Page 71 of Break For Me
"I have spent three years in a cage," I interrupt, leaning forward slightly. "The Russians built it. The medical board built it. I built it. The walls were made of fear and obligation and the conviction that my hands were the only part of me worth preserving."
I stand up from the chair. I cross the short distance to the bed. His eyes track my movement. Wary.
"You told me I was just as dirty as you," I say. "You were right. I’ve been dirty since the night I let a girl die on my table. No amount of soap has made me clean. The line I was standing behind didn't exist."
I sit on the edge of the bed. The mattress dips under my weight. My hip rests against his. The contact is deliberate.
"I don't want clean," I say, looking down at him. "I don't want a new identity or a hospital or a life that requires me to forget the last two weeks. I want the dirt. I want the cabin and the auto shop and the motel." My hand moves to his chest. My palm lies flat against his sternum, resting directly over the faded Madonna tattoo. "I want you."
His jaw works, the muscle jumping. The thick tendons in his neck stand out. His eyes are bright with the unbearable, agonizing brightness of a man hearing something he has forbidden himself to want.
"You don't know what you're asking for," he rasps.
"I’m asking for the man who put his body between me and a pair of pliers. I’m asking for the man who held me in the snow. I’m asking for the man who chose me."
I lean down. I press my mouth against his.
The kiss is slow. Deliberate. The exact opposite of the violent clash against the plywood wall in the shack. There is no collision. No teeth. I kiss him the way I suture—with absolute precision, with clear intent.
His mouth opens under mine. His right hand—the uninjured one—comes up and cups the back of my skull. His thick fingers thread into my hair and hold. He is not pulling. He is holding. It is the grip of a man who has never held anything gently in his life and is teaching himself how to do it in real time.
I pull back just enough to see his face. I remove my glasses. I reach over and set them on the bedside table. Without the lenses, the edges of the room soften. He sees me without the frames, and his breath catches in his throat.
I unbutton my shirt. His eyes follow my fingers as they move down my chest. My pale skin is exposed. My thin ribs. Black coffee and vodka have built this body. I am the negative space to his immense presence. Narrow where he is wide. Smooth where he is scarred.
I take his left hand. The splinted one. I lift it carefully from the pillow and press it against my bare chest. His fingers curl against my sternum. The thick gauze is rough on my skin, but the warmth of his palm radiates through the bandages.
"This hand," I say, my voice thick. "This is the hand I want touching me."
His eyes close. Something breaks in his face. It is a quiet, structural collapse. A load-bearing wall giving way to reveal a room that has been sealed off in the dark for years.
"I don't know how to be gentle," he whispers.
"I don't need gentle. I need you."
I climb into the bed. The mattress shifts under our combined weight. The IV pole rocks slightly. I straddle his hips, positioning my knees on either side of his waist. He is enormous beneath me. I press my palms flat against his heavy pectorals. The Madonna rises and falls under my left hand. His heartbeat accelerates rapidly beneath my palm—from sixty-two to seventy-eight.
I bend down and kiss the thick, puckered scar on his collarbone. I trace the raised tissue with my tongue. He shudders, a deep vibration I feel in my lips.
I move lower. I find the gunshot divot on his ribs. I press my mouth against it. I kiss it the way I’d kiss a wound I intend to close. With deep attention. With care.
I move to the cigarette burns on his flank. I trace each one with my fingertip. Three, four, five small circles of raised, shiny scarring. I press my lips to each one, lingering on the damaged skin. He flinches on the third burn. His right hand shoots up and finds my hair again, gripping tight.
"Adrian." My name in his mouth is raw, stripped of all pretense.
I reach between us. My hand slides beneath the elastic waistband of his hospital pants. He’s incredibly hard. My fingersclose around him, and his hips lift off the mattress in a reflexive surge.
I stroke him. Slow. Measured. It is the exact same cadence I use with a needle driver. My thumb traces the broad head. His jaw clenches tight. His right hand grips the bedsheet, knuckles white. His left hand—the repaired hand—presses against my chest, the bandaged fingers curling against my skin. The nerve signals are traveling the newly restored pathways.
"You didn't break me," I say, bringing my face close to his. "You woke me up."
He pulls me down. His mouth finds mine, and the kiss is deeper now. Desperate. His right hand slides down my bare back, finds the waistband of my trousers, and pulls them down.
We shed the remaining fabric. It is a graceless negotiation, impeded by his splint and my position. Finally, we are skin against skin. The contrast is absolute. His dense chest hair against my smooth sternum. His thick, heavy thighs settled between my narrow ones.
I reach for the bedside table and grab a tube of surgical lubricant. My hands are perfectly steady as I prepare us. He watches me. His dark eyes track my every movement with absolute reverence.
I lower myself onto him. Slowly. The control is entirely mine this time. It is a choice made in a clean room with good light.
