Total pages in book: 87
Estimated words: 83340 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 417(@200wpm)___ 333(@250wpm)___ 278(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83340 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 417(@200wpm)___ 333(@250wpm)___ 278(@300wpm)
I took a step toward him, then another and another until I stood right in front of him. I cupped his face, held it, felt his breath against my lips. “I see you, Hutch. You matter. You don’t have to get in trouble to get my attention the way you did with your parents when you were a kid. You don’t have to be a certain kind of doctor, or have any specific career, or do whatever events I wanted to show you off at for you to have my attention. It’s yours, and you deserve even more.” Because Hutch didn’t feel like he deserved it, did he? Whether it was isolating himself, or acting out when he was younger, or trying to make his family happy while figuring out how to be his own man, what Hutch was searching for was acceptance…love…attention. To feel like he mattered because he’d spent his life living in his sister’s shadow. It wasn’t her fault, but that didn’t make it less true.
His hands moved to my waist, held tightly, our foreheads coming together. I lowered one hand to his hip, rested the other on the back of Hutch’s neck, as we stood there, in the middle of my living room, breathing each other’s air.
“I want you, Ryder… God, I want you so fucking much; it’s eating me away inside. Why does it have to be you I can’t get out of my head? Why is it you I think about first thing when I wake up and last thing before I go to sleep?” He tugged my hips close to his, and we both trembled. “Why is it you who makes me feel alive in ways I didn’t know were possible? The one person I can never have.” His words wrapped themselves around my heart.
I swept my thumb over his nape, fought the urge to kiss his lips that were so damn close to mine. I smelled mint on his breath; our noses brushed, our bodies touching as we inhaled and exhaled in unison.
“I want you too.” Our lips grazed when I spoke. “I feel you… Down to the marrow of my bones, I feel you, this rightness I didn’t even know I was missing. Like a part of me was waiting for you all along. No matter how hard I try, I can’t make it go away.” Another accidental skimming of lips set my entire body aflame. I wanted to press harder, to take his mouth and see what he tasted like. To strip him bare. To lick and kiss and touch while we battled for dominance to see who got to take who…before eventually being inside him or giving myself to him.
I wanted our pasts to be different. For our connection to each other to be different.
But it wasn’t, so with a sigh, I pulled back. Hutch’s arms fell to his sides, but I couldn’t walk away, not fully. I had to be there for him, to comfort him, so I took his hand and pulled.
“What are you doing?”
“Taking care of you. Being there when you need someone because you haven’t had that and you deserve it.”
I led him to the couch and pushed so he fell down to it. “So bossy,” he teased, sounding more like himself.
I lowered to my knees and began to take one shoe off. I loved that he wore sneakers and jeans with a dress shirt and tie.
“Ryder…?”
“Shut up and let me do this.” I removed one shoe, then the other, before tugging his tie off and dropping it to the floor. I moved up and sat on the couch, thankful I’d gotten an extra-long sectional.
I was on the edge and nodded for him to come closer, patting my thigh. Hutch lay down and put his head on my lap, my fingers immediately running through his hair, massaging his scalp.
“Couch safer than the bed, huh?”
I chuckled. “Absolutely.” More rubbing, pampering. “Do you want to talk about your patient?”
Hutch closed his eyes. “Car accident. He coded. I tried…but it wasn’t enough.”
“It’s life, Hutch. It’s not your fault.”
“Feels like it is.” He looked at me again.
“The anxiety?”
“Hasn’t been a problem much since college and med school, but I’ve noticed it a bit more recently.”
“You need to take care of yourself. Are all doctors this bad at self-advocating or just you?”
He gave me a small grin but didn’t answer my question. “Chuck Johnson tried to set me up with his daughter tonight, and I wanted to tell them, to say I couldn’t because I wanted someone else.”
I smiled. There was no denying I liked hearing him say he wanted me. “But you said no?”
“I said no.”
I breathed a sigh of relief, though I had no right to. Hutch wasn’t mine and probably never would be.
“I feel like the only time I have his attention is if I’m doing something wrong, or if there’s something he wants from me, or when he wants to show me off. It’s never just…you’re doing a good job, son; you’re enough. It’s always what I could do better, or who he wished I were, or…nothing at all. Why the fuck do I care?”