Lawyers In Love: Bittersweet Homecoming by Ann Jacobs Read Free Book Online Page A

Gray held very still. Maybe they wouldn’t bother with him if they thought he’d passed out.
    Suddenly he awakened. Soft light streamed through half-closed vertical blinds, not bars. A glance around the spacious room revealed no hard-packed earth, no sweating walls to drip foul-smelling water over his aching flesh.
    Gray was home, and it was morning. Time to get up, begin a new life that suddenly had new meaning. He had a son. Brett.
    And Andi. Had she meant it when she kissed him yesterday, or had that kiss been, as she’d said, merely to see if he tasted as good as she remembered? He dared not assume she meant more, or that she wanted more of whatever he might be able to give her sexually.
    Still he wondered. He imagined Andi’s lithe silky body under his hands, getting wet and hot while he stroked her incredibly soft, sensitive skin. When he thought of Andi on her knees over his face, begging him to lick her pussy—or straddling him, welcoming his cock into her hot, wet cunt—his balls felt as though they’d burst.
    For a minute he fantasized that he still could satisfy her…that with his voice and his hands he could arouse her as much as he’d once done by sweeping her off her feet, fucking her standing up while they showered together. Shit, he couldn’t even top her anymore unless she wanted to risk being squashed under his still substantial weight.
    He transferred himself to his chair and headed for the bathroom. The persistent throbbing in his groin didn’t go away until he hit it with a frigid blast from the showerhead. Not that Gray didn’t welcome the arousal. He did. It was a welcome reminder that he’d been spared a permanent spinal injury. That unlike some of the paraplegics he’d met at the rehab center, he could still have sex.
    Of course there were plenty of ifs to that. If he could get past the mental hurdle of letting a partner see all his scars. If he could find a woman who could look past them and see him. If he could swallow his pride and ask her to take the leading role in bed.
    When he looked at himself he had trouble believing a woman could want him now. Particularly Andi, whose voracious sexual appetite had taxed him to satisfy when he’d been whole.
    Maybe if he had the surgery…
    No. The risk was too great. The operation to drain and shunt the cyst that had formed at the site of the injury that caused his spinal stenosis could improve his mobility as well as alleviating the pain. Unfortunately it might as easily sever his spinal cord.
    At least the constant pain let him know he was still alive. And he had control over his bodily functions. All of them. He wouldn’t if the cord were severed at the point of the injury. He’d leave well enough alone.
    Gray shoved dreams of sex to the back of his mind. Instead he thought of Brett and all the things he wanted them to do together. They’d start making up for lost time right away.
    Damn. He could barely stand looking at his fractured face without the concealing patch. Pity he couldn’t very well bathe and shave with the thing in place. As he raked the electric razor over his cheeks and chin, he considered whether he could manage a trip to Disney World. Or maybe deep sea fishing in the Keys. He and Andi could take Brett…
    What the hell was he doing, picturing outings not just with his son, but with Andi too? He had to be losing his mind, imagining the three of them doing things as a family.
    No matter how he tried over the next few days, Gray couldn’t banish that impossible scenario from his mind. By Friday morning, he found himself longing for
six o’clock
, when Andi had said she and Brett would arrive to spend the weekend.
     
    * * * * *
    “How much longer will it be before we get there?”
    Andi glanced at the snarl of cars on Courtney Campbell Causeway, then grinned at Brett. “About twenty minutes, if we ever get out of this traffic jam.”
    She’d take her bungalow in old Hyde Park any day rather than fight the rush hour