After the Fall

Stay with me tonight ,” I wanted to say. But how to tell him I didn’t want to have sex? I just wanted to stay exactly like we’d been in the hallway and on the couch, holding on and kissing and occasionally staring at each other in utter bewilderment. Maybe eventually we’d get to the stripping down and the flesh and the friction, but all I wanted right now was for him to kiss me like that again. For the rest of the night. Or even just once before he left.
    I didn’t dare shift my center of gravity too far, but all I had to do was lift my chin, and he got the message. He kissed me again, slowly wrapping his arms around me and pulling our bodies together. His erection pressed against mine, and though I didn’t want to spoil this by going too far, I swore if I could have bent both my knees, I would’ve been on the floor sucking his cock right then.
    His lips left mine, but neither of us pulled back, and a second later, I kissed him again. That one lingered too, long past anything like a good-night kiss.
    Finally, he broke the kiss and whispered, “I should go.”
    Please don’t.
    “Okay,” I said. “See you tomorrow at five?”
    Ryan’s smile made my pulse go haywire. “Absolutely.”
    We moved to the door, exchanged one more kiss—just a light one this time—and then he was gone. After I’d closed the door behind him, I rested my forehead against it as I turned the dead bolt.
    He took two steps and stopped. Hesitating? Checking his phone or something? Glancing over his shoulder and thinking about backtracking?
    I’m here. Right here. All you have to do is turn around and come back.
    I held my breath. Listened. Begged my heart to slow down so I could hear him over it. Wondered what the hell we’d do if he did come back.
    But then his footsteps faded down the hall and finally down the stairs.
    I turned around and leaned against the door. Staring up at the ceiling, I couldn’t make sense of anything that had happened from the moment we’d reached the top of the steps until now. If not for the tingling on my lips and the rather uncomfortable hard-on, I’d have been convinced I’d imagined the entire thing.
    I closed my eyes and exhaled. Considering how we’d met, I should have learned by this point to expect the unexpected when it came to Ryan.
    He’d been helping me out, and he’d been flirting in his own subtle way, and then suddenly he was kissing me, and it made perfect sense for us to be kissing like that. Except it didn’t. But it did. I’d been tripping over my own feet around him since day one, and I couldn’t put my finger on anything I dis liked about him, so why the hell not? Well, besides the fact that I hadn’t expected him to be the one to make the move.
    And then there was the fact that a kiss like that meant sex was a possibility, and sex sometimes led to relationships, and relationships led to shit I had no desire to deal with again, but . . .
    Christ.
    So he’d made the move I hadn’t had the balls to make, and now we’d crossed this line, and . . . now what? I didn’t have a clue. When I’d punched him on the trail, I probably hadn’t knocked him half as senseless as his gentle kiss had just knocked me.
    I adjusted my grip on my crutch. Then I headed down the hall to my bedroom, though I didn’t see sleep in my near future. I was losing my mind. Maybe instead of getting my leg and hand checked at the ER, I should have had the doc check out my goddamned head.

Somehow, I was supposed to concentrate at work.
    I’d gotten the hang of maneuvering through the day with these damned casts on and was even starting to write quasi-legibly with my left hand. I hadn’t, however, banked on having to work with Ryan on my mind like this.
    Last night hadn’t left me unsatisfied, but it had damn sure left me wanting more. What would it be like to kiss him like that while we were both naked? As if it hadn’t been hot enough fully clothed. I wanted to know what he felt and tasted like when he’d reached that point of no return, when he was too turned on to think about anything except climaxing. Climaxing on me, in me, in my mouth, anywhere. Jesus Christ, he probably made the most amazing sounds when he—
    The clinic’s front door opened, dragging me out of my wandering thoughts as Jason strolled in behind his stepson, Dylan.
    “Hey,” he said. “I just came by to grab—” He stopped abruptly and did a double take at my leg.
    I resisted the urge to groan. “Please tell me