Page 87 of Smoky Mountain Dreams
“I see that, babe. Shooting for me. I see everything aboutyou.”
Christopher shook beneath him, coming apart, his ballspulling up tight and hard, his cock jerking and nothing coming out, empty andstill coming.
“Open your eyes. I want you to see me too. See how hard I’mfalling for you.”
Because it was too soon and stupid as fuck, but Jesse Birchwas in head-over-heels love with Christopher Ryder, and he wanted him to see iton his face when he came for him.
Christopher shook and trembled, cursing and jerking so longthat Jesse was sure he was going to miss Jesse’s orgasm. But when Jesse startedto tense, cursing and murmuring, “Babe, babe,fuck,I’m gonna come for you,” Christopher opened his eyes to see as Jesse hit thepoint of no return. He came so blindingly hard. No idea if he kept his eyesopen for Christopher, no idea what his face looked like when the pleasurewrenched through him in powerful pumps. It was all sensation and emotion andconnection running through him hard and strong. He collapsed on Christopher’schest, his body heaving, hips still pumping, and his balls twinging from thestrength of his orgasm.
Christopher held him and kissed his hair, occasionallyjerking beneath him as his own pleasure seemed to echo through his body.
“I saw you,” he whispered against Jesse’s neck finally.
“Oh, babe. I sawyou,” Jessesaid, and Christopher clung to him even tighter.
“Okay,” Christopher said, spreading jam on toastwearing only his underwear because he’d rather gallantly, in Jesse’s opinion,given him his robe. “Next pour in the water until it hits the two. That’ll makeenough for us both to have a cup.”
Jesse fiddled with the coffee maker. It was late forcaffeine, but Jesse knew they were going to be up all night and not for morefun, but for the hard work of figuring out what they had started together. Andthat meant helping Christopher understand Marcy.
Christopher handed him the plate with toast on it, and thenpulled out a kitchen chair. He collapsed into it and brushed his hair out ofhis tired eyes. “So, I understand what happened with Marcy now. I understandthat she’s attached to machines and is, for all intents and purposes, dead, buttechnically she’s still alive. And you’re still married to her. Now I just needto understand the rest. The stuff you were angry about earlier—about Ronnie andthe lawsuit.”
Jesse sighed and poured the freshly brewed coffee into mugs.He sat down opposite Christopher and passed him one. “I want to let her go.Ronnie doesn’t.”
“But you’re her husband. Shouldn’t you have the final say?Wasn’t there some huge legal battle settled a while back that made that clear?”
“The Terri Schiavo case. Yeah. But our situation isdifferent. See, Ronnie has a legal, valid Healthcare Power of Attorney forMarcy. It gives her the power to make all of her healthcare decisions andsupersedes my right to make medical choices for her as her husband.”
Christopher frowned. “Why would she do that? Was it becauseof your marriage problems? Didn’t she trust you?”
“She trusted me. We always trusted each other.” Jesse rubbedhis face. “See, that’s the thing. It was an old document from before ourmarriage. She signed it when she was having a cyst removed from an ovary whenshe was nineteen. Her doctor insisted on her having one before performing thesurgery due to the dangers of general anesthesia, I guess. At the time, Ronniewasn’t quite the Bible thumper she’s become, and I really think Marcy believedthat if something happened to her during the surgery, Ronnie would let her go.”
“Why didn’t she sign it over to her parents?”
“I’m only guessing here, but I think she just didn’t want toput her parents in that position if something went wrong. Whatever the case, Idon’t think she signed that form thinking that Ronnie would keep her attachedto machines indefinitely and at all costs.”
“And then what?”
“She just forgot she had the form, I think. I didn’t knowanything about it until months after the accident happened, and Ronnie showedup with it right when I was finally prepared to accept the doctors’ prognosisand let her go.”
“What did Marcy believe about this kind of thing? Did youknow?”
“Sure. Marcy and I had talked more than once about end oflife choices, especially back when that Schiavo case was on the news. She didn’twant a funeral, or to be buried, and she didn’t want to be kept alive onmachines.”
“Was she religious?”
“Not really. We never went to church. Ronnie was alwayspretty active in the church Nova and Tim attended, but when she went to collegeshe went off the rails with it.”
“How does that kind of thing happen?”
“She got knocked up and the guy talked her into having anabortion. I know a lot of women have abortions and have no regrets, or maybehave regrets they can live with, but it wasn’t like that for Ronnie. Shestarted going to a fundamentalist church and she met her husband there. I guessshe found what she needed. They’ve raised their kids in that church, too.”
Christopher took a bite of his toast and jam, chewedthoughtfully, and then said, “It looks like our families have more in commonthan I thought.”
“Ronnie’s an outlier in my family, but she’s a vocal one.She wasn’t always…she’s not a bad person,” he admitted. “She’s nice even, Iguess. But we’re never going to see eye-to-eye on this. Never.”
Christopher shook his head. “So, you’re telling me becauseyour wife signed a piece of paper forever ago and then forgot about it,everything she told you about what she wanted her death to be like just goesout the window in favor of her sister’s religious beliefs?”
“Yeah. Legally that’s how it works.”
