Chapter 7: Rehabilitation
The metallic clang of weights and the grunts of exertion were a foreign language to me. The gym smelled of sweat, disinfectant, and raw effort. I felt out of place in my old t-shirt and shorts, a spectator in a temple of physicality that Mikey clearly called home.
“Okay, form is everything,” Mikey said, his voice easy and confident as he positioned himself behind me at the squat rack. His hands, free of the bulky white casts for just over a week, hovered near my hips, not touching but ready. “Don’t let your knees cave in. Think about pushing the floor away from you.”
I nodded, gripping the bar. It felt impossibly heavy. I descended, my muscles trembling.
“Lower,” he encouraged. “You got it.”
I went down further, the strain burning in my thighs. As I pushed back up, his hands settled firmly on my hips, guiding me. The contact was electric, a jolt that had nothing to do with the exercise. His touch was sure, professional, but it sent a wave of heat through me. This was his thank you, his way of paying back the weeks of intimate care. It was agony.
For an hour, he put me through my paces. Bench press, where his spotting hands brushed my back. Lat pulldowns, where he adjusted my posture, his fingers splayed between my shoulder blades. Every correction, every word of encouragement, was a fresh reminder of his body and my catastrophic attraction to it. He was in his element, a natural coach, completely oblivious to the war he was waging inside my head.
“Alright, killer,” he finally said, clapping me on the back with a stinging slap. “You’re done. Let’s hit the showers. You smell like a petting zoo.”
The shower room was empty, a cavern of white tile and echoing drips. Steam began to curl from the stalls, fogging the mirrors and muting the world. We stripped down. I tried not to look, but it was impossible. His body was a map of everything I couldn’t have—the defined lines of his stomach, the powerful curve of his shoulders, the familiar trail of dark hair that led down.
The hot water was a relief, washing away the sweat and some of my tension. I kept my head down, focusing on the stream. Then I felt a presence. Mikey was standing at the entrance to my stall, water sluicing down his chest.
“Hey,” he said, his voice soft in the humid air.
“Hey.”
“Turn around. I’ll get your back.”
It wasn’t a question. I turned, facing the tile wall. His hands, slick with soap, landed on my shoulders. He worked the muscles, his thumbs digging into knots I didn’t know I had. It was a mimicry of all the times I’d helped him, a role reversal that felt profoundly different. My skin prickled everywhere he touched.
“You’re all locked up,” he murmured.
“Yeah.”
His hands moved lower, down my spine. The silence stretched, filled only by the spray of water. Then his hands stopped. I could feel his breath on the back of my neck.
I turned around slowly. The steam wrapped around us like a secret. He was watching me, his expression unreadable. Water droplets clung to his eyelashes.
My heart was a frantic drum against my ribs. I reached out, my hand trembling slightly, and pressed my palm flat against his stomach. The muscles tightened under my touch. His skin was hot and smooth.
“I’ve always…” I started, my voice a rough whisper. I let my fingers trace the hard lines of his abs. “Your body is just… insane.”
He didn’t move. He just watched my hand. His chest rose and fell a little faster.
Emboldened by the steam, by the memory of his cast resting on my shoulder in the dark, I let my hand drift lower, through the damp hair, until my fingers brushed against him. He was half-hard, stirring at the contact. I wrapped my hand around him, feeling the familiar weight and heat.
“And this,” I said, my thumb stroking the length of him. “I remember this.”
Mikey’s eyes slid shut. A low groan escaped his lips, swallowed by the sound of the water. He leaned his forehead against the tile wall beside my head, his arms bracketing me.
“Ben,” he breathed, the word barely audible.
“Yeah?”
He was quiet for a long moment, his body tense under my hand. When he spoke, his voice was thick, stripped bare. “I’ve missed it. I’ve missed… you doing that.”
The admission hung in the steam between us, vast and terrifying. It wasn’t just about the physical release anymore. It was a confession. The water beat down on us, a warm, relentless rain, as I began to move my hand, and the world outside the stall ceased to exist.
His breath hitched, a sharp, wet sound swallowed by the steam. My own heart was a wild thing pounding against my ribs, a frantic rhythm that drowned out everything but the feel of him in my hand. This was different from the careful, clinical help I’d given him when his arms were bound in plaster; this was a choice, a collision.
“Ben,” he groaned, his forehead still pressed to the tile, his body bowing toward me.
That was all it took.
I didn't hesitate. I dropped to my knees on the hard, wet floor, the water spraying the side of my face. I looked up at him, at the defined lines of his stomach clenched tight, then leaned forward and slowly moved my tongue over his length, from base to tip. He tasted of clean skin and soap and something uniquely, essentially Mikey.
“God, your cock is perfect,” I murmured against his skin, my voice rough with a want I’d locked away for years. I licked a slow, deliberate stripe along the underside, feeling him pulse against my tongue. “I love how hard you get for me.”
My words were a confession and a catalyst. His hips jerked forward, a shallow, involuntary thrust. I took him deeper into my mouth, my hand working what I couldn't take, my world narrowing to this single, heated point of connection. The water plastered my hair to my scalp and ran in rivulets down my neck.
“I’ve thought about this… every night since the first time,” I said, pulling back to catch my breath, my lips brushing his tip. “I love the way you feel in my mouth.”
A broken, guttural sound ripped from his throat. His hands came down, not to push me away, but to cradle my head, his fingers tangling in my wet hair. His grip was desperate, anchoring. “Please,” was all he could manage, a plea stripped of all pretense.
I doubled my efforts, my tongue circling, my mouth sucking, lost in the rhythm and the salt-and-skin taste of him. I told him how much I loved his cock, the weight of it, the way he filled my throat, the sounds he made. My words were a steady, filthy stream, each one winding him tighter.
His thighs began to tremble. A warning tensed through his entire body, his grip in my hair tightening almost to the point of pain. “Ben, I’m— I’m gonna—”
I didn’t pull away. I looked up, meeting his dazed, clouded eyes as his release hit him, hot and sudden, painting streaks across my face and chest. The warmth of it bloomed against my skin, stark in the cool air away from the water’s spray. He cried out, a raw, shuddering gasp that echoed off the tiles as he emptied himself onto me.