Page 151 of Sticks and Stones
A bunch of bikers hadn’t used condoms, and they had random sex partners.
“And if you’re not sick?” he asked, trying to be optimistic and prove a point.
Corbin looked up at him, and his one eye was swollen, so he was struggling to focus on him.
“You saw the damage. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to be intimate with anyone again. They branded me, Ethan. I’m marked in ways I can’t even talk about.”
Ethan saw the mark.
“If this was me, Gene would stay with me until the end,” he admitted. “If it was Gene, I’d love him and never walk away. Love changes people, Corbin. Stop thinking about his reaction to the physical, and focus on the emotional connection.”
He just couldn’t.
Corbin’s body was a mess.
“I don’t think I can do it. When he gets a good look at me, and runs in horror, how do I face that? Because that’s going to hurt me even more.”
Ethan knew the man wasn’t thinking straight, and he certainly wasn’t listening.
Yes, he had seen Corbin’s body, and while he was a mess, he still had all of his working parts. His dick was swollen, his ass had been brutally taken, but he would heal.
Now, it would be mental over physical, and he knew it.
Corbin would need to see someone to work through this, but he wasn’t bringing that up to him now.
He’d have time later.
“Again, if he loves you, he’ll stick. For now, you’ll have to wait and see how he reacts, but you owe it to him to let him know where his boyfriend is. Wouldn’t you go looking for him if he disappeared?”
Corbin knew he would.
How could he not?
He loved Will.
The last few weeks had been chaos, and every time he had a free minute, he called the man. Corbin swung by his office to bring him lunch, or met him for a quickie to keep their connection going.
The man was always on his mind.
Even now, he was aching to see him, and dreading it at the same time.
“You need to give the people around you some grace as we do the same for you, Corby. We’re learning how to deal with this on the fly,” he admitted. “And you need to give us some credit too. You’re being hard on yourself without us ever giving you a reason to be.”
Corbin sighed.
“And you’d never leave Gene?” he asked.
Ethan shook his head and didn’t hesitate for a single second.
“Remember how you said you wanted to find someone to love, and that sex wasn’t the priority. Well, I can say with absolute certainty that if what happened to you had happened to Gene, I’d never leave him. Ever.”
He didn’t say a word.
“In fact, I’d fight even harder to be with him. What you see as broken, Corbin, I would see as someone needing me even more. What we all want is to be loved and needed.”
That hit home.
That had been all he wanted.
