattled through my throbbing brain. Jacob moved around the kitchen, hips swaying to the faint buzz of a radio, looking like sex on two legs while he unloaded a cookie sheet full of fresh golden-brown disks onto a cooling rack. He glanced my way, paused and looked back up, expression turning from peaceful contentment to worry.
“It smells amazing in here,” Kade remarked.
Jacob pointed to a tin full of cookies, which sat on the kitchen table. “Feel free to indulge.” He picked up his bag off the chair and dug for something. A moment later he pulled out the soundproof headphones he’d been given, and put them over my ears. The relief was instant. Now if only the whole house was dark.
I sighed and sank into one of the chairs at the table. Newt jumped into my lap and curled up. I couldn’t hear him, but I could feel his purr under my fingers in a slight vibration.
Kade sat, leaving his crutches leaning against the wall a few inches away. He picked up a cookie and broke it in half, expression delighted over the gooey chocolate inside. I couldn’t hear them as they talked, and didn’t really have enough energy to try to read their lips. The headache was growing, even without the noise of the house around me. I rubbed my temple and wondered if I could sneak away to rest in darkness, or if Kade needed me.
I hadn’t realized I’d set my head down on the table and closed my eyes, falling into a half doze until Jacob shook me awake. He pointed toward the stairs. I glanced Kade’s way. He looked worried, but I waved away his concern and said, probably too loudly, “I’m going to go nap off this headache.”
I kept the headphones on as I made my way upstairs, dislodging Newt as I went. All the curtains in my room were still shut tightly, leaving the bedroom in blessed darkness. I kicked off my shoes, stripped out of everything except my undies, then crawled into bed.
The little bit of sleep I got wasn’t restful, though the headache did ease. I woke to someone stroking my hair. The few hints of light around the curtains were gone, so I knew it must be late. Kade lay wrapped around me, arm tucked tightly over my waist, pulling me into him. My ass nestled against his groin, and his chest was pressed against my back. He was hard but didn’t grind himself against me. I slipped off the headphones and set them on the side table, expecting more pounding, but the house was silent.
“The guys are done for the day,” Kade whispered. He expertly massaged my scalp with his fingers. “How are you feeling?”
“Okay, mostly.” The headache still lingered, though it was more a mild presence than the throbbing pulse it usually was. “Sorry.”
“Jacob filled me in. Your doctor says the headaches should fade over time?”
I shrugged. He had said it would take a few months, only the headaches seemed to be getting worse, not better. “It’s okay.” Nothing really compared to him being kidnapped by his family, drugged, and losing a leg.
He ran his fingers over my face, maybe trying to see me in the dark. I turned in his arms so he could hold me and I could kiss him. It was a gentle kiss that quickly turned hungry. He smelled and tasted amazing, like his shave lotion, toothpaste, and just a hint of chocolate. Kade was so warm and alive against me. My heart ached. I’d missed him, needed him, but feared so much. He flipped me onto my back, rolling on top of me to press his cock against mine. I groaned. It had been too long.
Kade broke free of our kiss to come up for air, both of us breathing heavily. I couldn’t stop from moving my hips against his. “Is this okay?” he asked. “You don’t have to….”
Have to what? Ravish him? Let him ravish me?
“Am I hurting you?” I wondered. He was careful to keep most of his weight off me, but I would have been okay with the crush of his body to mine.
He heaved a sigh as his hips flexed against mine, providing friction so good I couldn’t help but hiss with need. “Only in a good way.” His mouth recaptured mine, and our tongues dueled again. God how I’d missed the taste of him.
I didn’t realize I was crying until he pulled away from my lips to kiss the tears from my cheeks. “You okay, baby?”
“Happy,” I told him. “So happy to have you back.”
His chuckle was warm and deep as he pressed his hips against mine. “I’m happy too, in case you can’t tell.”
I snorted a laugh.
He reached between us, pushing my undies down just enough to free my cock, lace below my balls. He was in nothing but a jock, but struggled to push it aside as he balanced precariously above me. I shoved his jock down to touch the hot warmth of him.
“Is this okay?” he asked.
Okay? It was more than okay. He wrapped a hand around the both of us, dropping to his remaining knee and left arm to take most of the weight off me but leave him enough room to stroke us both.
“Holy fuck!” I groaned. How I’d missed his touch and his grip on my flesh.
He sighed deeply as he worked us together. His lips recaptured mine as I tried to be careful touching him for fear of hurting him. He seemed to be trying to keep the remaining part of his right leg from touching me. Did it hurt? I ran a gentle hand down his right flank, over his strongly muscled ass and to the thigh.
He jerked himself away, almost falling off the bed.
“I’m sorry,” I cried as I grabbed for him. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. Oh my God, I’m so sorry.”
He sat back on the bed, and I could only vaguely see his hands up in front of him to ward me off. He was breathing hard, ragged, and I didn’t know what to do. “Kade?”
When he didn’t answer, I reached for the light switch to the bedside lamp.
“Don’t.” His single request froze me in place. “Please don’t.”
“Kade?” His name left my lips in almost a whine. I didn’t know what to do. I hadn’t wanted to hurt him. “I’m sorry.”
“You have nothing to be sorry for,” he said quietly.
“But I hurt you.”
“No.”
“My touch didn’t hurt?” I was confused.
“It burned.”
“What? Should I call a doctor?” I was pretty sure that wasn’t normal for a lost limb.
“I wasn’t expecting it. That’s all. Your touch. There.”
But why wouldn’t I touch him there? I’d touched his leg many times before he’d lost it, even slept stretched across his thighs on more than one occasion. I’d often massaged that sore thigh on days when it ached so bad he’d flinch when he moved. Why would touching it now be different? “I don’t understand,” I finally admitted.
“I’m deformed.”
It took a heartbeat or two for the words to sink in. “What?”
“My leg is gone. It’s nothing but a s
tump. It should freak you out. You shouldn’t want to touch it. I don’t want to touch it.”
Now I did turn the lamp on. His face was streaked with tears, fists clenched in his lap, and his erection gone. He sat half hunched forward, balanced on his left leg and arm, right arm covering where I knew his stump to be. He turned his face away like he was trying to hide his tears.
“Kade… I love every part of you.”
He sucked in a painful-sounding breath and bowed so far forward his forehead touched the blanket. It wasn’t like him to be unsure, but losing a limb was a huge change for anyone to handle.
“Tell me how to help you,” I said.
After a long minute of silence, he said, “I don’t know.”
“Does it disgust you if I touch you? If I touch your right leg? Or do you just fear it disgusts me?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted again, voice shaky. “I used to sometimes wish they’d taken it after the bomb. I knew there was still shrapnel in it, could feel it most of the time, but the pieces were so small they were impossible to remove. They were like little slivers always digging into me. Sometimes it hurt so much…. Those days when it locked up and throbbed like someone had wrapped barbed wire around my bones, a moment of peace would have been divine. Careful what you wish for, right?”
“But does it hurt now?” I swallowed hard as I’d never heard him explain his pain that way. Always it had been an ache or just an irritation. Nothing he couldn’t handle, or so he always assured me. “Does it still feel like barbed wire around your bones?”
“No.”
“Then….” I didn’t really know what to say because I wasn’t sure what exactly he needed. Affirmation maybe? He needed his self-confidence back, but I couldn’t give that to him, he’d have to find that himself. For my part all I could do was prove that it didn’t matter to me whether he had one good leg or twelve. “Will you lay down and let me touch you?”
He visibly flinched.
“Yes, all of you.” I had a thought, but if he wasn’t ready I wouldn’t push.
“And if you don’t like something?”
“Kade, there is nothing about you I don’t like.”
He was silent another minute. “It really doesn’t disgust you?”
“No.” It didn’t. In fact, knowing he had less pain because the leg was gone actually made me feel better. If there was one thing I hated, it was seeing Kade hurt. “Can I touch you?”
He sucked in another deep breath but finally pushed himself up and made his way to the head of the bed, where he lay down on his back and closed his eyes. I almost laughed at his resigned detachment. He was acting like a man sent to the gallows, while I planned to bring him pleasure.
I tugged his jock off completely, then stripped out of my undies, throwing them over the side of the bed. There was no missing the hitch in his voice as I slid up beside him and straddled his hips, letting my balls rest against his cock. Neither of us was hard, but that would change. It never took me more than a few seconds in his arms to ignite the fiery need to have him. I leaned forward and kissed him, gave him my mouth and took his in return, sliding my tongue in deep to savor him. His beard was soft against my cheeks, a familiar and welcome glide of friction. I knew he conditioned his beard with something to keep it soft enough to avoid whisker burn on my skin, but had no idea what. It was the taste of home, rightness, that made my cock harden with just his lips on mine.
When I broke the kiss, I cupped his head and stared into his gorgeous brown eyes. “I love you.”
He swallowed hard enough to hear. “I love you too, baby.”
“Trust me?” I asked.
“Always.”
I nodded. Most of the time that was true. I think he really didn’t trust himself. If given a chance, I’d punch his father in the face for causing Kade one moment of doubt. I leaned over him and rubbed my cheek against his, then nibbled my way down his throat and to his chest. His skin tasted the same, salty, warm, and like Kade. Scars covered one side of his chest, leaving it mostly bare of hair. The few hairs he did have were golden and fine. I sucked one of his nipples into my mouth, laving the flesh that puckered under my tongue with warm kisses. “Did you ever finish the design for your next tattoo?”
He groaned when I switched to torture his other nipple into a hard nub. This one was slightly scarred at the edge but still sensitive. In the beginning he’d been worried about his scars. Said he wasn’t beautiful. But that was a lie. Even scarred, broken, and sewn back together, he was breathtaking.
“Was almost finished with the back idea before….” He paused, leaving the fact that he’d been kidnapped unsaid. “Sean had sent me some design ideas I liked.” He stared over the top of my head now, instead of at me or at his body. His cock was slowly starting to fill, so his body liked what I was doing even if his mind was still in panicked overdrive.
“And what about for here?” I dropped tiny kisses down his chest, tracing the scars and muscles with my fingers and lips until I reached his navel and those amazing hip bones, which were underpadded, in my opinion. I needed to feed him up some.
“I have an idea for a chest one. Maybe something around the side. But back first.”
I knew what was going on his back. He’d hinted at it but never given me specifics. His Alice. So in some form it would be me, or a representation of me. I hoped he didn’t regret it. He’d never volunteered to put my name on him, not like he had Nathan’s. But if the design on his back was at all as elaborate as the Cheshire cat on his arm, it wouldn’t matter that my name wasn’t on it. It would be clear to anyone who it was.
“Do you feel big or small right now?” I asked, squeezing his cock gently.
“Small in the head, gigantic elsewhere.”
I grinned at him. I knew what he meant by gigantic elsewhere. His need was huge, and he wanted to unleash it on me, but his fear and self-deprecation made it hard for him to let go. “You’re gigantic to me all the time.”
I trailed down far enough for his cock to nudge my cheek. He was fully erect. Kade clenched his jaw and his fists. Was he in danger of coming already from so little contact? I didn’t think he was angry or pained since he stood so firmly at attention.
I smiled at him, pausing in my assault until he met my eyes, then rubbed my lips against the head of his dick. He let out a long groan.
“Oh God, Ollie.”
“You miss me?” I teased him with a wicked grin. I lapped at his tip, then traced the long vein underneath with my tongue. Kade wasn’t huge, more slightly above average, but he was thick. I loved sucking him down until my nose was buried in his pubes, his girth stretching me wide, and the head of his dick nudging the back of my throat. But this wasn’t just about getting him off. This was about showing him that he was exactly what I wanted.
“Oh God….”
His salty precome flavored my tongue, and his hips hitched a little, like he was fighting the urge to thrust into my mouth. I trailed my fingers over his damaged thigh, tracing the scars, testing for sensitivity, watching his eyes for signs of pain, but sucking hard on him, so in his uncertainty, he wouldn’t lose his erection again. The remaining part of his right thigh was much thinner than his left, but that had been that way before he’d lost the leg. A loss of muscle tone due to the damage to his hip and knee. He’d always favored that leg. I wondered if he’d be able to bulk that one up now that the slivers of shrapnel were gone.
The inside of each of his thighs where his leg met his hip was always sensitive and almost ticklish. I traced the distance, fingertips ever so light on his skin, an almost ghostlike caress. Circles of touches from the bend of his inner thigh to his balls, which were pulled up tight against him, and down to the scars that now ended his right leg, had him clenching and gasping as if he wasn’t sure he was feeling pleasure or pain. Since his cock leaked more precome, I knew he had to be enjoying it. His little sounds and the way he clutched the sheets with his fists to keep from moving told me we were on the right path.
“You’re killing me, Ollie,” Kade grumbled, his eyes half-lidded as he stared down at me. “Watching you suck me is like a real-life porno.”
I hummed around his length and he lost control of his hips, thrusting into my mouth. It was a wild ride of me trying to suck him hard while he slid between my lips fast, covered in my spit and dripping his salty taste. It wasn’t until I tickled the rim of his hole with my fingers that he came completely unglued. He came with a fierce cry, shooting his long release down my throat. I struggled to swallow because it was so much, like it’d been so long his body was releasing six weeks’ worth of stored need.
By the time his hips stopped thrusting and his spill eased, his come dripped from my lips, spilling over my chin and his cock, and he panted like he’d just run a marathon. I pulled off him and licked the edges of my lips. The entire time I massaged his scarred thigh, tickling his skin and soothing the muscles. “Okay?”
He sucked in air. “Ask me again in a minute,” he grumbled somewhat incoherently.
I slid up his body to cup his face, bathing it in kisses. My cock was still hard, throbbing, leaking, but this was about him, not me. “I love you so much, Kade.”
He welcomed my kiss. Capturing my mouth, he lapped at the taste of himself on my lips and breathed in my breath. “I love you, baby. More than anything.”
Whole or not whole, physical perfection or mental ruin, he was mine, and I would be with him no matter what the world threw at us. He reached for my cock, his strong hand wrapping around me in a warm, snug embrace.
“Can I bring you now?” he asked. “Are you done torturing me?”
“Never,” I teased, moving my hips to increase the friction of his hand on me.
“Can I taste you?” he whispered, almost reverently. “It’s been so long… I feel like I have only a vague memory of the flavor of you on my tongue. I dreamt of swallowing you down, flipping you over, and crawling into your heat….”