by E M Lindsey
“Wait for me?” Sam said in a low voice, not quite a question, but not quite a demand either.
Niko’s pupils dilated a little, and he licked his lips before nodding. “Not going anywhere.”
Maisy’s routine was simple. He washed her down with a wet cloth and changed her into pajamas, read her one story which put her out halfway through, then tucked her in and closed the door. He waited in the hall for a minute, mostly to make sure that she was really asleep, but also to collect himself because he had never done this with someone who wasn’t his chosen family. Niko had only slept over when Maisy wasn’t there, and he had never, ever brought someone around her who he’d been intimate with.
It was a new step, and it was a little terrifying, but he wanted to be ready for it. He wanted this so badly he could taste it. After a beat, he rolled back from her door, then went into the living room to find Niko had stretched out a little, but otherwise remained in his same spot. He perked up when Sam pushed over, and Niko reached for his hand.
“All good?” he asked.
Sam tangled their fingers together, running his thumb over the top of Niko’s knuckles. “She’s out.”
They locked gazes for a long moment, then Niko let out a small puff of air. “Look, maybe I should take off.”
Sam startled, going a little tense as he frowned at Niko’s words. “Did I do something wrong? If I said something that…”
“No,” Niko said in a hurry. “Just, we both thought taking it slow was a good idea, right?”
Sam swallowed thickly, but he didn’t let himself pull away. “Yes. We did. When we were younger and more foolish.”
That got the smile Sam had been hoping for, and it eased some of the tension. “I just don’t want to fuck this up again,” Niko told him, sounding vulnerable and unsure. He didn’t let go of Sam’s hand though, so he took that as a good sign.
“I don’t think it was our pace that was the problem,” Sam told him, keeping his tone as neutral as he could manage. “I think it was the fact that both of us were unsure, and I was terrified to let anyone close to me. But I don’t want to be that way with you. I want you close. You just…you fit. With us here,” he added.
Niko’s face was utterly unreadable, but before Sam could panic about it, he surged forward, grabbing Sam by the front of his shirt, and pulled him into a kiss. The angle was murder on his back, and left him feeling a little unbalanced, but he didn’t care. He braced his arms on Niko’s shoulders and kissed him with a passion he’d been holding back.
“Stay,” Sam murmured against his lips. “I’m not asking you to move in, or change your life, but stay tonight. Stay, and wake up with me in the morning. I want to be with you as long as you’ll have me.”
“Are you asking me to be your boyfriend?” Niko replied, a tiny hint of tease in his voice, but Sam knew it was only there to cover up the insecurity. That, he could deal with. Easily.
“Yes,” he said with utter sincerity. “I’m asking you to be my boyfriend, and hold my hand in public, and be disgustingly sweet with each other no matter who’s looking.”
Niko bit his lip, then nodded and rose. “Then yes, Sam, I’ll stay.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Sam’s routine at night took up a significant amount of time, which told Niko he’d been holding back the two times Niko had been over. But he found he liked it even more, mostly because it meant Sam trusted him with it.
He left the door open when he used his catheter and didn’t hide his body when he came back into the bedroom wearing only boxers. He looked slightly embarrassed when he laid out on a mat to stretch himself, but there was no hesitance in his voice when he asked Niko to help open his hips a bit.
For that, he was rewarded with a kiss, which turned searing and long. Niko draped over him, using one hand to push Sam’s leg wide to open his hips, the other buried in his hair as their lips and teeth nipped at each other.
A little while after, Sam used his walker to stand, mostly to balance, though he took a few steps, and Niko took that time to tell him all about the restaurant. He loved the way Sam’s face was so open, how his expression showed he was really listening, that he gave a shit about Niko’s future. How he almost seemed excited to be part of it.
Niko sat on the bed and shuffled toward the wall as Sam transferred to the mattress, and the moment between them was charged and intense. At the back of his mind, Niko couldn’t help but worry that this was going to end up like before. And what if Sam had been holding back? What if he’d been playing up just how good it had been to make Niko feel better because at the time, it had only been a hook-up. What if it was terrible now?
Sam noticed his hesitation when he reached for Niko, and his expression dropped into a concerned frown. “Talk to me,” he said, gently laying his hand over Niko’s.
Niko swallowed thickly, turning his palm up so they could tangle their fingers together. “Honesty is our new thing, right?”
At that, Sam looked worried, but he gave a determined nod. “Yes.”
“Then I need to know if,” he cleared his throat. “Before, the last time we slept together, was it really that good for you?”
At the question, Sam looked so relieved, it surprised Niko. Sam let Niko’s hand go so he could use his own to adjust his legs, moving closer to Niko’s prone body. When he was settled, he didn’t answer right away, instead reaching out to draw his fingers back through Niko’s hair. “I don’t really have words for how it made me feel,” he said, his voice a quiet murmur. “I told you before that with me, sex was complicated. It’ll always be complicated. I won’t always be able to get an erection with medication, I won’t always be able to orgasm. It’s…” He blew out a puff of air and laid back against his pillow, his eyes rolling toward the ceiling. “I used to wonder if it was better or worse that I became paralyzed before I ever got to have sex. On one hand, I don’t entirely know what I’m missing, but on the other hand, I felt robbed of it.”
“Yeah, I get that. Or well, I don’t get it, but I understand,” Niko said, rolling over to face him. He reached out, touching Sam on his bare stomach right above the spot he knew was overly sensitive. Sam’s abs twitched under his fingers, but when he made to pull away, Sam’s hand fell over his and pressed Niko’s hand to his skin.
“I don’t know whether it’s better to never know, or to know and have lost it. I’ve asked people before, and I never get the same answer twice, so I’ve had to accept it for what it is.” Sam dragged his thumb over the curves of Niko’s flat knuckles. “It took me a long damn time to be comfortable with exploring my body on my own, and even longer than that to try it with another person. It wasn’t always awful, but it was never great.” He licked his lips, then turned his head to give Niko a very pointed look. “Until I met you.”
Niko’s breath stuttered in his chest. “Sam,” he breathed out.
Sam reached over, drawing his thumb along Niko’s lower lip like maybe he wanted to kiss him, but he didn’t lean in just yet. “When I was eighteen, I met this guy who worked at the rehab center where I had my mobility classes. He had been paralyzed for about fifteen years, I think, and one day I saw him kissing his wife at the door. So, I had to ask. Because for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out how I could ever make a relationship work without sex. I was still kind of angry— mostly because of my parents—so I was kind of a little asshole about it, but he was patient with me.”
Niko’s lips quirked into a smile. “You, an asshole? Can’t picture it.”
Sam shoved at him a little, but his small grin lit up his eyes. “Hey, I’m always a delight.”
Niko raised their tangled fingers to his lips and pressed a kiss to Sam’s wrist. “So, what did this Yoda teach you?”
Sam rolled his eyes, but he tugged Niko closer, not satisfied until their hips were pressed together. “He told me that I had to be patient with my body. That sex for me was never going to be the same as an able-bodied person. That sex would be just fine… until I met the
right person. Then it would be great.”
Niko bit his lip and stared at him. “And?”
“And, I told him he was full of shit and deluding himself so he could feel like this,” he waved his hands toward his legs, “wasn’t the worst thing in the world. Like I said, I was a little asshole.”
Niko chuckled quietly, leaning over to press a kiss to Sam’s shoulder. “I take it he was right, though?”
Sam shrugged. “For a long while, I was afraid to touch myself. I did stupid shit, like squeezing my dick until I could feel the pressure, which did nothing except make my dick swell and make it a pain in the ass to get my catheter in. I’d heard nipple stimulation was a thing, but I could never get it to work.”
“But…uh, when I do it,” Niko said, trailing off with a slight blush when he remembered just how responsive Sam was whenever Niko played with his piercings.
Sam laughed quietly and shook his head. “I was a dumbass teenager. I had no idea that you had to be in the mood. I mean, when you’re pubescent, a stiff breeze can get you off. Being paralyzed before I moved past that stage in life, I had no idea it would have changed for me anyway.”
Niko couldn’t help a small chuckle, because he knew exactly what Sam meant. “Makes sense. So, you figured the whole orgasm thing out eventually.”
“The first guy I dated accidentally gave me an orgasm.” Sam pushed himself onto his side, and put his warm hand against Niko’s hip, pressing down. “He held me here. We were making out in bed, and he was straddling me. Neither one of us thought I could actually feel sexual pleasure, but the kissing was amazing, and my body was starting to respond in ways I hadn’t expected. Then he sort of pressed down and dug his fingers into my skin, and something happened. It was nothing like my teenage orgasms, so it took me a while to figure out what the hell it was. I thought maybe I was sick, or my blood pressure was fucked up. But a few weeks later, when he was sucking on my nipple, it happened again. It didn’t take a genius to figure it out after that.”
Niko looked at him, eyes wide. “That must have been amazing.”
Sam shrugged. “I didn’t know what the hell to do with it. When I told him what was going on, he got weird on me, and a few weeks later he dumped me. I realized that he was actually getting off on the fact that I couldn’t feel anything, and I didn’t take it well.”
Niko sat halfway up, his brows dipped in a frown, hands clenched. “You’re serious?”
Sam let out a tiny huff. “That was my first experience with the fetish side of disability, and it wasn’t my last, but I got better at being able to tell.”
Licking his lips, Niko relaxed back down, but his stomach was a little twisted. “What if…what if I have one? And I didn’t realize it before?”
Sam gave him a serious look, reaching up to brush his fingers through Niko’s hair. “You like getting me off, you like knowing that I feel good when we’re together. If that’s the fetish you have, I’m not going to complain.”
Niko laughed, but he wasn’t entirely settled. “I just don’t ever want to make you feel like that.”
Sam smiled at him, drawing his hand down to cup his cheek. “You haven’t so far, and I don’t think you will. This, between us, it’s mutual. I’ve been able to let myself go, to lose myself in how good your body feels against mine, and I’ve never been able to do that with anyone else. But it’s more than the sex. It’s everything. It’s the way you listen when I talk, and the way you don’t ever question when I put Maisy first, and the way you seamlessly fit into our lives like you were always meant to be here. How good the sex is between us, that’s a byproduct of everything else.”
Niko watched him for a long time, but he didn’t have words left to respond. So, he did the only thing he could think of—he leaned up and kissed him. Sam accepted it immediately, his mouth opening, hands tugging at Niko until he was straddling his thighs. Their chests pressed together, and Niko’s fingers dug into the space just above his hips, the sensation heady when Sam gasped into his mouth.
Their kisses were a little desperate, hands unable to pull away for more than a few seconds because Niko couldn’t separate himself from his need to touch. Days ago, Niko thought he would never have this again, that whatever had happened between them was over. Forever. Having it back was almost too good, too overwhelming, and Niko had to pace himself. He wanted to draw it out, to linger, to let himself feel every second he almost lost.
“What are the chances of Maisy waking up?” Niko murmured against Sam’s pressing lips.
Sam pulled back slightly, his brows furrowed. “She’s been sleeping through the night since she was a baby, but uh… maybe you should lock the door. Just in case.”
Niko laughed, clambering off Sam’s legs and rushing over, not wanting to be away for longer than he had to. When he got back to the bed, Sam manhandled him until he was on his side, facing away from Sam. Before he could complain, Sam’s hands came around his torso, snaking downward until he was tugging at his boxers, shoving them down to his knees. Niko wasted no time in kicking them away, groaning when he pressed his aching cock into Sam’s hand.
“I want,” he said, thrusting a little. He didn’t know how to voice what he wanted. There weren’t really words for how he was feeling. But Sam seemed to understand in the way he grabbed him and turned him back around, kissing him again and again. He snaked his hand between them and grasped Niko’s cock in a firm hold, making a circle with his thumb and two fingers, letting Niko’s thrusting and his sliding foreskin do the work.
“Yes,” Sam groaned, looking down between them to watch. “God, you are so fucking beautiful.”
Niko was overcome with emotion, his eyes a little hot, throat tense. He couldn’t stop himself from reaching for Sam, touching him where he knew it felt good, dipping his head low to lick at the barbells in his nipples. He loved the metal against his tongue, loved to feel the way Sam’s nipples peaked hard, the way his breath stuttered in his chest and he pressed into Niko’s mouth.
Neither of them had the capacity for words after that. Niko was only vaguely aware of Sam’s orgasm by the way his hand spasmed around Niko’s cock, and his breathing stopped for a long second. Niko tipped over the edge shortly after, gasping his climax into the crook of Sam’s neck, and half-losing himself in the feeling of Sam’s hands petting down his spine, then back up to tangle in his hair. They came back down together, their breath slowing, the flush of their skin fading into a soft afterglow.
Unwilling to move, and not caring how gross he was, Niko fumbled for his boxers and used the thin cloth to wipe them clean of his spunk. Afterward, he laid back down against the pillow, and looked at Sam in the dim light of the bedside lamp.
“Do you think it’ll always be that amazing?” he asked, feeling a little more open and vulnerable than usual.
Sam shrugged, reaching for Niko’s hand. He pressed a kiss to his palm before answering, his voice a little rough and tired. “Probably not. We’re going to have rough patches and arguments, and probably bad sex a few times. But that’s life, isn’t it? That’s falling in love.”
Falling in love. Those three words made Niko’s heart stutter in his chest. He closed his eyes for a long moment to absorb the fact that yes, he was falling in love, and yes, Sam was falling in love right back. They weren’t ready to say it yet —it was too soon, and things were still so unsure. But at least neither of them were denying it any longer.
“I’m exhausted,” he finally said, for lack of anything else to contribute to their deep moment.
Sam chuckled and reached over, flicking the light off, plunging the room into darkness. For a while, neither of them moved. Then, Sam reached for him and closed the few inches of distance that had remained between their bodies. “Sleep well, Nik,” he murmured, burying his face into the side of Niko’s shoulder.
Niko smiled into the dark and shifted onto his side, facing the wall. “Night, Sammy.”
Sam tucked around the back of him, hand possessively clutching at his w
aist. It took him a while to fall asleep, but he’d lost the restlessness in his body, and eventually dropped off without a problem.
* * *
In the morning, Niko woke to find himself in the bed alone, and he only panicked for as long as it took to hear the low murmur of Sam’s voice in the kitchen talking to Maisy. He lingered for a short while, basking in the scent of them mingled together in the sheets. He luxuriated in the idea that he could have this now, and not just when Sam was lonely and wanted to hook up.
Sam was his boyfriend. This life was theirs—they were building toward something solid, something Niko hadn’t been sure he was ever going to have. He drifted in his thoughts for as long as he knew he could get away with it, then peeled himself out of the bed. Though he didn’t entirely know what the rules were when it came to dating, he went to Sam’s dresser anyway and rummaged around for a pair of sweats and a t-shirt to borrow, because he had no plans to be anything but comfortable for as long as Sam had the time.
He slipped into the bathroom to give himself a quick wash down, then dressed and made his way to the kitchen where he could smell freshly brewed coffee. He found Sam at the counter, standing at his walker and using a waffle iron to fill a plate at his right hand.
“Hey, you,” Niko said. Mindful of the walker which kept Sam upright and balanced, he slid his arms around Sam’s waist and kissed the side of his neck. “Good morning.”
Sam reached behind him and gave Niko’s cheek a pat. “Morning, sleeping beauty. Coffee?”
“Hell yes,” Niko said, but wasn’t willing to pull away just yet. He moved his nose to the back of Sam’s head and nuzzled. “You know, you’re taller than me on your feet.”
Sam chuckled. “Yeah. Guess my chair will keep your ego intact.”
“Oh my god, you’re such a nerd,” Niko huffed, and turned Sam’s face gently for a proper kiss. “You been up long?”