Tastes Like Candy

Twenty-Three

 

Twenty-Three

Candy

It had been a very long time – since his elementary school days, actually – since he wasn't able to pick up a girl. His strength had become as reliable as the function of his lungs. So he tried to pick Michelle up now – his girl, the first time he'd been able to think that phrase – and his stiches grabbed, and he grunted as his wounded muscles cried out in protest.

"Darling, no," she murmured, and got to her feet, walked ahead of him into the bedroom.

He'd left the lamp on, from when her phone had awakened him and he'd panicked to find her gone. A soft light, the color of melted butter, a gentle puddle of it across his new double bed, and its rumpled sheets.

Huh. So he was this person now: the guy who liked double beds, and sheets that smelled like girly shampoo, and said girl being in said bed, as she turned and took one of his hands in her functional one.

Oh, baby doll, his sleepy brain thought. Your poor, poor hand. I'm so sorry.

He absolutely hated the weaknesses of his body in the moment. They made him angry enough to scream. He hated that he needed time to recover, that he couldn't pick her up and lay her out and prove that he was the big strong protector in the way she needed him to be, proving through fucking that he was the tough one, the sturdy one, the man of the two of them.

His hands worked, though, so when she sat down on the side of the bed, he said, "Lie down, sweetheart," and when she did, he pushed her shirt up and found her breasts.

She was distracted, at first, distant. But he flicked her nipples with expert moves of his thumbs and she lifted her arms over her head on the pillow, arched into his touch, gasped a little.

So that was something.

He got her naked, the buttery lamplight turning her skin to gold, and kicked off his pajama pants before he laid down beside her. To his surprise, she was the one to lean in first, small hands on his face, initiating the kiss.

Because she wanted him?

Or because she wanted a distraction?

When he started to mount her, his stitches grabbed again – seriously, fuck these stitches – and he grunted against her mouth.

Michelle pulled back a fraction, expression soft, eyes full of wanting. "Let me on top," she suggested.

The mental picture his mind supplied made it worth the emasculation.

He rolled onto his back, and she moved with him, getting up onto her knees, straddling him. The visual was even better than expected. His hands found her hips, seeking to align them. But she was already doing that, reaching between them with her good hand, bracing the other one, in its clunky brace, lightly on his stomach.

She made a quiet, deep sound in the back of her throat when he was fully inside her. Her head kicked back, and he wanted to put a hand to her throat, feel the hummingbird thunder of her pulse, feel the strain in her muscles, and tendons, and bones as the pleasure moved through her.

He'd let women do the riding plenty. Eager strippers, groupies, waitresses, all with varying degrees of talent and experience. And always, he'd felt like he was the one in control, that somehow he was still completely in charge.

Not so now. The world seemed sideways. Maybe it was his injuries, or the early hour, or the strangeness of Albie's phone call, but he was needled by the sense that Michelle was in control now. He didn't dislike it...but it unnerved him.