Awake and Alive Read online

  For Jacque

  Awake and Alive

  Ashton, OR

  June 2007

  MAX STOOD by the cool glass of the hospital window, staring out at the all too familiar hospital parking lot. He tapped his fingers on the windowpane. Anxiety clawed at him. His jaw involuntarily clenched, his skin crawled, and every nerve in his body felt so tense his teeth ached.

  Three hours. Three bloody hours for a procedure that was supposed to take two and a half. Goddammit, Jed. Hurry up.

  Max crossed his arms and pressed his forehead against the glass. He was tired of watching the sun dance over the asphalt, but he couldn’t turn around. Couldn’t face the six matching expressions of concern behind him, concern that mirrored the barely suppressed panic he was beginning to feel.

  Dan. Carla. Anna. Hector. Kim… Nick. They were all there, silent and waiting. Just like him.

  Absently, he wondered if they understood the surgery Jed was having any better than he did. He’d tried, but the medical spiel went over his head. All he knew was Jed had nearly died in this building a couple of months ago, and it was too soon for him to be back. Never was too soon for him to be back. What if something went wrong? What if Jed never woke up from the anesthesia? What if there were complications and he ended up sicker than he’d been before?

  “Afternoon, folks.”

  Max spun around. Dr. Howarth stood in the doorway, smiling, his posture relaxed. “He’s out,” he said without preamble. “The procedure went well. He’s awake, sitting up, and already chucking my equipment across the room.”

  Max let out a breath so heavy with relief he felt his shoddy sense of equilibrium briefly turn on its axis. He leaned back and sat on the window ledge. “He’s okay?”

  Dr. Howarth nodded. “Yes. A little sore and woozy, but he’s all right. Max, do you want to sit with him?”

  Max hesitated and glanced at Flo. She wasn’t allowed out of the waiting room, but he could see she was at ease, and in the past her intuition had proved the only thing he could rely on. Life had moved on since then, but he felt her calm seep into his bones and pushed off the window ledge. “I’m coming.”

  He left the others to their own devices and followed Dr. Howarth through the surgical department to the recovery area.

  Dr. Howarth stopped by the nurses’ station. “Go on. I’ll be there in a minute.”

  Max continued to Jed’s room and reached the doorway in time to catch him swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. “Already?”

  Jed offered him a tired smile. “Stretching my legs.”

  “How do you feel?”

  “Stoned.” Jed held out his hand and beckoned Max forward. “Think I’ll feel it more when the opiates wear off.”

  Max entwined his fingers with Jed’s and let himself be pulled close enough for Jed to press a soft and surprisingly sweet kiss to his cheek. “You don’t feel sick?”

  “Don’t feel nothin’, babe.”

  Yep. He’s definitely stoned. Max swallowed a laugh and let Jed lean on him. His head felt clearer now he’d seen Jed awake. “Any chance of you lying down?”

  Jed made a noncommittal noise, and before Max could argue, Dr. Howarth entered the room.

  The good doctor looked exasperated. “Do I need to put you in restraints?”

  “You can try.” Jed’s response was muffled by Max’s shirt, but the message was clear: You will fail.

  Max didn’t doubt it. Even incapacitated, Jed was freakishly strong. “When can he come home?”

  Dr. Howarth sighed. “I was counting on you to back me up. How about you both stay put for a few hours, and if it all looks good, you can head home tonight.”

  “Really? Tonight?” Max couldn’t hide his surprise. He’d expected Jed to be in the hospital for at least a few days. He’d even arranged for Desta, Jed’s young dog, to go and wreak havoc at Kim’s place. The spaniel pup was a wonderful dog, but left alone, he had a tendency to tear the cabin to bits.

  Dr. Howarth picked up Jed’s chart and looked it over. “If Jed feels up to it.” He glanced up and met Jed’s eye over Max’s shoulder. “You seem to do better at home. Might be the best place for you if you feel up to the car ride.”

  Max couldn’t see what Jed did to make Dr. Howarth smile. Jed had a strange relationship with his doctor—an odd mix of combative resentment laced with fondness and mutual respect. Dr. Howarth respected Jed enough to make his own decisions, and in turn Jed trusted him enough to ask for help when he needed it. Max figured he could trust both of them enough to make the right call.

  DESPITE JED’S best efforts, they left the hospital the following evening. Dan drove them home, complete with Carla, who was setting up camp in the spare room until Dr. Howarth made an unofficial house call the following morning.

  The short journey wore Jed out. He crashed out in bed and stayed that way for the next two days. Max watched over him with the help of their extended family, both canine and human, but in truth, there seemed to be no need. When Jed was awake, he was cheerful and content, and in no more discomfort than one would expect after an open surgical procedure. Even the persistent, painful sickness he’d lived with for so long remained absent.

  It seemed too good to be true. Max felt like he was living a dream… a dream he was bound to wake up from at any minute. For days, he waited for the punch line, for the insurmountable obstacle to block their path, but it never came. Jed got better and better, and the biggest battle seemed to be making him rest—a battle Max knew he would likely lose.

  A few weeks after the surgery, Max passed through the cabin on his way to the shower and found the couch empty, the cushions and blankets neatly in place, and Desta gone from his sentry post under the coffee table. The rest of the cabin was deserted too, and it seemed that despite Max’s best efforts to keep him indoors, Jed had taken his chance and escaped.

  Max found him in the garden, shuffling around the vegetable patch with Desta at his heels. Even from a distance, Max could tell he was tidying up. He watched Jed brace his abdomen, stoop and right an upended pot, and Max itched to cross the yard and hassle him back to the couch. Damn him. Why couldn’t he rest?

  With a sigh, Max shoved his twitching hands into his pockets and started forward, forgetting in his haste that he’d left his T-shirt on the back of the couch. “Hey,” he called. “Last time I checked, this wasn’t the couch.”

  Jed grinned and sidestepped him to tie a wayward plant to a bamboo cane. “Nah, but the ceiling’s better out here, huh?”

  Max smiled. His worries about the surgery seemed a distant memory when Jed’s eyes lit up like the midsummer sun. “What are you doing out here?” Max gestured toward the neglected vegetable plot. He’d let it go while Jed had been sick. There hadn’t been enough hours in the day. “This place is a mess. It’s going to take all summer to put right.”

  “Just getting a head start. Are you putting zucchini there?”

  Max stared at Jed’s suspiciously soil-covered hands and noted a tray of planted seedlings. Bloody hell. How long has he been out here? He put his hands on Jed’s shoulders and turned him to the left, enjoying the way Jed’s strong body felt against him. “Over there.”

  Jed followed Max’s gaze. “What’s that freakish thing you call them?”

  “Courgettes.”

  Jed hummed, no doubt filing the word away in the crazy, linguistic part of his brain. Languages fascinated Jed, and when he wasn’t pushing his recovering body to its limits, he was most often found with his head in a book Max couldn’t read a word of.

  Max eased his arms around Jed’s waist and pressed his face into the crook of his neck, prepared to resort to underhanded tactics to get him inside. Jed tipped his head to the side in a languid, absent motion. He seemed distracted
. “Something on your mind?”

  Jed shook his head. “No….”

  He let the sentence hang. Max paused in his idle exploration of Jed’s neck. Jed was a man who said what he thought or nothing at all. Perhaps he was feeling the effects of his alfresco afternoon. “Do you need some meds?”

  “It’s not that. I feel good. It’s this, you know?”

  Max interpreted Jed’s vague gesture and took his hands from him like he’d been burned. “Excuse me?”

  Jed turned and closed the abrupt gap between them like it had never been there at all. “Don’t even think it.”

  “Think what?”

  “Whatever crap my bullshit explanation is making you think. It’s not that.” He put his hands on Max’s face. “It won’t ever be that.”

  An audible click sounded in Max’s brain. He and Jed were very different men. He lacked Jed’s self-taught education, his sharp mind and worldly wisdom, but in this they were exactly the same.

  Jed grumbled, though the sound was good humored. “What are you smirking about?”

  “Not smirking. Thinking.”

  “About?”

  “I’ll tell you if you come inside.”

  “Asshole.”

  The insult was harsh, but, again, Jed’s smile revealed his good humor, reassuring Max that he was indeed ready for what he had in mind. Max took Jed’s hand and led him inside, straight into the bedroom.

  Jed planted his feet in the doorway. “I’m not getting back in that fucking bed.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  Max unbuckled his belt and let his jeans drop to the floor. He felt Jed’s gaze run all over him as he shed his underwear too, for good measure. Nude, he turned back to Jed. “It’s been a while, for both of us. I think you’re frustrated.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  Max nodded. They’d kissed—kissed a lot—and fooled around since Jed had come home from the hospital the first time, but it had been months and months since they’d taken things much further. The dry spell didn’t worry Max. Sex wasn’t something he needed from Jed; their relationship ran far deeper than that. But it was something he craved. He was only human, after all.

  He trailed a fingertip down Jed’s chest. “You want to have sex with me, but you can’t figure out how.” Jed raised an ironic eyebrow, but Max cut him off, his mind working too fast to be interrupted. “You don’t want to bottom, right? It’s not what you do, but you don’t think you’re up to topping. You don’t think you can do it the way you think you should.”

  Jed let his eyebrow drop and narrowed his eyes. “That doesn’t make much sense, but say it’s pretty close to the truth. What would be the solution?”

  Max fingered the hem of Jed’s shirt. “Let me show you.”

  Despite possessing the deepest stubborn streak Max had ever known, Jed didn’t take much persuading to lose his clothes. Max coaxed him into bed and sat him up against the headboard to keep any pressure off the tender points of his body—his leg, his hip… his stomach.

  Max frowned. Jed’s stomach was a relatively new one, for him at least. He’d known nothing of Jed’s debilitating stomach condition until it had landed him in the hospital, and from time to time, it crossed his mind that he might never have found out….

  Jed caught his chin and kissed him hard enough to pull him back from maudlin thoughts of the past. They’d agreed to leave it all where it belonged and move forward with a clean slate. Some things were bound to catch up with them from time to time, but they didn’t plan to dwell on them. What was the point?

  “Quit staring at it. You’re gonna give me a complex.”

  Max blinked and found he was indeed staring at the scar on Jed’s abdomen. The stitches had been out a while, and though the mere presence of the incision was terrifying, it looked almost benign now. A positive omen? He sure hoped so. “I wasn’t staring at that.”

  “Yeah? Then what?”

  “Shh.” Max pressed his hips forward, rubbing Jed’s cock with his in a way that made Jed’s eyes fall closed. “I didn’t get you in bed to talk to you.”

  Jed licked his lips. Max’s breath caught in his chest. Briefly, he considered Desta, wondering if he’d leave them in peace, but when he spared a glance to the corner of the room, he found the dog fast asleep, his face hidden by Flo’s thick tail. It seemed she’d already taught him there were things he didn’t need to see.

  Beneath him, Jed shifted, lifting his hips in a subtle, undulating grind. “Thought you had something to show—”

  Max kissed him. Jed chuckled against his lips, but the gentle rumble faded as the kiss grew deeper and harder, and the lightness in the air gave way to a desire they’d neglected for far too long.

  Their coupling was slow and unhurried. Max rolled a lubed condom onto Jed with lingering hands, drawing out the process as Jed watched through hooded eyes, gripping the headboard. Max pressed his lips to Jed’s lower belly, avoiding the surgical scar, and then his chest and his neck, and finally his lips, driving his tongue into Jed’s mouth as he moved over him and eased himself down on Jed’s cock.

  It had been a long time since Max had taken a man inside his body, but though the intrusion stung, everything about it felt right. So right. Like there’d never been anyone else.

  He let out a shaky breath and gathered his senses, lifted off Jed and rolled a long, slow circle before easing himself back down. It felt amazing. So he did it again, and again, until Jed’s eyes rolled back and he squeezed the wooden bed frame so hard Max thought it would splinter in his hands.

  He slowed his movements even more and leaned down, putting his mouth so close to Jed’s ear that his hair tickled his cheek. “You like that?”

  Jed growled. It was a predatory sound, a warning almost, though Max knew it would be a while before Jed would be able to exact his revenge. “You were wrong, you know.”

  Max nipped Jed’s neck. “About what?”

  “This.” Jed released the bed frame and gripped Max’s hips. “I’d thought of this, I just didn’t think I’d convince you to do it.”

  Max let Jed lift him up, down and around, rescinding control of the pace. “Why not?”

  Jed shifted, still maneuvering their bodies where they were joined, experimenting, trying out different rhythms, looking for that magical cadence that suited them both. He sucked in a sharp gasp of air before he was able to answer. “Figured you’d be too worried… fuck…’bout hurting me.”

  Max grinned at Jed’s lack of coherency. Jed was a cool customer, and it was thrilling to watch him lose his calm control. “I am worried. I’m always worried, but that doesn’t mean I won’t do it anyway. It’s your body. It’s up to you to tell me it hurts.”

  He ground the last few words out through clenched teeth. Jed pulled Max down until their faces were an inch apart. “You’re so beautiful like this.”

  Max smiled, taking in Jed’s heated gaze and the flush across his strong chest. He considered returning the sentiment… considered opening his mouth and letting all the love he held for this amazing man to roll from his tongue and consume them both. But he didn’t. Articulate, succinct words were Jed’s thing, not his.

  Instead, he took Jed’s hand from his face and placed it back on his hip, relaxing his body and letting Jed take his weight in his strong hands. “Show me,” he whispered. “Show me how this makes you feel.”

  The time for talk was over. Max leaned forward, steadying himself with one hand, and let Jed manipulate the sensation between them until his mind was devoid of all else. Jed took his time, drawing out every movement, every roll and slide, until they reached the point where need overtook them both.

  Max let go of the headboard and leaned back, taking Jed deeper inside him, and took himself in hand, matching Jed’s toe-curling and twisting thrusts. Sweat broke out over his chest. The bed groaned and squeaked, mingling with harsh, breathless groans. Release coiled, hot and wild, deep in Max’s belly, spreading slowly at first, but then like a rampant fire, roaring through his
veins until he came with a yell, spilling onto Jed’s chest with a violent jerk.

  Jed grimaced, like something hurt, but he clamped his hands down on Max’s hips and held him still when he tried to draw back. “Fuck, don’t stop… oh, God, Max.”

  Max felt him come. Felt every shudder, jolt, and wince. It hurt, he knew it did, but when he raised his head and met Jed’s eyes, he saw it was the best kind of pain. He kissed Jed’s forehead, his eyelids, and his lips before he pulled off him and collapsed by his side.

  He put his chin on Jed’s shoulder and closed his eyes as their breathing slowed and the perspiration on their bodies cooled. Jed twined their hands in a death grip, but when his fingers fell slack, Max knew he’d fallen asleep.

  He disentangled himself and slipped away from the bed to fetch a towel. Jed muttered something as he cleaned them both up, but otherwise remained asleep. Max watched him for a while, content to trace lazy patterns on his chest and play with his hair until he woke a little while later.

  “How long was I out?”

  Jed’s sleepy smile warmed Max’s heart. “An hour? Not long. You all right?”

  Jed hummed and shifted, testing his body. His expression was relaxed and lazy, until he suddenly stilled, and his softly pliant form turned to stone.

  Max felt the tension rocket up through his body, cutting through the postcoital haze like a sledgehammer. “Jed? What is it? What’s wrong?”

  Jed moved his hand to his abdomen, resting it over the surgical wound. “Nothing. I….” He stopped, his expression frozen. “It felt weird for a moment. It’s gone now.”

  Max was unconvinced, and neither man moved a muscle. Max’s mind began to race, picturing the worst-case scenarios, listing the people he would need to call if Jed needed help. It would have to be Carla, or Dan, or even Dr. Howarth. Or 911 if Jed couldn’t make it to a car by himself….

  Jed laughed. Max jumped a mile. “What? What is it?”

  Jed took his hand and laid it where his own had been moments before. “Feel that?”

  Max waited, wound so tight he thought he’d explode, until he felt a strange bubbling sensation somewhere below the palm of his hand. “Bloody hell. Did your belly just growl?”