She's skilled at her job, which means spending any amount of time alone with her, she’d be capable of reading me like an open book.
I shove the walker to the side after taking a seat on the wooden chair sitting in the entry way. I hate how tired I get. How some days exhaustion creeps up and others, it hits me out of nowhere. Right now, I feel like I'm being bombarded with a little bit of both. Waking up tired is frustrating. Not being capable of doing the things that I know my body never struggled with before enrages me.
Slick disappears down the hallway, taking the first door on the right with her duffel bag. I'd like to do nothing more than curl up in bed and go to sleep, but I’m sticky and sweaty from exertion.
My left leg aches from taking on all the work required to get around. My shoulders ache like they do the day after a hard workout at the gym. My head throbs. My incision pulses, despite being nearly completely healed. If I could go to sleep and wake up whole, I’d sleep for however long it took and add an extra year for good measure.
I'm torn between wanting to hurry up and get better on the chance that I get to return to Cerberus and knowing I’m unable to face the disappointment in my team members’ eyes for what I did. Guilt eats away at me for losing my cool, for putting everyone in danger, for risking the possibility that they could have ended up as injured as I was or worse.
I don't call out for Slick and ask for help as I attempt to stand up from the chair. This chair is easier to maneuver than the cushion one on the plane.
God, that fucking kiss. I can't stop thinking about it, despite wanting to. Her rejection, the cold way she explained why it happened, as if I have no control over my body even in that situation, fucking kills me. I would consider myself a ladies’ man. I haven't lacked for female attention much in my life. I've been rejected before, but the sting of her rejecting me is hitting me differently than any that came before it.
She kissed me back and although I can tell how much she enjoyed it from the little whimper that escaped her throat, I can't help but feel like she was placating me. That there was nothing behind her kiss emotionally. I think I would have kissed her forever had she allowed it.
I could get lost in her mouth and nothing else mattered but being a man. It's something I've struggled with since getting hurt in Costa Rica, feeling as if I have less to offer now because of my injury. For a split second with her lips on mine, all of it, the pain, feeling incomplete, it disappeared.
Despite being a sexual creature, despite being a man who seeks out the warmth of a woman's body every time we get back from a mission, I hadn't thought about sex since getting hurt. It all came roaring back the second she leaned in. She wasn’t going for a kiss, she was helping me out of the chair, but that didn't stop my mind from diverting to that exact situation. I acted without thinking and even after her professional explanation and rejection, I can’t allow myself to regret it.
It reminded me of who I am, the type of man I could be. I'm not a narcissist. I think I have a healthy amount of ego that comes along with being a member of an elite team. My fitness level is much higher than the average person. I'm healthy. I know I’m attractive. I've been told more times than I can count how good looking I am. My track record in the bedroom proves it as well.
I shouldn't let it bother me that she isn't interested. Hell, I shouldn't be interested. It's dangerous. If my actions in Costa Rica didn’t compromise my return to Cerberus, getting involved with a team member will.
Lasting relationships aren't my thing. Having people worry about me when I'm gone doesn’t appeal to me. Needing someone to rely on, someone to worry about me, is a weakness. Many of the men on the Cerberus teams have significant others, but I don't want to be responsible for anyone else’s emotions, especially when I'm working.
Slick doesn’t immediately come out of the bedroom she selected, but I avoid looking inside the open door as I shuffle past to my own room.
I don't consider that I’ll need clothes or toiletries as I head into the bathroom. All I know is I need to wash the sweat off of me and sleep for a couple of days.
I grind my teeth noticing the bathroom is eerily similar to the one at the VA Hospital in Houston, with handicap rails beside the toilet and in the shower. I know I need them, but the sight of them is a never-ending reminder I'm no longer the man I once was.