I couldn’t tell if his text was teasing me in retaliation or if he was still trying to get in my pants. Not that I didn’t want him in my pants. I did. Quite badly, in fact. But I was more worried about hurting him than I was about the state of what I kept in my trousers. I took a couple deep breaths, quickly finished my first mug of coffee, and then walked back into the bedroom.
Elliot was sitting on the edge of the bed, looking up at me with a faux-innocent expression that I didn’t buy for a second.
“Elliot.”
“Seth,” he countered, his tone teasing.
I sighed, but couldn’t help the slight smile that tugged at my lips. “You aren’t going to behave even a little, are you?”
“Me?”
“Yeah, you.”
He grinned at me, that lopsided smile I loved so much. “Not if I can help it.”
I shook my head. “If you can’t get yourself to the bathroom, you shouldn’t be doingthat,” I told him firmly.
He narrowed his hazel eyes at me. “Would you like to supervise my trip to the bathroom?”
I crossed my arms over my chest and leaned against the door frame. “Go ahead,” I told him. I tried to look casual, but I was tense, ready to spring forward to catch him if he so much as wobbled.
He grabbed the cane from beside the bed with his good hand, then pushed himself up. With his sprained knee, walking was slow and painful, although he was much steadier with the cane than he had been when he’d come home from the hospital.
To my surprise—in a good way—he made it to the bathroom himself without losing his balance, and he turned to grin at me again when I followed him in. “See?”
“I see,” I replied.
“Help me in?”
“Don’t you need to take your pants off, first?” I asked him, and the minute it came out of my mouth I wondered when this had turned from him seducing me to me seducing him.
The sparkle in Elliot’s eyes told me he hadn’t missed it. “I only have one hand, and I need it to hold the cane…” He trailed off leadingly.
I gave in to the inevitable. I untied the drawstring on the sweat pants he’d been wearing when I’d half carried him to bed the night before, taking my time and enjoying the way his breath sped up as I undid the strings. The waist loosened, I slid my fingers around the inside of the gathered elastic, blood rushing south as my fingers brushed against the hot skin of his belly. He sucked in a breath, and the hand on the cane wavered a little.
“You should take them off me,” he told me.
“Should I?” I stepped closer, running my hands around to his back, pushing gently at the waistband.
“Fuck, yes.” The intensity in his voice sent tingles down my spine.
I pushed the knit fabric down, exposing the long lines of legs, the faint curve of his hip and thigh, the roundness of his ass, the half-erect thickness of his cock. He let out a soft whine.
I slowly began undoing the buttons on the flannel he was wearing, one sleeve hanging loose over the arm in its sling. I started at the bottom, working my way up, exposing belly, then sternum, then all the way up to where the sling held his arm immobile. I pushed the sleeve off the shoulder of his good arm, then pressed a kiss to the exposed skin in a place where there was neither scab nor bruise.
There weren’t a lot of them.
He must have seen the concern on my face. “Seth, stop worrying.”
“I don’t want to hurt you,” I objected. “You’re covered in scrapes and bruises.”
“I have a few places you can still touch,” he told me, his voice low.
I swallowed.
“But you should help me into the bathtub.”
“Okay,” I agreed, trying to figure out if he was taking advantage of the fact that my brain wasn’t working super well at the moment.
