Page 25 of State of Mind

Aksel hummed, then stood again. “I need to examine you—which I assume you know. Do you want Wilder to stay?”

Yes, his brain said, but it didn’t feel like that was his question to answer. None of this was Wilder’s fault, and they weren’t friends. They were barely acquaintances, and at this point, Luca was nothing more than a walking disaster. “You don’t need to.”

Wilder hesitated, but eventually he nodded and slowly detached from Luca’s hand. “I’ll be in the lobby, so if you need me…”

Luca shook his head, even as every fiber of his being was crying for Wilder not to leave him alone. He felt ridiculous—he felt like a child, nothing like a man of forty-three who should have had his shit together long before this. It was humiliating—which seemed to be the theme of his trip since leaving California.

But he couldn’t bring himself to call Wilder back. He closed his eyes and waited for the door to click shut, then breathed out, chest shuddering with the effort. “So, you want me to just, like…”

“Pants down to the ankles,” Aksel said.

He bent low and then pulled out a sheet, shaking it before laying it over Luca’s middle. Luca’s hands trembled a little as they fumbled with the button and zipper, but he managed to wriggle them off in spite of the pain, and then scooted all the way up until only his knees hung off the sides of the table. “Is this uh…good?”

“It’s fine for now.” Aksel gripped the end of the sheet, then met his gaze. “You’re going to be okay.”

Luca’s eyes went hot. “Right…but if there’s something actually wrong…”

“There’s a top urologist with an office about ten minutes down the road, and he can take care of anything I can’t. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with you, though.”

Luca blinked, but he didn’t think he was going to be able to hold back tears. The last few days had ravaged him, and now this… “It hurts.” His voice was barely a whisper, and he hated the look on Aksel’s face from it.

“It’s supposed to hurt. You don’t take a cow hoof to the balls and walk away like it was nothing. Especially when that little shit Kevin is behind it.”

Luca’s eyes widened, but his tears started to recede. He flinched when Aksel put on his gloves, then lifted the sheet, but the doctor didn’t touch him. Yet. “So, he’s done this before?”

“He usually tries to peck people’s eyes out…or runs them off the road,” Aksel said. He bunched the sheet up at Luca’s waist, then laid a hand on his thigh. “I’m going to touch you, okay? And I’m going to try and be delicate. I don’t want you hurting more than you already are.”

Luca bit his lip and nodded, then held his breath as he felt Aksel’s cool fingers manipulate his dick. Once upon a time, this might have even been a fantasy of his. A tall, gorgeous, blond doctor with a hint of an accent and a thousand-watt smile leaning in to kiss his dick better? But right now, the thought of getting hard again made his stomach roll.

As it was, Aksel’s delicate touch felt like he was being rammed all over again, and he only just managed not to cry out.

“So, the truth is, you can break your penis, and you can rupture testicles,” Aksel said, gently cupping his balls and manipulating them with his fingers. “Fortunately for you, I don’t think you’ve done either. You’re going to be sore for a while, but there’s no swelling, and everything seems intact.”

Luca swallowed thickly. “Oh.”

“Now, if you ejaculate and there’s blood…”

Paling again, Luca pushed himself up onto his elbow. “Seriously?”

“If there’s blood in your urine, or if you wake up and either your penis or your testicles are swollen, I want you to come back in right away.”

Luca groaned and dropped his head down to the thin paper covering the table. “Great.”

“It could be worse, Mr. Moretti.” He snapped his gloves off as Luca managed to get his boxers and jeans back on without too much more pain. “I am going to write you a script for some of the good shit. It does mean no more trips to the Tavern to yell at unsuspecting chefs…”

Luca flushed hotly. “I’m fucking sorry for that, okay? But I have a severe allergy and they didn’t put pine nuts on the damn menu. I panicked.”

Aksel froze, hands poised above the trash as he was throwing his paper towel away. “Really?”

“I’m not actually an asshole. Or well, mostly,” Luca muttered, dragging a hand through his hair.

Aksel’s face softened. “Ah well, aren’t we all just a little bit? My point still stands. I mean, you’re welcome to yell at whoever you want, but no drinking on these meds. And you might want to stay home and rest for a day or two. Frozen peas will work wonders for the pain.”

Luca nodded miserably and waited for Aksel to tap a few lines out onto his tablet. “I uh…thanks? For not making this more embarrassing as it already is.”

Aksel turned and looked at him for a long moment, then smiled even softer. “I’d share with you some of the shit I’ve gotten up to, but if you stick around long enough, you’ll hear the stories. And I am an asshole, Mr. Moretti. I’m a giant asshole, but I’m also a doctor, and I’m not going to make this whole experience worse for you. My job is to make it better.”

It wasn’t entirely comforting. He was glad the man was professional, but Luca couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to have people give a shit the way Aksel did simply because they wanted to—simply because he was worth it. He wasn’t sure anyone in his life cared for him that way.

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