Page 64 of Styx & Stones

“No, don’t stop. I can take it. I’m no stranger to pain. I’ve had chemo and a metric fuck-ton of needles, remember?”

“I don’t want to hurt you.” I study her gaze as I hold my weight off her body. “Fuck. The last thing I ever want is to hurt you.”

“I’m okay. Just do it,” she says, but she cries harder with every thrust.

This sucks. Jesus, this sucks so fucking much. I hate hurting her. I hate that it feels so good for me, regardless of how much pain I’m causing her.

I rest my forearms either side of her head, gently stroking back her hair and kissing away her tears as I thrust in as shallowly as I can. Stones shoves me deeper with her heel on my ass. She cries out and I kiss her face.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” I whisper it over and over like a fucking mantra. Then I groan and come inside her.

I feel like shit the whole time. I’m an eighteen-year-old who finally lost his fucking virginity, and after all that this illness has taken from me, from her, from us, I couldn’t even enjoy it because it meant hurting her.

I lie there trembling as my mind threatens to give over to sleep, but I’m not okay. She’s not okay, so how can I be?

I push up onto my elbows and slide free of her body. Blood stains the towel beneath her. Alaska’s eyes widen as she stares. I guess we’re both surprised by how much there is.

I slide off the condom and discard it in the trash. My dick bobs as the cold air assaults it. I need a shower. I’m so fucking tired, I just want to fall into bed and sleep for a hundred years, but I hold out my hand.

She stares at it.

“Come on.”

“What?”

“Come shower with me.”

“No, we’ll get our lines wet. I’ll just clean up after you.”

Shit. I didn’t think of that. I glance at the few remaining sterile dressing kits in her bag. I could always head back to the drug store afterward.

“Nope,” I say. “Not happening. You’re coming with me, little lady. If they get wet, we’ll change the dressings.”

She screws up her nose. “I just did mine.”

I get to my feet and hold my hand out again. She doesn’t take it. “Take my fucking hand, Alaska.”

“Alaska? You never call me that. It sounds like I’m in trouble.”

“You will be if you don’t take my hand.”

Finally, she places her hand in mine, and I pull her from the bed into the tiny bathroom. Stones stares at her reflection in the grimy mirror above the sink. She’s glassy-eyed and her cheeks are pink, flushed with embarrassment or from crying, I’m not sure which.

After a crap ton of prepping her line, and my port, with waterproof guards, gauze, and medical tape; she leans against the vanity as I run the shower. Her legs and arms tremble. “I thought I’d look different.”

“You do.” I wrap my arms around her waist and press a kiss to her shoulder.

“Shut up. No I don’t.”

“No. You’re right; you don’t look different. But you’re still just as fucking gorgeous as you were an hour ago.”

She shrugs out of my embrace and shoves me toward the shower. “Go wash your stink off, you fucking cornball.”

I grab her hand and tug her into the cubicle with me. Once the curtain is closed behind us, there’s barely any room to move at all. We both shuffle awkwardly to get under the spray. I grab the soap, and almost elbow Stones in the face, then I turn her so she’s facing the wall and pull her tight against me, washing her shoulders, her tits, and wrapping my arms around her from behind. She takes the soap from my hands and runs it along my arms, up my shoulders, and the back of my neck. And I busy my hands in other ways, with her tits, her hips, and finally her stomach and lower abdomen.

Her hand grips my wrist tightly. “No. It hurts.”

“I’ll make it better. I promise.”