by Jayne Rylon
“I can understand people being curious. You’re different, sure. So am I, though my issues are invisible until I blank out in the middle of a grocery store aisle or something equally humiliating. That doesn’t make you worse or anything.” Ellie stared at him. “I realize I didn’t know you before the accident. But, even after, when you were far more impaired than you are now—clinging to the hope you were going to go back to your old life on that mangled foot—you were never this insecure.”
Lucas reached behind him and grabbed the knot at the back of his neck. He squeezed it as he considered how to explain. “I guess I’ve always been physically superior. I don’t mean that in a douchey kind of way, but it’s the truth. I didn’t think much about running or any of the demanding things I had to do to excel in my training. Now, even the simplest things take a ridiculous amount of effort. Sometimes—despite having a great sense of balance, improving my core strength and practicing maneuvering with this damn thing on—I still fall on my fucking face.”
“Everyone does. You get back up.”
Ellie scooted closer to his right, so he edged to his left. If they kept this up, soon they’d cause a whirlpool in the tub from spinning around its perimeter in an eternal game of duck-duck-goose.
“Why do you keep pulling away?”
He knew she was referring to more than their current situation. “You deserve someone better. Someone who can lift you up, not drag you down.”
Ellie closed her eyes for a moment. She drew a deep breath then stared directly at him.
“Are you sure it’s not because you resent me? For my part in making you this way?” Her lower lip wobbled, and her voice had cracked as she asked.
Even in the days and weeks he’d visited her, taught her self-defense or hung out with her at their mutual friends’ houses after she’d been caged, she’d never once cried in front of him. To know that he might cause her to do so now broke his heart. He’d hurt her when a lot of what he’d done in the past year had been to avoid exactly that.
“What?” His spine went ramrod straight. “Is that really what you think?”
“I don’t blame you.” She shrugged. “If it weren’t for me…”
“Then we’d never have cracked the Sex Offender formula in time to create an antidote and stop its spread. We also wouldn’t have had an ironclad case against Morselli without you.” Lucas gaped at her, incredulous. “Don’t you realize how many lives you—and the rest of the team—saved that day? The thought of you in that place…it tears me up. It does. But I’ve sacrificed a lot in my life for the sake of the greater good.
“The number of heroic men and women I’ve known who’ve given their lives to fight evil is more than I can count anymore. Even when normal civilians had no idea of the dangers they were in from unknown threats, they still gave everything they had. To keep it that way. Guys like John. Or my partner, Steve, who died on the floor of that dungeon.”
He should probably shut up, since tears were spilling down her cheeks. But now that he was talking, he couldn’t stop.
“So, no. I don’t think what happened was your fault. Not in the least. And if I had to do it again, knowing everything I know now, I’d do it without a second thought. That stuff was pure evil. No one could understand that better than you. Millions of people would have been victims—either through addiction or by being abused by its users. This was a small price to pay in the grand scheme of things, even if it has a big impact on me personally. Never once have I blamed you for any of it.”
“Then why—?” She couldn’t get anything else out.
That was fine. He understood what she meant. She needed to know why he kept driving a wedge between them—to keep them both safe.
“Because I’m fucked up. And so are you. The potential for disaster is enormous. Would either of us survive the fallout of a bad breakup when we’re both already jacked? Could we really make something work when we’re each concentrating on ourselves so much? It’s better to avoid making things more complicated between us.
“I know you can feel this crazy pull too. I don’t know what to do with that. I never had the luxury of indulging in a real relationship before. I had a hell of a lot of affairs, sure. But never anything serious. It would have been too risky to have someone I cared for floating out there. A giant target. And learning how to do that, how to be a partner…I’m not sure I’m capable when I need to be selfish right now.”
Ellie didn’t utter a sound. When she only gawked at him, he mentally rewound what had spewed from his mouth unfiltered. “Shit. See, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to call you—”
“It’s okay. You’re right. I am fucked up. I jump at the slightest breeze when I’m walking outdoors. I have nightmares pretty much every time I fall asleep. It’s absolutely killing me that your front door is unlocked right now, even though I know it’s a silly thing that wouldn’t keep anyone serious out.”
The raw honesty pouring from her questioning stare had him rooted in place.
“So…what if I admit it makes me feel safer to be near you?”
How could he take that from her after everything she’d suffered through?
If he could make things better for her, shouldn’t he?
Even if it made him less comfortable. Vulnerable.
Because too much more of this and he wouldn’t be able to cast her aside again. Then they’d both be screwed, since everything he said still held true.
“Come here.” He opened his arms to Ellie.
Chapter Seven
When Ellie neared to take him up on his offer, Lucas didn’t hesitate to pull her in tight to his chest. The side of her face rested just below his collarbone. He didn’t even shift when their thighs aligned.
It surprised him that Ellie didn’t recoil when she couldn’t deny his leg stopped short of hers. Knowing it and feeling it were different things. Every time he looked down was still a shock. He supposed he’d had thirty-five years to get used to his foot being there and less than one to rearrange his perception of his body. The difference between his mental picture of himself and reality caught him off guard sometimes.
Not E. She accepted him as he was.
For a while, they sat there, propped against the tub, letting the jets pummel their abused muscles, kneading them into relieved putty.
His fingers wandered through Ellie’s soft curls, picking out leaves or twigs and unsnarling what he could of her platinum mane.
“Wash my hair?” she asked.
So he did. Slowly rubbing the shampoo into her scalp, taking pride in every bit more she relaxed against him. Content, he couldn’t think of a single reason to move once he’d finished rinsing her off. So he didn’t.
Lucas simply enjoyed her companionship.
Something he couldn’t really say he’d ever sought from a woman before. That’s what his brothers-in-arms had been for. Another enormous part of him he’d suddenly lost along with his foot.
“Lucas?” she asked eventually.
“Yeah.”
“Pass me that apple and some water, will you?” She snuggled tighter to him when he shifted.
“I’ll do better than that.” He kissed the top of her head, maybe light enough that she wouldn’t notice, then grabbed the water and handed it to her.
While she twisted the cap off, he took the apple and his knife in one hand. Unable to juggle them, yet unwilling to surrender his hold on her, he tossed the knife to his other hand and flipped it open.
The schwip of the blade extending rang in the bathroom.
Ellie’s nails dug into his ribs. She turned her face into his pecs and slammed her eyes closed. Her lips moved as if she was repeating something to herself in a continual loop. Her breath came in fast, shallow bursts.
Lucas was afraid to move, even to conceal the knife. He didn’t want to accidentally cut her with the extra-sharp blade if she lurche
d away. “You okay, E?”
“Uh-huh.” She filled her lungs so deeply it had to be an intentional technique she used to calm herself. “The guard who was in my section most often used a switchblade at my throat to keep me from fighting when they forced me to swallow Sex Offender. I tried to resist. I hated how it made me feel. The things I did.”
She shuddered hard enough to cause noticeable ripples in the roiling waters of the tub.
It hadn’t taken five minutes before Lucas had failed her and brought some painful memory to the surface. “E, this is exactly what I’m talking about.” His rage at her captors had leaked into his exclamation.
Ellie whimpered before glancing up at him.
“I don’t want to scare you.” His stare ping-ponged from her to the knife in his hand. He was afraid to budge.
“You do not frighten me.” She turned and faced the knife. “My memories do. They’re phantoms I can’t fight.”
Ellie extended her hand and wrapped it around his. She tugged until he followed, slowly. Little by little, she brought the razor-edged blade closer to her. When it got within a few inches of her face, he prevented her from moving it farther.
“Put it against my neck,” she whispered.
“Hell fucking no!”
“Do it.” She pulled again and still he resisted.
“E—”
“Do what I say for once!” she snarled at him. “Give me control. Please. Let me have it back.”
Lucas must have gone temporarily insane. Carefully, monitoring her every twitch, he did as she asked. The bright steel touched her, making her eyes close and her breathing hitch.
When she ensnared his wrist, he nearly cracked and yanked back. But instead of cutting herself, she shouted “No!” and shoved the knife away.
Instantly, he transferred it to his other hand, as far from her as he could get it. And though she tracked his movements, she didn’t seem as terrified.
Ellie looked up at him, smiled wanly, then kissed his cheek. “You have no idea how good it feels to rewrite history like that. I obsessed about it. Daydreamed about how I’d overpower him the next time he threatened to slice my head clean off. I would have used that fucking knife to slice his dick off. Of course, I never was able.”
Could Lucas fully comprehend her logic? No. But he witnessed the transformation coming over her and figured it wasn’t his place to judge. Whatever remedy it took to facilitate her healing, he was willing to administer it.
Shifting, he brought his hands together, his arm still looped around her, pretty much squishing her to him. With a few quick strokes, he sliced the apple into reasonable wedges then washed the blade off with a single splash before tucking it away again.
Relief had Ellie melting into his chest.
Without speaking, Lucas fed her some of the apple, barely resisting the urge to lick her lips when a trickle of juice escaped a particularly crisp bite. She ate from his hand with complete trust and absolute faith that he wouldn’t harm her. It was a beautiful gift.
He took his share before collecting the block of cheese. This time, when he revealed the blade, more subtly this time, she averted her stare for a moment—like someone choosing not to watch the needle go into their skin when having blood drawn—but didn’t lose her mind. Again, he divvied up the food, taking perverse pleasure in the way her lips curled around his fingers as he nourished her.
Lucas realized it was probably sick that caring for her made him feel more like his old self than he had since his accident. Somehow, though, granting her strength increased his own like an echo that kept bouncing between them, benefitting them both.
The more comfortable she became, the more her hands roamed.
From his ribs and chest and abdomen, she moved lower.
Not in an overtly provocative way. More like she was intending to soothe him.
Could she tell how conflicted he was? Simultaneously, he wanted to shove her away and tug her closer. Selfless versus selfish. How fucked up was that?
Particularly when selfish won out.
Lucas allowed her to explore. Her fingers trailed over his thigh then lower, reading the topography of his scars like twisted Braille. The entire time, they stared into each other’s eyes as if to see who would cry uncle first in this game of emotional chicken.
It was likely to be him.
Certainly, it made him defenseless when she touched his stump. No one but doctors had done that. However, her gentle massage felt so motherfucking good that he couldn’t budge or order her to stop.
“E,” he moaned, his eyes closing while his head tipped back to rest against the edge of the tub.
“Too hard?” she asked in a low hum that had him in danger of taking things way too far.
As if they hadn’t ventured there already.
“No. Keep going.” He tried to think of anything except how right it felt to have her with him. Touching him and not screaming in horror. Overwhelming bliss left no room for doubts or worry about the future. All he could do was sit back and enjoy.
When her fingers paused in their swirls, he moaned. Though the sound morphed into something like a growl when he realized why she’d slowed. She had risen to her knees, carefully straddling his thigh so that she could reach his mouth with hers.
Ellie plastered their damp torsos together and kissed him.
For a moment, nothing else in the world mattered except their full-on, skin-to-skin contact.
He opened his mouth, allowing her free rein over his body since she’d already taken something inside him hostage permanently. If she noticed his hard cock occasionally tapping her thigh as it bobbed in the roiling water, she didn’t seem afraid and certainly didn’t retreat.
Some of his fears eased, though they didn’t vanish entirely. If a knife made her flash back to her time spent imprisoned and brutalized, what would having sex do to her?
He wasn’t an expert, but he figured they shouldn’t rush into anything.
If she’d been anyone else, he’d have lifted her into his lap and filled her from below. Imagining the tight clasp of her silky pussy as he plunged deep inside her made him groan between her parted lips, which he now plundered, unable to hold himself back.
Then again, if she’d been any other woman, he never would have let her get so close.
When she finished gliding her mouth over his, she rubbed their noses together and patted his shoulders. He stole a few more pecks before she withdrew.
His eyes opened then, allowing him to peer directly into the bright pools of her eyes. Rich and still, they said so much, allowed him to believe in her as much as she’d trusted him with the knife. Surely, she could cut him as deeply. But she didn’t.
Ellie put only enough space between them as was necessary to return to doing a fantastic job of rubbing his stump. The ache in his knee eased, releasing some of the tension in his remaining calf muscle. When she slid lower, he swallowed hard, waiting for the moment her touch glided over his truncated flesh.
It was weird. When her fingers wandered over the bottom of his stump, which used to be the back of his leg, everything got kind of topsy-turvy. It didn’t matter, though, when she made him feel pleasure from every direction.
Lucas stretched his arms out along the top of the tub, to either side of him, his fingers clamping on the edge. It was the only way he could stay still.
“Am I hurting you?” she asked.
“God, no,” he practically panted.
Gentle caresses from her fingers made him wonder at the way she seemed to worship his body. How could she keep from being repulsed by what he was now?
“What are you…some kind of devotee or something?” He apparently was a little too relaxed if his rogue thought winged from his mouth so freely.
Ellie paused. “What does that mean?”
“Never mind.” He figured the chanc
es she’d let it drop were a hell of a lot lower than the odds she’d beat on the slot machines the night before.
“Tell me.”
Fuck.
“There are people out there with all kinds of kinks,” he started.
“No kidding.” She wrinkled her nose. “I had to hear more than I wanted about my brother’s—and the things he and Lily and Ben did together while they were working to take down the Sex Offender ring from the inside—during the statements we gave to the police. I was too scared to be alone, so he stayed with me and we did ours together. Awkward. If I could do it again, I’d have kicked him out so he didn’t have to know every detail of what they did to me. At least the stuff I could remember.”
How could Lucas have forgotten that? Ryan had gotten sucked into the same sex ring as his sister. Kind of on purpose. To try and get her out. Lucas would bet unwarranted guilt over his own injury hadn’t been the only kind eating Ellie up inside.
“Besides, Lily tells me plenty about her Domme sessions when it doesn’t breach confidentiality.” Ellie shrugged. “I think it’s cool that she provides a safe place for her clients to find what they’re looking for.”
“Well, there are some women…and men…out there who are exclusively attracted to people with disabilities.” He lifted one shoulder. “To each their own. Let’s just say that I’m glad you didn’t flip to the page of my browser that has messages from strangers who cross the line after viewing articles about me online.”
“I watched some videos Jambi and Lacey recommended earlier.” She bit her lower lip. “It did seem like there were a lot of comments that ignored the content and went straight to some perverted stuff that seemed like unwanted advances.”
“If I had a dollar for every time someone asked if they could lick my stump…” He sighed, laughing a little.
“Look, I don’t have anything against mutual fetishes.” She put her fingers on his cheeks, making sure he couldn’t avoid the truth in her eyes. “But that’s definitely not what this is. I care for you. Not because of your leg, or in spite of it. It’s actually one of the least important factors in how I feel about you. So get that crap out of your head. I don’t think you were really serious, but I don’t want you to be so damn shocked that I’m not grossed out or that I don’t pity you either. Do you think so little of me?”