Sidewinder 01 Shock & Awe (5 page)

He turned to examine himself in the mirror. “Really?” he whispered to his reflection. He nodded and began to grin without meaning to. “Okay then. You stupid asshole.”

He pulled on a pair of sweat pants and a ragged T-shirt, but he had to sit on the end of the bed and rest after he was dressed. He was hard-pressed not to laugh at himself. Too weak to dress himself without a breather, but not too fucking weak to beg his best friend to fuck him.

He caught sight of the pajama bottoms he’d been wearing last night, crumpled at the foot of the bed where he’d kicked them. His stomach fluttered, and again he was surprised by the reaction. Nick had been good. Very good. Jizz-in-your-pants good. Everything about it had been good, and Kelly was shockingly okay with that. What made him kind of want to throw up was wondering how Nick was taking it.

He winced as he stood, fighting past the pull as he shuffled toward the stairs. The painkillers hadn’t kicked in yet, and mornings were always the worst. He stood at the top of the steps, looking down. It seemed like a long way without someone there to catch him if he fell.

Nick appeared at the bottom of the staircase, peering up at him. “You need help?”

“I thought I didn’t,” Kelly said with a grin. “I might have been wrong.”

Nick took the stairs two at a time, coming to the step below him and letting him lean on his shoulders. Nick’s arm slipped around his waist, and Kelly’s entire body shivered. Nick’s scent, the way he gripped Kelly’s shirt, the warmth of his body, all brought back memories of last night with a confusing rush of sensations.

“You too stubborn to call for help now?” Nick muttered.

“I guess.”

Nick glanced up at him, frowning. Kelly was silent as they fumbled their way down the stairs. He couldn’t quite catch his breath, and he wasn’t used to the way his chest kept filling with butterflies.

When he’d asked Nick to kiss him last night, he’d never anticipated this lingering result.

He didn’t get a chance to study Nick’s face again until he was easing into his recliner. He looked up as Nick bent over him. Nick didn’t seem flustered. He didn’t seem nervous or scared or confused or any of the other myriad of emotions Kelly had felt in the last two minutes. But then, when had Nick ever looked nervous?

“Doc?” Nick said pointedly.

“Huh?”

“I asked you if you wanted food,” Nick said with a smile. “Are you okay?”

Kelly nodded, closing his eyes and grimacing as he tried to get comfortable. He jumped when Nick patted his cheek.

“You hurting?” Nick asked.

“Is it that obvious?”

Nick nodded, his frown deepening. “Did I hurt you?” he asked, voice going softer.

Kelly grinned slowly. That intimate tone of voice, talking about what they’d done last night, was something he found surprisingly sexy.

“Kels?”

Kelly ran a gentle finger over his bullet wound and shrugged. “It bled a little. Maybe a stitch pulled loose or something.”

Nick’s gaze dropped to Kelly’s wound, and his face paled. “Shit.”

Kelly reached out and ran a hand over Nick’s palm, making sure Nick was looking into his eyes again before he spoke. “I wasn’t feeling anything last night but good.”

Nick looked both relieved and amused.

“What are you fixing?” Kelly asked to get Nick’s mind off how delicate Kelly still was. Nick was an exceptional cook. They’d discovered that when they’d been stationed at Lejeune and had all gone in to rent a house together. Nick’s job had always been to cook.

“What do you want?”

Kelly shrugged, shaking his head. He wasn’t really in the mood for food.

Nick sighed and sat on the edge of the coffee table, his hands clasped between his knees. “This is last night catching up to you, isn’t it?” he asked, voice grim.

Kelly’s breath caught. He made the mistake of meeting Nick’s eyes, and he was caught by them, transfixed by their color, by the earnest concern in them.

Nick inhaled deeply. “There’s nothing I can say right now that won’t be awkward.”

Kelly began to laugh. “I know it. We don’t have to talk about it.”

“I kind of think we do,” Nick said. “Eventually we’ll have to. I don’t know about you, but I don’t like the feeling of having something hanging between us.”

“Neither do I,” Kelly whispered.

“And right now there’s a wicked big thing hanging there.”

Kelly snorted.

“I’m sorry.”

“What for?” Kelly blurted.

Nick shrugged, looking around the room with a little smile. “I feel like I took advantage of you being drugged.”

“But you didn’t.”

“But I feel like I did,” Nick insisted.

“Yeah but, if you hadn’t, you’d be feeling guilty for telling me no,” Kelly argued.

“No I wouldn’t,” Nick said. A smile pulled at his lips. “I’d be regretting telling you no and probably very frustrated, but . . .”

The admission warmed Kelly all the way to his toes. “So that’s how you do it,” he muttered.

“What?”

“I just learned the secret to the O’Flaherty charm,” Kelly said, beginning to grin. “You just . . . stun the other person with honesty.”

Nick chuckled, his cheeks beginning to flush. But he didn’t look away. They stared at each other, getting lost in the familiarity for long seconds before Nick leaned closer. “Are you okay, Kels? And I don’t mean the hole in your chest.”

Kelly nodded. Then he frowned. “No, actually.”

Nick’s face clouded over, his brow furrowing and his eyes apprehensive.

“See, every time I think about you now, I get these butterflies,” Kelly explained, fluttering his fingers at his chest. “And it’s weird because it’s you, and you’re you. But I like it too. And . . . I like that it’s you. So I’m not sure what to do with that.”

Nick licked his lips, leaving his tongue at the corner of his mouth like he always did when he was thinking. Kelly’s eyes were drawn to it briefly before he tore his attention away and focused back on Nick’s eyes.

“I don’t know what to tell you,” Nick finally said.

“How about telling me it’ll pass? Or that it’s just the drugs. Or almost dying. Come on, O’Flaherty, I know you have half a dozen excuses at the ready to use for things like this.”

Nick was silent, chewing on his lip.

Kelly’s smile fell. “Don’t you?”

“I’ve never run into a thing like this,” Nick admitted.

Kelly cocked his head. “You feel it too, don’t you?”

Nick laughed. “Butterflies whenever I think about myself?”

“Don’t play word games with me, smart-ass. The meds haven’t kicked in yet.”

Nick sighed and contemplated his hands. He dragged his thumb over the scar on the back of his hand. “I think it’s unproductive to talk about it until you’ve recovered a little more.” He looked up, forcing a smile to cover the hint of fear Kelly could see in his eyes.

Kelly wanted to push, to get past that smile and see just what Nick was thinking, what he was afraid of. Because the prospects last night had opened up were all parading past Kelly’s mind, and he liked what he saw. He needed Nick to be on the same page with him, though, and Nick obviously wasn’t yet. Kelly knew one thing for certain, and that was that Nick wouldn’t be pushed, he wouldn’t be bullied, and he sure as hell wouldn’t turn that page faster if Kelly tried to do it for him.

So Kelly just nodded. “How about pancakes?”

“With M&M’s?”

“You have some?” Kelly asked, his eyes going wider and his mouth beginning to water.

Nick gave him a sly grin and stood. He patted Kelly’s head as he walked by him, heading for the kitchen.

“Wait a minute,” Kelly grunted, reaching out to grasp Nick’s arm. “That’s all I get the morning after?”

Nick stutter-stepped and backtracked to look down at Kelly. “What? I gave you drugs and I’m fixing your breakfast on a tray, what more do you want?”

Kelly grinned and gave Nick’s arm a little tug. He could see Nick biting his tongue when he smiled, and something about it kicked Kelly’s sex drive into gear. “You’re really going to make me ask for it?”

Nick raised an eyebrow, smiling wider.

Kelly rolled his eyes and sagged his shoulders, tugging Nick again. “Give me a kiss!”

Nick sighed, glancing around the room as he fought a smile. He might have been trying to come up with a reason not to, or he might have been fighting the fact that he wanted to. He finally put a hand on Kelly’s head and bent over him, narrowing his eyes when he peered into Kelly’s. He smiled and pressed his nose and lips against Kelly’s cheek before giving him a gentle kiss, then moved away before Kelly could seek more, leaving Kelly sitting there filled with warmth and nerves.

Kelly smiled, watching Nick’s reflection in the dark television as he moved around in the kitchen, making Kelly’s pancakes. Nick knew he liked pancakes with M&M’s in them. Kelly had married a woman who’d never even known such a simple fact about him, who’d never cared to learn.

He let himself ponder that. Ponder Nick. Every time he’d woken up in the hospital in New Orleans, Nick had been there. Sometimes Ty had been there as well, sitting with him, talking with Nick, or curled up asleep in the chair in the corner. But Nick had been there every time without fail. He’d sat in the chair and read. He’d slept curled up on the couch that was too short for him, or with his head resting on the bed near Kelly’s hand. He’d stolen Kelly’s lunch instead of leaving to go to the cafeteria, and then called to get him more when he woke.

Nick hadn’t left his side, and when the time had come for Kelly to be discharged, Nick hadn’t even discussed coming home with him. He’d simply assumed he would. People searched their entire lives for someone to just care about them. Somehow Kelly had taken that feeling for granted.

Nick returned and set a plate of pancakes down on the table by Kelly’s side. Kelly watched him, still caught up on the idea of someone who would literally lay down his life for him, who had almost done so on several occasions. Kelly had loved Nick for years, just like he loved the rest of the team. Who was to say that couldn’t be more? Where was it written that either of them had to go through life looking for someone who understood them when they had each other right here? Why did that have to be off the table just because Kelly had spent his entire life pursuing women? He felt like a door had been opened last night, a door he’d never known existed.

Nick had a toothpick in his mouth, chewing on it as he laid out Kelly’s breakfast where he could reach it. Kelly plucked the toothpick out. “Dangerous,” he grumbled.

Nick snorted, but as he was turning away, Kelly grabbed his shirtfront and pulled him closer. Nick almost stumbled over the side table, and he had to put both hands on the arms of Kelly’s chair to keep himself from pitching forward into Kelly’s lap. His eyes were wide.

“How long do I have to recover, exactly?” Kelly demanded.

“What?”

“How long are you going to fumble around before you’ll sit back down and talk to me?”

Nick blinked a few times, his eyes seeming to turn greener as Kelly watched. Kelly smiled, growing warmer. He tightened his grip on Nick’s shirtfront so the man couldn’t escape.

“Look, I love you,” Kelly told him. “You love me. We’ve bled for each other. Why can’t that turn into more?”

“Kels . . .”

“Stop. Before you argue with me, just think about it objectively without adding in who we are.”

“Who we are is kind of a big deal.”

Kelly let him go and took a deep breath. “Sit down, I want to talk about this.”

Nick didn’t sit. Instead he leaned closer, close enough that Kelly’s heart stuttered and he closed his eyes. He could feel Nick’s breath on his lips, feel the scratch of stubble against his chin. “Your pancakes are getting cold,” Nick whispered before pulling back.

Kelly’s eyes drifted open to stare at the plate of perfect golden pancakes with melting M&M’s made into smiley face patterns. He laughed and met Nick’s eyes again. Nick was grinning. He hesitated briefly before he pressed another gentle kiss to Kelly’s lips. This time he extended it, turning it a little less chaste and adding a little more tongue and teeth.

Kelly took stock of his racing heart, his shallow breaths, the fluttering in his stomach. He hadn’t felt like this since he’d been a teenager, and he liked it. It wasn’t some stranger in a smoky bar giving him that adventurous feeling, either, it was one of his oldest and dearest friends. He tried to push forward to deepen the kiss, but Nick pulled away from him, running his thumb over his lips.

“Eat. I’m not fixing you more,” Nick muttered. He stepped away, but his hand landed on Kelly’s shoulder and squeezed. “We’ll talk after. I promise.”

Kelly nodded, satisfied. Because Nick O’Flaherty always kept his promises.

When Kelly woke, he realized Nick had just waited for his painkillers to kick in and then given him the slip. He had opened up the windows and the doors to the back deck to allow the breeze to sweep through the cabin, then gone outside and hadn’t come back before Kelly began to doze.

Kelly struggled with the lever on the side of the recliner and finally got the leg down so he could try to stand. He gasped at the pain and stopped moving as soon as he stood, afraid to take another step. His painkillers had worn off. How long had he been asleep?