I took in the long, rippled scar running from one side to the other, similar to a smile line. The skin around it was smooth, and when I traced it with my fingertip, Nolan began to pull away, clearly uncomfortable with the attention I'd given it.
Needing to keep him with me, and not wanting him to push me away, I gently pressed a barely-there kiss to the scar tissue. My tongue peeked out through my parted lips and lightly grazed his soft flesh. I moved upward along his inner thigh toward the part of him still throbbing in my other hand.
His hips bucked slightly, his struggle obvious in the way his hands gripped the edge of the table behind him, his knuckles turning bright white. Every muscle in his entire body seemed to have gone rigid, strained. His breaths were short and shallow, yet harsh and frantic, filling the quiet air with desperation. I chanced a peek up at him and noticed his eyes tightly shut, his lips sealed in a hard line, and the muscles in his jaw ticking in quick succession.
Observing his reaction to me, the reason behind his restraint was unclear. I couldn't tell if it was sexual, caused by my touch, or if it was his pained response to being so bare in front of me-my attention to his deepest insecurity. I hoped for the first, but in the event it was the latter, I moved all my focus to his erection.
I started slow-unhurriedly stroking his shaft while exploring it and the area around it with my tongue and lips. My free hand cupped his balls, which earned me a steady hiss through his clenched teeth. Even after I'd taken him into my mouth, I kept the pace dauntingly slow, savoring it.
I'd given blowjobs before … but never like this. Never had I been so consumed by the act, so in-tune to everything. Every gasp, every strained muscle, every tiny movement. This was not done for the purpose of foreplay or to lengthen a sexual experience. This was simply meant to please Nolan. To show him what he refused to believe.
His breathing enticed me. The way his grip tightened in my hair, the frantic movements of his hips, the tremors running through his leg as he steadied himself against the table … all of it motivated me, pushed me to go further, please him more.
Show him everything.
No longer did I question his restraint. I had him, all of him, in that moment. No insecurities. No doubt or fear. Nothing existed between us except our strong and natural connection. My love. His gratitude.
And for the first time, I believed wholeheartedly we were on the road to somewhere. We were headed in the right direction. His resolve began to slip away, break away piece by piece. The beautiful boy who'd been buried beneath years of self-hatred, pain, and anger slowly began to emerge.
I'd promised him I wouldn't push.
But I couldn't sit idly by any longer.
Lying in bed with Nolan, curled into his side, I allowed the easy thrum of his heartbeat to lull me into a peaceful state. He'd been unusually quiet since we came back to his room. I wanted to talk, to get him to open up, but fear muzzled me.
Nolan broke the silence when he kissed my forehead and whispered, "I love you." The sentiment warmed me and put a genuine smile on my lips.
"Can I ask you something?" I said, and the only response I got from him was a sleepy hum. "What was it like … you know, after losing your leg?"
His body stiffened beneath me, and I worried he'd clam up again. But I needed him to talk. I had to get him to lower his walls enough to let me in. I figured having him relaxed and settled would be the perfect time to pry.
"A lot of pain."
I rolled back so my neck rested on his arm, allowing me to tilt my head enough to see his face. It was dark in the room, but my eyes had adjusted to the glowing moonlight filtering in through the window. It was just enough to make out his expression and watch it change.
Not making me press for more, he continued. "As soon as I got back stateside, my dad had me in with all these different specialists. I was fortunate for that, because so many men come back and have to wait for either financial aid to get treatment, or suffer the process of going through the VA."
"What was it like? What did you have to do?"
"I had to learn how to walk again. Which isn't easy. It's more difficult than most people think. My body had been used to moving one way, and it suddenly couldn't anymore. You don't think about walking; you just do it. But I couldn't."
"How long did you have to wait before you did that? What is the healing process like?"
He let out a humorless chuckle. "There was no healing time. The doctors my father had hired were specialists in amputations. They'd spent years and years studying it, analyzing everything about the procedures and how it affects the body. And they believed rehab had to start taking place as I healed, not after."
"But I don't understand. How could you do that?"
A deep huff blew past his lips as he blinked up toward the ceiling. After a moment, he took my hand from his chest and moved it beneath the blanket until my arm was stretched across his body and my fingers touched his thigh. He grew so stiff beneath me, and I knew this couldn't have been easy for him.
Pride filled me and swirled around in my chest.
"These muscles"-he used my hand to press into the top of his strained thigh-"used to be attached to the bone right above my knee. But they had to cut above that, so in order to reattach the muscle, they had to more or less sew it to the bottom of the bone."
I shivered as he explained the process. His words alone were enough to cause me sympathy pains. I couldn't imagine what it had been like for him to actually live through it.
"As you can probably imagine, putting weight on it was impossible. So it was something I had to work up to."
"How did you do that?"
"I used an artificial leg I had to strap around my hips. It was so fucking painful and uncomfortable, but it was the only way. It took a while to finally be able to use a regular prosthetic."
I moved my hand to his shoulder and kissed his chest, curling into him more. Hearing him explain it all to me didn't help me understand him more, but I didn't care. The reason for my contentment was from the fact he had explained it. Progress.
"It's ugly," he mumbled as I relaxed against him once more. "It's freakish and ugly, and I wish you hadn't seen it."
His body had been tense during his account of the amputation. His voice sounded steady as he spoke, like he was giving a speech about the topic. But as he admitted the last part, the rigidness of his muscles deflated. He sank more into the bed as he turned into dead weight, and his tone deepened, heavy with torment and sorrow. It took me by surprise and left my heart bleeding for him.
Keeping my face pressed against his chest, I asked, "Do you love me?"
"More than anything else in this world." His arm curled around my back and pulled me closer to him, holding me against his side.
"Would you still love me if I gained two hundred pounds?"
"Yes, of course." His tone held an air of question to it.
"What about if I got chicken pox and it left me with pockmarks all over my body? Or I fell into a pile of poison ivy and every inch of my skin was covered in a rash. Or what if-"
"Novah … " He squeezed his arm around me, interrupting my point. "It doesn't matter if you turned blue and lost all your hair, or developed some sort of perspiration issue and smelled like sweaty socks. I'd still love you."
"Then what is it you love about me?"
He slowly released a sigh that ruffled the hair at the top of my head. "I love everything about you. Your passion, your heart, the way you think. It's not about appearance to me-never has been."
I tilted my head to see his face. "Then why is the idea of me feeling the same way so hard for you to accept? Why do you put so much emphasis on the outside when it comes to you but not me?"
His eyes closed and his head sank farther into his pillow. "It has nothing to do with your love or why you love me. My grotesque imperfections are just that-gross. And I don't understand your need to see them."
I didn't say anything else. He'd just revealed another layer to me, one I had to dissect to understand. And I took advantage of the silence, using it to analyze his words, their meaning, and how to handle it all.
Nolan's self-hatred wasn't new to me. I understood that about him very early on, and it'd taught me a lot about how his mind worked and how he viewed himself. This new development went hand in hand with that, yet it explained so much more.
He not only hated himself, but his own reflection had blurred to the point of distortion. When he looked at his body, his injuries, he saw something hideous, and in turn, it muddled his entire image. Everything about him had become ugly and tainted in his eyes, inside and out.
The new insight into just how deep his self-loathing actually cut gave me a better idea of how to handle him from here on out.