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Josie moved so close her legs bumped into the edge of my wheelchair seat. She nudged my legs apart to fit hers between them and dropped her hands to the armrests. Her face lowered to mine. “I thought we could go green and shower together.”
Her gaze dipped to my chest then lower, lingering on the place I should have felt was about to burst if I didn’t bury myself inside Josie, which I already would have been busy doing if my back wasn’t busted . . . or if I hadn’t let my focus shift from VooDoo for half a second . . . or if I’d drawn another bull . . . or if I’d never climbed on top of a bull for the very first time as a kid. I could have been on top of Josie on the bathroom floor, making love to her the way she liked best—the way that required me covering her mouth when she came so we didn’t scare the neighbors a mile down the road. I could have felt her legs tightening around me as I moved inside her. I could have felt her pulsing around me as she came, pushing me the last little bit over the ledge of my own release if only . . .
If only nothing. Things were the way they were. I was what I was. No amount of wishing or dreaming or if only-ing could change that.
My hands lowered to the wheels, and I rolled myself back a few feet. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
When she’d tried flirting while curled up beside me in bed, my rejection had hurt her. It had been instant and unmistakable on her face. But now, instead of punching her pursuit into reverse, she shifted into a higher gear and sped forward. “Fine. You don’t have to shower with me if you don’t want to.” Winding her arms around her back, she unhooked her bra and slid the straps off her shoulders, one at a time, before letting it fall to the floor at her feet.
“Shit, Joze,” I breathed, rolling back a few more feet. The increased physical distance between us didn’t do anything to keep me from staring at her chest. Images of the way they’d felt in my hands or the way they moved when she was on top of me or how they tasted fired to life.
“My thoughts exactly.” Her fingers worked at the top button of her cut-offs. “Other way around though.”
“What do you mean?” I kept backing up until the wheelchair bumped into the wall.
“What I mean is, ‘Shit, Garth.’ I’m naked in fron
t of you, practically begging you to jump in the shower with me and soap me up good and clean after you finish doing filthy things to me, and your response is to back yourself into a corner and break out in a cold sweat.” She flailed her arms at me before tearing her cut-offs and panties down over her hips. When they landed at her feet, she slung them around her foot in my direction. The cut-offs fell on one of my feet, but the panties landed smack in my lap. They were silky and white, familiar from that time . . . “You remember those ones? God knows you’ve been acquainted with every pair of panties in my top drawer, but those ones you didn’t just slide off or rip off or push aside like the rest.”
I went from staring at the panties in my lap to her. She was naked and angry and ready and the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. I wanted to draw her close and give her what she wanted, but it was impossible. How could I get her to see that? And then to accept that?
“I remember,” I said slowly, trying not to let my mind drift too far or too long to that memory because it was a damn good one. To a point, memories were a man’s greatest comfort, but past that point, they became a man’s greatest torment.
“So what happened to the guy who sat beside me and just smiled when I slid out of those panties, gripped him with them the moment after I’d gotten his fly down, and rubbed one out under the table at that cowboy bar in Jackson last winter after he’d earned the highest score of his career? What happened to the guy who took me out to his truck five minutes later, laid me down, and flashed me another smile before putting his head between my legs so he could return the favor? What happened to him?” Her arms were flailing again, her voice echoing off the tile walls of the bathroom.
Instead of waiting for my answer, she charged to the shower, cranked the nozzle on, and leapt inside before it had had a chance to warm up. Thankfully the shower down here was a walk-in, so after adding a shower chair and a handheld shower head, it had worked out ideally for me. But right then, I wished it wasn’t so accessible. I wished I didn’t know I could just roll inside that shower and slide my hands all over Josie’s wet body. Because I wanted to. I fought with everything I had not to, but I wanted to so badly I could taste blood thanks to how hard I was biting my tongue.
“I can’t give you that, Joze,” I said, wishing she’d close the shower curtain and put me out of my misery . . . every other moment wishing she wouldn’t. “I’m sorry. I’d do a lifetime stint in hell to get another six inches below my waist to operate as well, but until the devil shows up at my door with a pen and a contract, I can’t do anything about it.” I swallowed against the ball trying to block every word I was saying. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
She turned to face me. A moment later, I found myself wheeling closer. As soon as I realized what I was doing, I stopped. She made a point of noticing my nearer proximity to the shower and lifted an eyebrow. “There are more ways to be intimate than using what resides south of your belt buckle, you know. Lots of ways.”
I felt my forehead wrinkle.
She shook her head at my apparent confusion. “Ways I know you’re familiar with based on experience.” Her tone sounded as if it was meant to be a nudge or a hint. “You’ve had no problem getting creative before, so what’s stinting your creativity now? Did your imagination get paralyzed too?”
My body flinched like she’d just shoved me. “Josie—”
“What? I don’t get it. I need to be close to you. I always have and always will.”
I couldn’t tell if she was crying or if the rivulets of water trailing down her cheeks were from the shower, but either way it looked as if she was crying. I pushed my chair closer until I could feel the steam across my face.
“Don’t you need to feel close to me too?” Her voice sounded small as her eyes dropped to the shower floor.
The tightness in my throat came back in full force. “Of course I do, Joze.”
Her eyes slowly lifted but not quite high enough to look at me. “Then what’s the problem?”
Sighing, I motioned between her and my lap. Josie was naked, water streaming down her, and inviting me closer, but I had absolutely nothing going on down there. Nothing. If I wasn’t so pissed off and frustrated, I might have cried. “Other than my malfunctioning dick?”
I hadn’t meant it to be funny, but I noticed a smile tug at the corners of her mouth as she reached for a bottle of body wash and squeezed some into her palm. “Other than that.”
When she turned away from me as she started to soap her skin, I found being vulnerable with her easier. For some reason, when her eyes were practically drilling holes through me, I found it more natural to tell her what I guessed she wanted to hear instead of the entire truth. “Isn’t it obvious?”
“No,” she almost snapped. “Whatever you’re doing all the way over there while I’m lathering my chest here, there is nothing obvious about it.”
Based on her experience with me before the accident, I understood her confusion. If she expected me to be the Garth from before instead of the Garth of right now, there was nothing obvious about what I was doing so far away from her. Part of me loved that she still saw me as that same man she’d fallen in love with, but the other part of me knew that would make everything so much harder . . . because I wasn’t that man. Realizing that brought on a surge of anger.
“I’m in a wheelchair, for Christ’s sake, Josie.” I motioned at my chair—which I very likely would spend the rest of my life in. More anger coursed through me. “I’m handicapped. I can’t move my legs. I can’t get it up. I can’t do anything a man my age should be able to do.” Mrs. Gibson was only a few rooms away, and I should have kept my voice down, but there was no possible way to keep my voice down while saying the things I was saying. “Like stand up to a man who’s disrespecting a woman. Or climb onto the back of a horse. Or drive a truck. Or take a piss on a fucking tree without having to cath myself first and wheel up to it. I’m half of a man, Joze.” My voice broke, so I got myself back together before saying the rest. “You should be repulsed by me, not curling your finger and inviting me closer. So no, I don’t understand why you’d want to be close to me after this.”
