Page 81 of The Quiet After The Fall

“I’m good.” He attempts to sit up and bites back a hiss. “Knox, just stay down. Your ribs.”

“They’re fine,” he lies. The way his jaw locks tells me exactly how not fine they are.

“Sure. That’s why you look like you’re about to pass out just sitting up.” I press my fingertip against his sternum with easy pressure, and he actually listens for once, sinking back against the pillow with a breath that shudders on the way out. “I mean it. Don’t move. I’ll be right back.”

I get him a glass of water and a couple ibuprofen, and he swallows both without arguing, very un-Knox like. He’s never this compliant. I could get used to it.

“Good boy,” I tease. “Maybe you need to get your ass beat everyday…makes you a good listener.”

“Ha. Ha.”

I turn back to grab an ice pack and a granola bar. It’s about the only edible thing I have in the place right now. He takes them like a dutiful patient and once he’s got some color back and he’s not groaning with each deep breath, I take a good look at him. It’s dim in here, but ugh, he’s crusty as hell.

“I’m going to run you a bath. You need heat on those ribs before they seize up worse.”

“I don’t⁠—”

“Hey, who’s in charge here?” I raise a brow. “Bath. Now.”

He glares at me, but it’s weak, and within minutes, I have him up and in the bathroom. I turn to run the water while he pees, and when he reaches my side, I get a good look at those ribs in the light. My stomach drops all over again. One side is worse than the other—large splotches of purplish black with raised puffy skin around the area. It reminds me of the paint color I wanted for my bedroom during my broody phase in middle school. Glad Mom talked me out of it.

When he finds me scrutinizing, he hides them with his palm. “Think he was wearing steel toe boots. Looks worse than it feels, though.”

“Bullshit.”

He grimaces in response.

When the tub is half full, he lowers himself in with a hiss through his teeth, eyes falling shut the second the heat hits him.

I back away a step, but his voice stops me.

“Stay,” he says without opening his eyes. “Please.”

I swallow hard. “Okay, sure.”

“Not asking for help. Just don’t want to be alone right now.”

If anyone understands that, it’s me. I kneel on the bath mat and push up my sleeves, reaching for the clean washcloth. His half lidded eyes follow the path of my hands as I dip it into the water and squeeze some body wash on.

I start with his shoulders, dragging the cloth along one, then the other. “So tell me about that paperwork you found. About Velocity?”

“That your plan? Get me all relaxed so I spill my secrets?”

Just to be a brat, I drag the washcloth lower, down his abdomen, stopping right above his pelvis. “You already told me everything, remember? Your long-winded word vomit.”

His breath catches as I, not so subtly, let my knuckles graze his hardening cock. “Fuck, Sawyer⁠—”

“You said our fathers did some shady shit? Something with the foundation?” His hand finds mine under the water, holding it in place right over his bobbing length.

“Please. I beg you,” he says, tormented. “Don’t talk about our fathers when you’re teasing my dick.”

A smile lifts the corner of my lips. “I’m not. I’m just helping you get clean.”

Then his eyes meet mine, pupils blown. Holding my gaze, he pulls the washcloth from my hand and guides my fingers around him instead. “You’re not?”

How is he so hard when he’s this beat up?

“No.” It comes out in a rush of breath. I hate to admit that he’s affecting me. We shouldn’t. I shouldn’t. He’s got bruises the size of dinner plates, and what we have is still a complicated mess. But his fingers tighten around my hand until I’m holding him in a tight fist and he guides me higher, up to his head, then back down. One slow pump.