by JC Wallace
I went into the kitchen and dropped my bag of new meds on the counter. While I had sat in the appointment, Jacob and my doctor had debated medications for over forty-five minutes. That had left me with time to stare at Jacob. Stare? More like ogle. When he’d turned and looked at me, a sly smile on his face, I knew I’d been caught.
Now he was in my house. He walked into the kitchen with two beers in his hand. When he set one on the counter before me, I raised a brow.
“Doctor’s orders,” he stated flatly. “I know you haven’t had your pain meds since this morning… Do you need more?”
My pain was at the normal level of around a four or five. I could wait as long as I got off my feet.
“No, I’m good.”
“So have a drink with me.”
I chewed on my lip and contemplated the beer. “Okay.”
He nodded and walked to the French doors, and as if he owned the place, he opened the doors and stepped out onto the patio. When he flopped into one of the lounge chairs, I had no choice but to follow.
I sat in the lounger next to his. I glanced at him. He was reclining, legs crossed at the ankles, his head back, eyes closed. He’d look relaxed to the outside world, but I could see the twitch in his jaw. I recalled the vacant, desolate stare at the hospital before his attention had been pulled to my mental frailties. I took a long drink from my beer. I didn’t want to ask about the accident and didn’t think I had the right to since I’d never shared anything about myself. But he looked so wrecked that I should have asked him how he was doing. Instead I blurted out, “I have a new Maserati sitting in the garage. I don’t know why I didn’t tell you that before.”
He turned his head and just stared as if he didn’t know what to say.
I shrugged. “My dad took the insurance money from my wrecked car and bought the same exact car: same year, make, model, interior… everything. I didn’t want it, but it’s out there.” Its current owner was too terrified to drive.
“You didn’t want the same car?”
I snorted. “I didn’t want any car.”
Took a second for him to understand, and he only nodded.
I stared down into my bottle of beer and pursed my lips in shame. “My dad said I had to get back on that horse. You know, conquer my… fear.”
Jacob shifted his upper body toward me. “You’re afraid to drive.”
Four words and he’d said them as if they were nothing but words, but for me, they were a definition of who I’d become.
“About four months after the accident, I decided I’d had enough of depending on other people to help me.” That was about the time I’d made sure to alienate everyone as well. “So I hopped into the new Maserati and took off before I could think twice.” That had been mistake number one. Mistake number two had been leaving my cell at home. “I didn’t think… I just didn’t… I took the same route as I did that night.”
I looked pointedly at him, and he raised his brow. “Oh.”
“Let’s just say I didn’t handle it well.” Under-fucking-statement of the year. “I had to pull over. I had flashbacks and… a panic attack. Lasted over an hour. I was sweating, hyperventilating, and shaking. The poor man who was nice enough to stop and check on me thought I was either having a heart attack or on drugs. He had to pry my hands off the steering wheel and yank me out of the car. Took me a while to come back to reality.” If you asked me right then, I had high doubts that I’d ever drive again.
“It’s not surprising given the trauma you experienced. During the whole time I was on the scene and in the ambulance, you only lost consciousness for about twenty minutes. You were awake for most of it.” His voice was low, soothing, understanding… and hard to handle.
“You remember that?”
He nodded and closed his eyes, as if the memory was too overwhelming. And I was sure he was also remembering the kid from earlier that day.
I took a drink of beer and knew I was going to regret this but…
“Was it bad today?”
His jaw twitched but there was nothing more for about a minute. Maybe I’d dodged that bullet.
“Yeah.” His voice belied the pain he was trying to hide. Tight, agonizing.
I couldn’t imagine doing what he did. Seeing bodies mangled, torn apart, bleeding, dying. To me it sounded like self-torture.
He took a drink then opened his eyes and sat forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “He was only five.”
Was. Fuck.
“He was trapped under the bus. When they got him out, he was awake, but he wasn’t crying. He was definitely in shock.” He stopped and drank more of his beer. “His leg had been crushed, severing the artery in his thigh. When they pulled him out… well, they didn’t know about the injury until the lack of compression allowed it to bleed.” I saw him swallow repeatedly, his Adam’s apple rising and falling. A quiver in his chin. “I tried to clamp it, but the bone had shattered and shredded the artery.”
What could you say to something like that? I’m sorry wouldn’t cut it. He’d failed to save that boy’s life. I knew it would be something that I myself could never forget. What did he do with all of that shit in his head? Suddenly, I wanted to hug him, comfort him.
He sighed. “Most of the time, I can go into that space in my head where I detach from the situation, distance myself from emotionally reacting…”
I was a fucking scholar at doing just that. Suing people despite their situations, their plights, their circumstances.
“But this… this fucking senseless death… and so young. Didn’t have a chance.” His words stuttered out on something resembling a choked sob. Another drink and he turned his head away.
Without thinking, I sat up and swung my feet over the side of my chair, facing him, but I didn’t touch him even though I wanted to.
“I don’t know how you can do that every day. Seeing people at the ends of their lives, knowing you can’t do anything. I’d feel so helpless.” And until my accident I’d never known what helpless felt like.
“Most of what I do when the rig goes out is treat people, get them to the hospital, and then I move on. What I did to keep them alive on the way is, like, a reward in a way. I mean I’ve brought in people who I knew weren’t going to make it, but they were alive when I brought them in, my job was done, all I could do but… I can compartmentalize it, lock it into a box where it can’t touch me. Sometime it doesn’t work though.”
“Do you like being a paramedic?”
I should have been running by now, because he was close to crying and fuck I hated tears, but there was something tethering me to him. Right then, I felt like the buoy holding Jacob’s head above the water. If I abandoned him now, he’d drown. And why should I care?
He sniffed and wiped at his nose with the back of his hand. “I do. I think it’s the adrenaline rush, the high. I’ve always been sort of a junkie when it comes to that.”
I snorted, and he actually looked at me. No tears, thank God. “I’ve climbed six of the ten tallest mountains in the world. Gone BASE jumping in Africa and South America. Free diving in the Dominican Republic— one of the most dangerous sports in the world. All for the adrenaline rush.” I rolled my beer bottle between my palms and watched the liquid move inside. “And a truck two miles from my home is what ended it all.” Caustic acid dripped from those words, and I scowled to show my disdain.
“Life is unpredictable. You just never know when…” Jacob sat on the edge of his chair, his knees touching the inside of my knees. I didn’t move. My breaths were shallower, and I could barely hear them. I watched him as he put his beer on the floor. “Times like this I don’t even feel alive anymore, and I need something to remind me that I am.”
I wasn’t alive anymore, hadn’t been for a year, my life suspended in a constant veil of pain and self-loathing and anger. God, how I wished it would stop, wished time would go back to that day and I could turn left instead of right, away from the direct impact of that truck on my driver’s side
door. Maybe if I’d met Jacob again before then, wasn’t such a freak…
When he touched my arm, I jumped. His eyes were intent on mine. His hand, warm and alive, and it felt so good, so connected, as if the universe itself was pumping me full of energy.
When our eyes connected, my stomach fluttered and the hurt in his amber eyes was replaced with lust.
“I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you since I was here last.” The words were whispered, and I was sure I’d heard wrong but still answered.
“Me neither.” Some other part of my brain was taking over, and I had no control.
“You were right about my unprofessionalism when I touched you. I may have let my fingers linger too long. Ran them over your skin because I couldn’t help myself. Are you going to hold that against me, counselor?”
I swallowed hard, trying to find my voice, but I could only shake my head. My dick pressed against my zipper, and it was painful and exhilarating at the same time. I wasn’t myself, buried beneath need and desire and want. Was it so wrong to let my defenses down? To feel for a moment?
“It’s okay,” Jacob whispered and ran his hand over my thigh. “It’s okay to let down the walls.”
As if he knew what I was up against, he leaned forward first. I focused on his lips: pale pink, shapely, kissable. I was helpless to stop him from kissing me. Hell, I didn’t want him to stop. Needed that kiss like the blood in my veins. Tension flowed from me as our lips tentatively began to explore each other. His were warm and so supple, and I increased my pressure, a surge of want pushing me forward. A tidal wave of lust crashed on me, soaking me through.
****
Chapter 7
Jacob’s tongue sought entrance and I opened, practically groaning from the first taste and the moist heat. It had been so long. So fucking long since I’d been intimate with anyone other than my hand, which usually ended in frustration and little satisfaction. Rising and falling, we were lost in ourselves. My stiff cock begged to be released. Just another man touching me was going to have me shooting my load, but I didn’t care. Less than ten orgasms in a year, my head might explode. But, again, I didn’t give a shit. I needed to come.
Air became a commodity as my desire grew, but I refused to relent. The sounds of our lips together were obscene, smacking and slurping, and that sound was something I hadn’t known I’d missed. When Jacob groaned into my mouth, the smoldering burn in my groin burst into flames, and I practically leaned him back onto the lounge. His resistance was fleeing.
I rested my groin against his, rubbing and rutting against his hardness, and oh fuck, the heavens were opening up. His hands were frantic, rubbing any patch of skin he could find. His hips bucked up into mine, his desperation clear. He wanted this as much as I did. My back protested, but I told it to fuck off. The ecstasy flushing over my skin and through my veins took precedence. I was so needful, so wanting, that I couldn’t have stopped if a meteor hit the Earth.
He yanked his head back, pupils large, and the amber was just a thin ring around the black. His once pale lips were deep red and swollen. “Don’t… fucking stop,” he panted out, chest heaving as his hips bucked hard.
His hands grasped the back of my neck. I wrapped my arms around him, pulling him tight to my chest, my thrusts increasing, and that ball of pleasure that had been so elusive grew larger. I was going to come: a satisfying, leg trembling, heart-stopping orgasm.
When Jacob’s breath caught and the veil of orgasm fell over his face, that was enough to shove me over the edge. Without thought, I cried out, my eyes clamping shut, my body tight as my balls pumped semen into my underwear. The warm liquid of victory. I rode the pleasure, which had invaded every cell of my body. My pulse racing, I wanted to laugh out loud in relief.
When I came out of the foggy aftermath, my forehead was on Jacob’s shoulder, his hand rubbing soothing circles over my back. He cooed something to me, but the roar in my ears was still too loud. He was also—
Every one of my muscles tensed. Adrenaline hit my bloodstream and cleared my head. His fingers were on my face tracing my scar— my fucking ugly scar. A daily reminder that no one would ever want me. Jacob could never want me, so this had to have been pity. I couldn’t see any other reason beyond my own fucked-up theory. Within seconds, I stood and was moving for the doors to the kitchen.
“Wait… Paul, where’re you going?” I heard him scrambling to stand, the metal legs of the lounge chair scraping over the rock of the patio.
My hand on the doorknob, I resisted the urge to throw it open immediately and get away. “You know the way out.”
I went into the house and made it to my bedroom, locking the door behind me. Immediately, Jacob was pounding on the solid wood, demanding I let him in, begging me to talk to him. But I couldn’t face his piteous eyes, his charitable expression. He’d gotten the cripple off, and now he could feel good about himself.
Before I disappeared into my bathroom, I heard him say, “Please, talk to me. I really like… I really just want… Please.”
Just the fact that he couldn’t commit to finishing those statements told me everything I needed to know. I wouldn’t be so stupid again.
****
My phone had stopped ringing around eight o’clock the night before. Six voice mails and a bunch of unread texts, all from Jacob no doubt. He had been relentless at my bedroom door. Even after I’d finished my shower, he still knocked, although not so frantically. Finally, he told me to call him, adding please, and then he was gone.
The entire night, my feelings for him were trying to surface, take over, and convince me that I needed him, wanted him to return. Memories from high school tried to make themselves known, and I shut them down. He had been my one regret back then, and regrets only made people weak.
I mourned his loss until my anger flared with thoughts of being used as someone’s good deed for the day. I needed to focus that anger, and with Jacob gone, my case against the driver of the truck would have to do. I would work the case until I found something that my father’s lackeys hadn’t uncovered.
For three days, I searched relentlessly, denying that it was a bid to avoid thoughts of Jacob. I called Mark incessantly, no matter the time of day, sending him running all over the city, scrounging up info and delivering motions to the courthouse. Many times Mark had tried to discuss my case with me, as if he could help. He’d helped enough by finding the information my father had used as proof that I was failing as a lawyer. But I was back in the game, and I’d prove my father wrong. What I didn’t want to admit to myself was that I hated every minute of working on the case. In the past, such work had brought me great satisfaction. Not now.
When I opened up my email, I sighed. Another one from Jacob. There had been one for each day since our encounter. Yeah, I had read the first one and its lies. He tried to convince me that he felt something for me. If he’d felt anything, he wouldn’t have abandoned me for the past year after saving me. It was one of those rationales where you know it’s totally without merit, but I allowed the false evidence to mount. I ignored the fact that he had just been a paramedic doing his job. Nope. He’d done the worst thing in the world to me… Tried to get close.
On day four, my back decided my stress level, lack of sleep, and subsisting on coffee and toast was enough. Spasms hit me early in the afternoon as I was hunched over the table where I’d nodded off. My breath caught, and I knew I was in trouble. My only recourse was to lie on the floor until it passed. I’d carelessly thought the new regimen of medication would save me from the nauseating, back-stabbing spasms. Stupid thinking for sure. Sweat poured off of me as wave after wave of nausea gripped me. I always regretted my lackadaisical behavior after the fact when I was in the clutches of agony. I’d never been lax about anything in my life until my accident, especially my health. I was fucking pathetic and repulsive and… I had to piss like crazy.
There was a click at the front door and someone entered. What the fuck? Who in the hell? It had to be Wendy
since the alarm didn’t go off. Only she and my father had the code, and he’d never been in my house. I was going to change the code once I could get off the floor. God, she was like a psychic knowing exactly when to catch me and prove I was helpless. Maybe if I was really quiet, she’d leave. Footsteps sounded on the tile of the entry.
“Paul?”
I snapped my head to the side, trying to see into the entryway.
Fuck me.
Jacob.
“Paul, we have an appointment.”
No way. He was supposed to run away, leave me alone.
I heard him enter the living room. “I’m not leaving so you might as well come out so we can get this over with.”
With the throbbing pain, I wasn’t thinking clearly, but I knew to keep my mouth shut. If he looked into the dining room from the living room, he wouldn’t be able to see me. That was wishful thinking of course when he came around the table and stepped up next to me. I really couldn’t take his reaction filled with pity and feeling sorry for me anymore.
I glared up at him. Surprisingly, he glared right back. Hard, cold eyes surveyed me in my prone position from head to toe. He then surveyed the table, covered in paperwork, empty coffee cups, and endless plates of half-eaten toast.
When he looked back, I balked at the disappointment in his eyes. “This is what happens when you don’t take care of yourself. I’m sure you didn’t bother to open any of the emails I sent you with exercises to do each day and what to avoid, like large amounts of caffeine and not getting enough sleep. Stubborn ass.”
I held my glare because it was all I had for a defense at that moment. My jaw was clenched from the agony, and the energy to unclench the muscles wasn’t there.
Jacob’s hands went to his hips, and he sighed, looking around the room. “Getting you up probably isn’t going to happen given the amount of pain you’re in right now. Probably around an eight or nine?” He didn’t wait for my answer. “Take any pain meds lately?”
