Page 15

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

TUCKER

It took me seven and a half minutes before I found the courage to turn the knob, and it was only because I heard Amedeo tentatively calling my name, his tone worried. Taking a breath, I walked back in and lost all the air in my lungs at the sight of him lounging back on top of the covers, naked save for his boxers, his palm pressed over his dick.

From where I was standing, I couldn’t see clearly enough to tell if he was hard, but I had a feeling he wasn’t. I was making this weird.

“If you’ve changed your mind?—”

I leapt. Not literally, of course. My hips were too defunct after the accident to do any kind of jumping, but I did move faster than I realized I was capable of. I was on him, thin, knobby prosthetic knees bent against the edge of the mattress.

I felt unstable until his hand came to curl around my ribs, and he held me there, just staring at me.

I watched him swallow thickly, the bob of his Adam’s apple catching in his throat. His plush lips were parted with his breath, which was a bit faster than it normally was. He was nervous too. Maybe afraid. I had no idea what his trauma was—what his ex was like. How others had treated him.

But I did know I was good at this.

I made men fall in love with me all the time for the short hookups we had. It had been a while—close to six months since my last—but I hadn’t forgotten how to do this. I brought a hand up to his jaw and tilted his head back.

“You’re gorgeous.”

“You don’t have to say that, you know.”

I blinked, frowning. “What does that even mean?”

His flush crawled from his chest to his neck. “I mean, I know I’m not all…fit. Like an athlete. You’re literally surrounded by hot men with lickable abs all day long.”

My eyes widened. “How do you know my teammates have lickable abs? Were you spying?” I dipped my head low and nipped at his neck. “Do I need to be jealous?”

The truth in his words was startling. This man honestly didn’t think he measured up. If this was his ex’s fault, I hoped I could meet him one day just to knock a couple of teeth out with a well-timed shot of my favorite puck.

Dragging a hand from his throat to his lower stomach, I looked down to watch his muscles jump. He sucked in a breath and let it out on a soft moan. “You don’t need to be jealous. I wasn’t spying. But watching them on the ice…I just wonder why you chose me.”

“Well, first of all, they’re like my brothers, so that’s gross.” I kissed his neck when he laughed. “Secondly, I’m sorry you don’t know how beautiful you are.”

When I pulled back, he licked his lips, then shrugged. “I know I’m not unattractive. It’s not like I’m some self-deprecating loser who refuses to see his own worth. But I also know I’m not like the people you know. I’m a nerd…”

“Love nerds,” I murmured.

He laughed again and pushed the fingers of one hand into my hair, tenderly scraping along my scalp. “I can’t run to save my life. I was wheezing halfway through my walk to the café.”

“I can’t run either.”

He yanked my hair a bit, making my cock jump. “Different reasons. I’m just trying to say?—”

“I know what you’re trying to say,” I interrupted. I kissed his mouth again, a brief, hard kiss. “I’ve tried hockey players over and over. They’re great to scratch an itch, but they’re not my type. I…” God, there was so much about me he didn’t know, but I didn’t want to spoil the moment. “Let’s just say I’ve learned to appreciate someone good. And I feel lucky that it was you I met at the bar that night.”

“Even after we got shitfaced, lost our memories, and got married?”

“Especially after that,” I said with a grin.

He laughed and rolled his eyes. “Fine. Then I won’t say another word except to remind you that you’re still wearing too much.”

The moment of truth. I did my best to hide my shaking hands as I slid off him. Fucking guys who were on other sled teams was a lot easier. There were very few surprises between us. Even if we didn’t share the same disability, we were around it.

It was life. It was normal.

I didn’t mind when able-bodied guys needed time to adjust to what I looked like, but sometimes, it was too much. I’d watch as the blood drained from their faces and the way they’d swallow hard and paste on a smile that looked like a grimace. They’d shift around and try to play it cool, like they were totally into it.

But their dicks always told the truth in the way they flagged.

And there was always an emergency thirty seconds after my legs came off.

I wasn’t sure what I’d do if that was Amedeo. Yeah, he’d seen me without my legs in my chair tonight, but not like this. And he didn’t remember whatever he’d seen in Vegas.

My spine felt a little like jelly as I pulled my shirt off, and I appreciated the way Amedeo sucked in a breath and drank me in. His eyes paused on the scars from the accident, but they didn’t linger. They drifted lower, to the button on my jeans.

I flicked it, and I was close enough now I could see his dick pulse in his boxers, creating a small tent.

“You’re into the striptease?”

His voice was ragged when he said, “I’ve never seen one, but I could definitely be persuaded to watch a few more.”

I was emboldened. Still shit-scared of what might come next, but with him, it was so damn easy. I pulled down my zipper slowly, watching the hunger in his eyes grow. My dick was straining now, and with a single turn of my hips, it would slip through the slit and show itself off.

The little slut.

I palmed myself gently as I used my free hand to shimmy my jeans just below the curve of my ass. “And that’s where the sexy ends. I have to sit for the next part.”

“I can be patient,” Amedeo said, his voice still thick with lust.

I nodded, scratching at my stomach. I was procrastinating. “Um. I don’t know how much you remember about getting naked in bed together?—”

“Almost nothing,” he said. He sounded sad about it. “I remember you telling me it was too hot for clothes, but the rest is blank.”

Nodding, I felt my jaw tense against my will, and I did my best to convince my muscles to relax. “It’s not, uh, the prettiest part of me. The scars are bad. I didn’t have one of those nice, clean elective amputations?—”

“Elective amputations?” he asked, eyes wide.

“Not going to give an anatomy lesson tonight,” I told him. “I just wanted to warn you it looks…freaky to some people.”

I thought maybe he’d blow me off like the rest of them did. To wave his hand and scoff and say no part of me could be freaky.

He didn’t.

“Just tell me if there are any parts that are painful if I touch them, okay? I don’t want to hurt you.”

My heart throbbed in time with my dick, and I turned quickly so he couldn’t see the look on my face. It would give me away entirely, and that would for sure send him running. My ass hit the bed so hard my teeth clicked, nearly taking off the tip of my tongue, and I took a fortifying breath before tugging my pants down. They pooled at my feet, and I left them there as I went to press the vacuum button on each side of my sockets.

The release was more than pleasant. It was damn near erotic. The ends of my limbs plumped a little as I eased the sockets off, and I stared down at my socks. I was wearing thick padding because they’d been sore as fuck over the last week, and hell, maybe I could leave them on.

Then Amedeo flicked me on the back of the shoulder. “Clothes.”

“You’re still in boxers,” I pointed out.

He stuck his foot against my side and dug his toes into my hip. “You can take mine off if you want.”

I shivered with need. That was incentive enough. And there was no point in delaying the inevitable. If my body was too different for him to want me, then it was. I would have to live with that.

Turning back away, I dug my fingers under the elastic band of my first sock, but before I could roll it down, I felt Amedeo shift. The bed shook a little, and then I felt him pressed against me. His cock was hard, digging into my ass. His naked chest was warm as it pressed against my back.

His hands wriggled under my arms, then splayed out wide on my stomach.

“Tell me this is okay,” he murmured.

“It’s okay.” My voice was rough and ragged, catching in the back of my throat. I had never felt like this before. Not once. Not ever. My hands shook as I rolled my layers of socks down, and then I flexed the very short muscles at the end of my limbs.

Was he watching?

No. He had his nose pressed to the center of my spine.

“Will you look at me?” I asked. I needed to know. I needed to see his face when he did.

He nodded. “Turn around.”

If I did, I would be nearly straddling him. My limbs were short and would barely reach up to his thighs, but it would give him the full view.

Pressing my hands into the mattress, I tilted back as he let me go, and I spun. My left thigh caught his arm, and I wobbled to the side, but he caught me before I could topple over. Our gazes locked, and then his mouth twitched.

I was the one who broke first, bursting into laughter as I righted myself. He grinned, his hands coming up to my hips to pull me close, and then the moment sobered. His gaze was still on mine, but I watched as it wavered. And then dipped low.

He swallowed heavily again. One hand on my hip twitched, then moved down a few inches. He wanted to touch, but he was holding back. I wasn’t new to this either. My hookups were often both disgusted and fascinated by the abrupt way my legs just…ended. One slightly longer than the other, but no less stark a difference from what most people looked like.

“Do they hurt?”

Also not a question I was unused to. “Sometimes. Not right this second.” A half-lie. They were sore, but it wasn’t pain the way I usually knew it. “They’re sensitive.”

“How careful do I need to be?” His gaze lifted back to mine, and I studied his face like I would need to take an exam on his expressions later.

Nothing had changed. He wasn’t turned off. He wasn’t turned on.

“You never need to be careful with me.” Also a half-truth. I wanted someone to be tender and soft with me. But I would never ask for that.

He smiled and lifted his right hand, cupping my jaw. “What can we do?”

“I mean, I can do anything except hold you up and fuck you against the wall. I know my legs are short, but I swear I’m really good with them?—”

“No,” he said, choking on a laugh. “N-not…not that. I mean…” He took a slow breath. “Tonight. No condoms, so?—”

“Oh!” I used my hands to lift my ass and better settle over his thighs. He grunted at my weight, and his hand flew back down to my waist to hold me there as I draped my arms over his shoulders. “I have some ideas.”

“Mm?”

I looked down at us—both hard, our dicks straining against boxers like they were trying to touch. I rocked forward against him, and he sucked in a sharp breath when my erection rubbed over his. “This is good.”

“Mhm.”

“So is sucking cock.”

His pupils blew wide.

“You like that idea?”

He nodded, biting his lip. He let a breath out through his nose, then said, “I really want to taste you.”

Not what I’d been implying, but I sure as fuck wasn’t going to turn down having my cock sucked with that pretty, pretty mouth of his. I traced his lower lip with the tip of two fingers. “How do you want me to make you come?”

He groaned softly but didn’t answer.

“I’m asking now because if you put your mouth on me, I’m going to shoot my load in under a minute. I’ve been fantasizing about you since the moment we had brunch.”

His ears were bright red. “I just want your hand.”

“Yeah?” I dropped one to his pec and flicked my thumb over his nipple. My hands were not the best part of me. They were rough as fuck, calloused from the game and from how much I relied on them holding my body weight whenever I wasn’t in my legs. Most people didn’t enjoy that on their delicate bits.

But Amedeo arched at my touch, a groan ripping from his chest like he couldn’t help it. Fuck, he was so responsive.

“You are so pretty like this,” I murmured. I hesitated to see if he minded being called that. It didn’t look like he did. At all. “So fucking gorgeous. Love the way you respond to me.”

“You feel good,” he whispered. He arched forward again, rubbing his chest along mine.

I wanted nothing more than to take him in my hand and make him come right there, but before I could get any wild ideas, he leaned back and shuffled me off his legs. My ass hit the bed with a dull thud, and then he used his hands to spin my head toward the pillows.

It was unexpected. I didn’t mind being handled a bit, but I hadn’t realized he had it in him. And I fucking loved it. My cock jumped again, and he watched it before tucking his fingers into the waistband of my boxers.

“Lift up?”

Pressing my hands into the mattress, I did. He got them over my ass, then hesitated as his touch came down along the top part of my thighs. The skin there was rough—wrinkled in parts, stretched too tight in others.

The accident had been a jagged mess of twisted metal that cut through my skin unevenly. My femurs had shattered, and the muscles had ripped.

There was no making that look pretty, and then the wounds had gotten infected, so doctors had carved riverbeds into what unmarred skin was left in order to save me.

His thumbs caressed a couple of patches of unscarred leg as he looked at me. “Too much?”

“Not enough. I need your mouth, and while sucking me through my boxers might be hot for a minute…”

“Not my thing,” he said, wrinkling his nose.

I laughed, but it quickly turned into a moan as he tugged the fabric all the way off. It snagged on my dick, making it slap down against my stomach, and before I could register what was happening, he had his hand around it.

“I’m not the, ah…the best at this,” he said.

Was that another lie fed to him by his insecure ex?

“But you can tell me what you like. I’m really good at following directions.”

Oh fuck. My entire body went hot, and I found myself nodding almost frantically as he pressed his palms to the insides of my thighs.

“This okay?”

“More than okay. You can touch me. I love the way you feel,” I babbled.

He gently pressed, spreading my residual limbs wide, exposing me fully. His gaze was like a physical weight, pressing down gently as he drank me in from navel to balls. I felt them twitch, and he smiled before reaching out to cup them in his hand.

“Yes?”

“Yes, yes, yes,” I said.

He leaned down, nosing my sac, then parted his lips and kissed each one. Christ, no one had ever taken time on me like this. Not before my accident and not after. I was not a man who had ever inspired anything besides a quick, dirty fuck.

“You’d better get your mouth on me, or I’m going to explode. It’s been so fucking long. So long,” I groaned.

He looked up at me as he lifted up onto his elbows, then curled a hand around my cock and pressed the tip to his lips. He kissed, a long, sucking thing with a little tongue dipping into my slit. I grunted, my hips fucking forward.

“Sorry, sorry,” I said, palming his cheek.

He shook his head, then fit his mouth around the head of my cock and met my gaze again. With a good, hard suck, he sank down, and my vision whited out. It was terrifying, losing what little sight I had left in my remaining eye, but it was quickly eclipsed by just how fucking good Amedeo made me feel.

Sparks erupted under my skin, heat settling in my chest as I began a slow pump forward. He hummed, encouraging me on, relaxing his jaw, taking me as far as he could go. It was nearly all the way, and the little space left me held with his hand, squeezing in the same rhythm as I was fucking his face.

My hands dove into his hair, letting his thick, loose locks wrap around my fingers as I tightened my grip to guide him. His groan rippled over my dick, making it kick against his tongue, and he swallowed hard.

Fuck. It was too much.

I was holding on longer than I thought I would, but I was seconds away from exploding.

“Do you want to take it? Do you want to swallow it?” I asked, my voice ragged. I looked down at him, doing my best to focus my eye on his face.

He nodded, then pulled off to lick around the head, suckle at the slit, and then he laid me against his tongue and waited.

Oh fuck. Oh Christ .

I pushed my hips forward, the sliding sensation in his mouth overwhelming. It was too much. His hands dug into the fleshy part of my thighs, which were trembling and sparking with severed nerve ache, but somehow, it added to how good I felt.

My balls tightened, and my face went hot, and before I could warn him again, come shot from the tip. My dick pulsed hard in his mouth, and he kept me near the back of his throat, swallowing over and over until I was fully spent and too overwhelmed to move.

Pulling back, he let me go, raining kisses over my limbs before moving up my body. I lifted my legs, squeezing the ends around his hips as he nosed against my jaw, then buried his face in my neck as he let me take all of his weight.

“Whoever told you that you were bad at that should be literally tied to a stake and covered in honey for the flies to eat.”

“That…is certainly a visual I’ll have to live with for the rest of my life,” he said through a laugh.

Tugging lightly on his hair, I waited for him to pull back and look at me. “I mean it,” I said when I had his full attention. “I’m not blowing smoke up your ass, Deo. That was the best I have ever had. And I’ve had a lot.”

His cheeks went mottled and dark, making the few moles he had on his skin stand out. I cupped his jaw and rubbed my thumb over his lush, slightly puffy lips.

“I need about fifteen minutes, and then I’m going to make you feel so fucking good.”

“You don’t?—”

“So fucking good,” I said, cutting him off. “So goddamn good you’ll forget what anyone before me was like.”

He smiled softly, buried his head against my chest, and went boneless.

And dear God, who knew I could like this so much too.