Page 87 of Break For Me
He removes his glasses. He folds them and sets them carefully on the counter. Without the lenses, his face is different. Noticeably softer. The eyes exposed. He sees me looking at him and doesn't look away.
He bends over me. He kisses me again. Much deeper this time. His hand finds my bare chest—his palm pressing flat on the sternum, directly over the fading Madonna.
His hand is shaking. I can feel the tremor against my skin, vibrating through the ink.
His tongue traces my lower lip. I open and he enters. He tastes strongly of bitter coffee, copper, and the lingering adrenaline of the night.
His mouth moves. My jawline. My neck. The soft hollow of my throat. He traces the thick tendon down to the clavicle. Each point of contact is meticulously measured. Specific. The master surgeon's precision applied to a purpose that is the exact opposite of surgical.
"Don't move," he whispers against my hot skin. "Don't twist. Your rib is displaced. I am not spending the rest of this night in an operating room because you couldn't be still."
"Are you giving me medical orders while you?—"
"Yes. That is exactly what I'm doing. Be still."
I am still. The physical constraint creates its own intense tension. Pinned by a broken bone and a doctor's explicit instructions. His mouth moves slowly down my chest. Over the Madonna. Across the heavy pectoral to the nipple—a brief,electric contact that makes my entire core tighten. Down the sternum. Across the oblique on my uninjured right side.
His hands follow the path of his mouth. The fingertips trace my abdomen. The abdominal muscles contract violently under his touch. He finds the scar on my hip—the old laparotomy—and traces the raised line with his thumb.
His hands are quieter now. The tremor is fading. I can feel it leaving his fingers in stages, each inch of skin he touches absorbing a fraction of the vibration. The surgeon's hands remembering what they were built for. Not the radial nerve strike. Not the snuffbox. This.
He reaches the elastic waistband of my sweatpants. He pauses. His chin rests heavily on my hip bone. His eyes find mine in the blue glow of the monitors.Is this what you want?
I put my right hand on the back of his head. I thread my fingers through his dark hair. I press down. Not hard. A gentle direction. An answer.
He pulls the waistband down. He takes me in his hand. The grip is incredibly familiar. Precise. His fingers are steady now. The tremor is gone.
His mouth replaces his hand.
The sensation is an absolutely controlled demolition. The intense heat of his mouth. The pressure. The wet, slick slide of his tongue. My head drops back against the table. My right hand grips the padded edge of the table. My left hand stays buried in his hair. The rebuilt, sensitive fingers thread through the strands. The nerve I damaged and he miraculously repaired conducts the texture of him straight to my brain.
He takes his time. The rhythm is agonizingly slow. His hand circles the base while his mouth works the rest. The wet sound of his mouth on me in the quiet infirmary fills the entire room.
I am perfectly still. The rib demands it. The enforced stillness concentrates the pleasure until it is almost unbearable.The pressure builds in my pelvis, climbing up my spine. My hand tightens in his hair. My breathing accelerates rapidly. The monitoring equipment tracks the rising heart rate.
He pulls off. His hand immediately replaces his mouth—faster now. He rises. His mouth finds mine again. He tastes of me. The intensely shared circuit.
"Adrian."
His name. Not trapped behind my teeth. Not swallowed. Spoken aloud. Into his mouth.
He hears it. His hand tightens its grip. His mouth presses harder against mine. His free hand finds my chest again—palm flat, fingers spread, steady as a surgical table. And I come with his palm resting on my heart and his name echoing in my mouth.
The massive wave passes. My breathing slowly evens out. His hand slows its rhythm. He presses his forehead against my sweaty temple.
I reach for him. My right hand finds his belt.
"Let me?—"
"You can't move."
"I can move my hand."
He exhales. A ragged, shattered sound. I open his belt. I open his trousers. I take him firmly in my right hand. The good hand.
He drops his head heavily against my shoulder. I stroke him the exact way he stroked me—slow at first, expertly reading the physical response.
He doesn't last long. The massive adrenaline crash. The profound relief. The accumulated tension of a day spent fighting for his sister's life. He comes with a sound that is almost my name, the syllables breaking apart against the skin of my neck.
