Page 4 of Pucked Up (Punk as Puck #2)

CHAPTER

TWO

BODEN

Apparently, there was a man and some women running a little… business out of several rooms, and the restaurant next door reported them after several of the women had come in during their “breaks.”

So…yeah. It was worth the splurge to pay a bit more for peace of mind.

Pulling into the disabled parking space, I glanced in the mirror and saw another car following me in. It was a pearl-white Range Rover. Lord, who was I about to get into bed with? Dudes who drove new, pearl-white Range Rovers didn’t haunt that bar.

I shivered slightly as I reached for my crutches from the back seat. It was never worth it to try and navigate the corridors and doorways of these motels in a wheelchair. And frankly, I kind of liked to see what my hookups did when I looked even more disabled than I did sitting down.

I could feel his presence behind me—Jean-Luc. Fuck, that was such a terrible name. It didn’t suit him at all.

“Need a hand?” The question came across as genuine—not patronizing. I wanted it to rub me the wrong way, but it didn’t.

“I do this all the time,” I told him anyway.

He laughed softly. “I kind of figured.”

It was easier to be an asshole. The moment I started feeling kind about these guys, it all went to hell. Feelings happened. Need happened. The desire to have something more than a single night happened, and that would ruin my life plans.

“Do you remember the room number?”

“One-eleven,” he parroted in English instead of French.

I grunted to acknowledge him, then made my way toward the curb with my impossibly slow gait.

He was behind me, matching his steps to mine, and for a brief moment, I wished I had gone with the chair just so I could have sped up.

My legs would never cooperate walking like this.

When I tried to run—and I had in the past, more times than I wanted to admit—it always ended with me flat on my face, bleeding from my nose and often missing a tooth.

Which, I didn’t need the extra dental bill. Hockey was bad enough on my jaw.

We reached the side entrance, and I let go of my crutch handle to dig around in my pocket for the key. I tapped it against the black box, and when it lit green, I reached for the door handle, but he beat me to it.

“You can be as angry as you like with me, but I’m a gentleman, and I’m going to get the door for you.”

I turned my head and glared at him, but he held it open, unrepentant. “Are you a gentleman?”

“For the moment. And if you’re going to wreck my asshole once we step inside,” he said in polite, pointed French, “you have to let me do this.”

Well, fuck. It wasn’t like I could argue against that. I sighed, then stepped over the threshold. I tried to be as graceful as I could, but the universe had been out to get me since I was born. It wasn’t going to let me have this moment.

The edge of my shoe caught on the metal lip, and I lurched forward. Closing my eyes, I stiffened my upper body, bracing for the fall, but I didn’t hit the floor. Instead, arms came around me, tightening almost painfully, but it wasn’t as bad as if I’d crashed to the ground.

“You’d think the accessible entrance would have less fall risk,” he muttered against the back of my ear as he hauled me upright.

I swallowed heavily. His body was warm, and firm, and so much larger than mine. That wasn’t uncommon, of course, but with him, it felt different. He would have dwarfed Tucker even with his tallest legs on.

I let myself have the moment. I leaned back into him, closing my eyes, basking in the feeling of being held. His arms tightened a fraction and then a little more. Then his lips moved against the back of my ear.

He wasn’t speaking though. No, he was tasting. He kissed the skin just behind my hearing aid—the spot where no hair grew. Then he trailed his mouth to the top of my shoulder.

I shivered, then pulled away, pushing my crutch tips into the threadbare carpet. “Do you want to see the room?” My voice cracked. Fuck, that was humiliating.

Jean-Luc chuckled and gave me the smallest shove forward. “Lead the way.”

Squaring my shoulders, I put every ounce of concentration on my legs. They’d never walk straight, but they would get me where I needed to go—and right now, that was six doors down and on the left.

I counted as we passed each one, the clink of the metal crutches almost overwhelming in the silent hallway.

With my hearing aids on at full volume, I could hear my breathing—labored the way it always was.

And then his—steady and soft. What would it feel like against my skin? As good as it had felt against my ear ?

Better?

My throat was a little tight, and I fought the urge to clear it as we finally reached one-eleven. My fingers were trembling as I held the key out, and I couldn’t bring myself to protest when he plucked it out of my hand and tapped it against the door.

It unlocked with a click so loud I felt it in my chest. Then he opened the door and held it so I could walk in.

This time, my shoes shifted from carpet to hardwood without a problem. The thud of my feet was even louder than the lock, but I took two steps forward. Then another two.

And then the door shut behind me with a firm, heavy thud. I froze. I was never like this. I never let a hookup get the best of me. So why him? What was it about this man that had me literally shaking at the knees?

“I want to get you on the bed,” his voice rumbled. He pressed himself against my back, wrapping his arm around my waist. He was a steady ballast, and for a moment, I didn’t know if I wanted to agree with him or argue back. He chuckled after a second. “I can see the fight in you, petit feu.”

Little fire.

Why did that name make me shiver? My mouth went dry, and I attempted to swallow but failed miserably. My tongue didn’t always cooperate with me on an average day, but it felt ten times worse now. Every part of my body was a fucking traitor, abandoning my brain to slut itself for this man .

And God, I wanted him to touch me.

“Come with me,” he murmured. He pushed until I took a step. Then another. Then another. “There we go.”

“Fuck off.”

He laughed and nuzzled against the side of my neck. It took every ounce of self-control not to moan for him. “What are your rules, petit feu?”

Fuck him for calling me that again. “It was on the card, if you can read?—”

“Yes, yes. No names, no details, plenty of condoms. But what else?”

“What do you mean?”

His fingertips touched the sides of my neck, then trailed down my arms, stopping at my wrists. “May I?”

It took me a second to realize what he was asking.

It was for a level of trust I gave to almost no one.

And yet, in spite of myself, I nodded. He gently pried my fingers off the crutch handles, setting them against the nightstand.

One arm slid back around my waist, his other manipulating my body until I was turned to face him.

His eyes were dark, heavy-lidded, his lips lush and begging to be kissed. It took me a moment to catch my breath as he stared at me. His gaze was completely unrepentant, and even fully clothed, I felt naked.

“Like what you see?”

“Ah, oui,” he murmured.

My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth as he leaned in to nuzzle me again.

He ran the tip of his nose along my jawline, over my earlobe, down my neck.

I could feel him breathing in, like he was basking in my scent.

At least I was clean and had put on some cologne.

On a hockey day…well, I didn’t want to think about what he’d say if he’d caught me on a hockey day.

“Tell me your rules,” he said again.

“I just said?—”

He interrupted me with an impatient scoff. “Will you let me kiss you?”

I was startled and yanked back, almost toppling out of his arms, but he held fast. My shoes scrabbled for purchase before I managed to straighten my feet. Men didn’t ask me that. They didn’t want that. I had a slight, thick accent. My cerebral palsy accent, I liked to call it.

It was a speech impediment that I’d been forced to have surgery for, and therapy for, made slightly more difficult by my hearing loss. It was yet one more thing that made me seem so different in the eyes of people who had never met anyone like me.

But he didn’t bat an eye.

No, instead, he caught his gaze on my mouth and gave me the look of a starving man. A feral man. Someone who would probably tear my clothes to shreds the moment I gave him the go-ahead. Crisse, I started to feel a little drunk on all that attention.

“Is it a fetish?”

“A fetish?” he parroted.

I sighed quietly. “You really like me. Is it a fetish?” It was a fair question. There were plenty of people who were attracted to men like me because we lived in bodies like the one I had. They were the ones I avoided fucking like they had the Black Plague.

He blinked, then laughed. “No. But I understand why you’d ask.” Lifting his free hand, he brushed a collection of hair off my forehead, then dragged a touch down my cheek.

I let myself get lost in his touch, but only for a moment. I didn’t know why I fucking cared so much if it was a thing for him. It had never mattered before. But right now, it felt like the most important question in the world. “But you’ve known people. Like me. You’ve done this before.”

“Not like you. No one like you,” he said very quietly. “But I’m not unfamiliar with a body like yours.”

Was I seriously going to push this issue? “So, you like?—”

He sighed and pulled back. “I like you, petit feu. Just you. I liked the way you smiled at me in the bar because it was honest. I could tell you didn’t do that a lot.”

Fuck him for being right.