Page 25 of Chasing You

Adele’s heart began to race. “You—are you fucking kidding me? When have I ever seemed better off without you?”

Kash shook his head against the pillow. “I’m not saying it was a rational thought. I just…I don’t know. I figured once you processed your divorce and started realizing that she was wrong, not you, things would get better. You’d meet someone else and be a happy family.”

“Even if that had happened, my family is neither happy nor complete without you. You’re my other fucking half, and you know this.” Adele tried to stifle his anger because it wasn’t really Kash’s fault. He hadn’t been great at showing all that over the years. “We both suck at this.”

Kash laughed and rested his forehead against Adele’s arm. “Yeah, we do.”

Silence fell, and then Adele said, “Talk to me now. Tell me everything.”

For a while, he thought Kash was going to ignore him, but then he began to speak so softly Adele had to strain tomake out the words. “I’m relieved but still afraid. Anything I have is probably lifelong. This could be my new normal, and it sucks.”

“Yeah.”

“Every one of my specialists thinks I need to get a wheelchair for days when walking is too hard—and it’s not like I’m ashamed of that. But it’s forcing me to acknowledge out loud that this is it. I don’t get my old life back.”

Adele cracked. He didn’t care if Kash felt what his body was doing. He curled into him and pulled him tight against his chest. Kash breathed out a sigh of relief and went boneless, like he’d been waiting for Adele to take him into his arms.

“Some days, it’s fine. Some days, I find clever little workarounds to do shit like brush my teeth or put my socks on with fingers that won’t function, but…sometimes I can’t.” He let out a frustrated noise and pressed his hands to Adele’s chest. It was then he felt it. They were in tight fists, and he knew that wasn’t on purpose. “I can’t even jerk off anymore. My arms get tired when I try, and my fingers won’t cooperate, and…and it’s dehumanizing. You keep mentioning me falling in love, but who would want to put up with spending a lifetime with a guy who can’t even jerk you off?”

Adele would. And he knew a few other folks who would easily fall for a man like Kash—a good man with a heart of actual gold who would give his life for a stranger if it came down to that being the only choice. None of them would care what Kash could or couldn’t do.

But he also knew a lot of people were shitty and cruel, and Kash wasn’t talking out of his ass. He was talking from experiencing the world. Adele had seen it with his own twoeyes as people abandoned their own children because of disabilities.

So he understood the fear.

But he was on the verge of something—maybe moronic, maybe it would ruin everything—but it was late, and the veil he was holding up between the thing he wanted and knowing what it would ruin was too thin.

“I could help.”

“Adele—”

“I’ve done it before. We both have.”

Kash’s whole body went stiff. “That was different.”

“I know, but so is this.” And he meant it. He couldn’t turn off how he felt, but he could also do this with no strings. No expectations. He could give Kash something no one else could. “I told you anything I could do to help, I would.”

“This is going a little far, isn’t it?” Kash laughed, the sound thready, but he was leaning in toward Adele, his hips rocking almost unconsciously.

He was hard. OhGod.

“It doesn’t have to be anything other than a hand,” Adele whispered. He ran his fingers up Kash’s naked spine, then over the top of his shoulders, and down along his sternum. “Just a hand.”

“Your hand,” Kash said tightly. “You’re notjustsome guy.”

Adele started to pull away, but Kash let out a soft whimper, and he froze. “Keep going?”

Kash was silent, but then Adele felt him nod. “Just your hand?”

“Just my hand.” Adele swallowed heavily. His own dick was straining against his boxers, but he kept his hips back so Kash wouldn’t feel it. He trailed the pads of his fingersover Kash’s thick chest hair, over his stomach, which jumped beneath his touch, and then to the waistband of his boxers, which were tented and damp in the front.

He opened the slit, and Kash’s thick, uncut cock slipped free, hitting the fabric with a dull thud. Adele swallowed thickly, hungrily, against a dry throat. He wanted nothing more to undress him. To kiss him. To lean in and take all this skin on display.

But that wasn’t on the table.

“Are you hard?” Kash asked.

Adele’s cheeks flamed red, and as much as he wanted to lie, he couldn’t. “Yeah.”

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