Chapter One
“Holy smackeroni, how is it still so good?” Patrick gasps, chest heaving, sweat pooling in his navel, and his groin throbbing with satisfaction.
“No idea, but I’m not complaining.” Will rolls up onto his elbow to grin down at Patrick, his dark eyes alight with the afterglow. “Are you?”
“Never.”
“That’s what I thought.” He collapses down on his back and Patrick purrs happily, rolling into his usual position with his cheek against Will’s furry pecs.
After a few happy minutes of recovery time, they head into their deluxe bathroom to shower. Patrick runs his hands over Will, helping to soap him up under the streaming water. They wash away the evidence of the sex they’ve just had, and Patrick lingers over Will’s firm buttocks and muscled abs, running his fingers over the ridges and grabbing a handful of ass.
“Been hitting the gym lately,” Will whispers, as he soaps up his balls and cock, then reaches to wash off Patrick’s too.
“Getting ready for our trip?”
“I want to look good for you.”
“You always look good to me,” Patrick says, shrugging. He thinks of the photo he keeps in his wallet from Will’s days as a chubby, diabetic teen with a drinking problem. It’s probably the love talking, but Patrick’s convinced he’d have banged the hell out of sweet, sad, teen angel Will.
“And I don’t understand how you always look so good,” Will says, running his hands down Patrick’s wiry frame and then skimming into his auburn bush and tickling against his lightly furred balls. “You eat ungodly amounts of food and yet…”
“Extra fast-twitch muscle.” Patrick shrugs. His dick tingles with renewed interest. “Born with it.”
“Unfair.”
“If you keep playing with my balls like that, I’ll end up showing you how fair I can be.”
“Yeah?” Will’s fingers slide back and forth over Patrick’s sac. “In what way?”
“In the way where I get you off while I shoot another load up your ass.”
Will’s chest and cheeks are rosy from their prior round and the heat from the shower, but there’s an additional flush of renewed lust. He grips Patrick’s hardening cock and pumps it to full mast. “Show me.”
Patrick reaches for the small jar of coconut oil they keep by the shampoo for this very reason. Will’s still relaxed from their romp on the bed, and, after coating his own dick with oil, it’s easy enough for Patrick to flip Will around to the wall, spread his cheeks apart, and press into his tight asshole.
Will moans and pushes back, bearing down as Patrick slides right in. It’s a glorious sight. It always is. Seeing his dick disappear into Will, seeing Will’s back flush with effort, watching the gooseflesh break over Will’s skin, and hearing his sweet, urgent sounds. Always ready. Always eager.
Will is such a beautiful fuck.
Patrick grips Will’s wet shoulders and sets up a strong rhythm. The water rushes down Patrick’s back and ass, a warm, wet compliment to the tight clutch of Will’s body around his cock. He rests his forehead on Will’s upper back and fucks him hard. The slap of their bodies echoes around their bathroom, the wetness adding a bit of sting to each sharp thrust.
He’s not a kid anymore and he came once already, but it’s not long before he feels the building pleasure, the tension and rush of semen, and he reaches around to make sure he fulfills his promise of getting Will off first.
Will’s hard cock leaks slick precome as Patrick pounds his prostate, and he shudders hard against Patrick’s body when Patrick takes him roughly in hand. “Let’s see you paint the tiles,” Patrick whispers and jerks him hard and fast, making Will squirm and back up onto Patrick’s cock.
“Yeah,” Will whimpers, as Patrick works him. “That’s…oh!” He freezes and pushes his ass back, taking Patrick’s plunging dick with his wide-open, hungry hole, and then he convulses hard, his ass tightening ruthlessly on Patrick and his cock going hotter and harder in Patrick’s relentless hand.
“Oh!” Will shouts again, his hands scrambling for purchase on the wet tiles. His shoulders jump tightly as his cock pumps streaks of white come over the bathroom tiles, and his ass works around Patrick’s aching cock.
“Good job,” Patrick mutters, reaching down to cup Will’s balls as he thrusts deep and grips Will’s hip with the other hand. “Good…job…” he grunts out again and throws his head back, staring at the white ceiling as pleasure grips him and he shoots up into Will in hard, sweet jolts.
Groaning and coming down from the sharp high of orgasm, he feels raw and tender all over, and his cock is sensitive encased in Will’s still-trembling body. He kisses Will’s shoulder blades and the visible knobs of his spine, before rubbing his face against the hair at the nape of Will’s neck.
“Careful,” Will whispers as Patrick eases out of him. They’re both shaky and unsteady on their feet. “Don’t fall.”
Patrick laughs under his breath as he reaches for the slick wall to hold himself up. “Puddin’-pop, that sweet butt of yours sucked out my strength.”
“No, just your soul.” Will turns to help hold Patrick up, even though he’s shaking too.
“I’d agree if I believed in souls.”
“But you believe in astrology.”
“Astrology is—”
“Shh. Let’s get clean now.” Will yawns widely, his pearly whites gleaming in the light bouncing off the walls. He splashes water on the strings of come clinging to the tiles and Patrick’s inexplicably sad to see it washed away.
“Distraction. That’s a Libra move.”
“Mmm-hmm, I know.” Will grabs more soap and starts on his ass, biting his lower lip as he washes his hole.
“Leave some of me up in you,” Patrick says, his voice rough. “I like knowing my boys are in your colon looking desperately for an egg to knock up.”
Will laughs and pulls Patrick back beneath the shower stream again. “Let me help you.” The water stays warm and steady as Will soaps Patrick’s cock again, leaving them both loose-limbed and utterly sated by the time Will turns the shower off and reaches for a towel.
Back in the bedroom, Patrick grabs Will’s insulin pump from the bedside table, uncaps the infusion site cap, and reattaches the lines. “Test,” he says, handing Will the kit. “Make sure you don’t need an additional bolus.”
Will rolls his eyes but gamely pricks his finger and shrugs at the results. “All good.”
Patrick grabs the monitor to check for himself. Nodding at the readings, he hands the monitor back to Will, climbs into bed, and tugs Will into their favorite position. Then he nestles against his favorite furry pillow again and closes his eyes, ready to drift off to sleep for a few hours before he’ll need to be up early for surgery.
He’s beyond content. He’s what he’d call happy even. He and Will are just over two years into this life together, but happiness is still a reasonably new emotion for him. So he wallows in it aggressively every chance he gets, indulging in moony feelings for Will and feeling grateful, of all things. He’s glad no one else can hear his gross, ooey-gooey thoughts.
“I love you,” Will whispers.
Patrick’s heart clenches with joy and he nuzzles his face against Will’s chest hair. “Good.”
“Just ‘good’? You don’t want to, I don’t know, reciprocate the declaration?”
“You already know how I feel.” Patrick huffs. “I married you, didn’t I? Twice. Just to prove I meant it the first time.”
Will laughs.
The sound is intimate in their warm, soft cocoon of a bed, lit only by the yellow light from the nightstands. Patrick’s not an overly sentimental man, but he reaches out to finger the medical ID bracelet on Will’s wrist, the one he’d gotten him that first Christmas, and smiles softly. “Fine. I love you,” he whispers. “Even if you should already know.”
“Oh, I know.”
Will kisses the top of Patrick’s head and it’s sweet and perfect. Their warm, naked bodies tangle together, and all they need to do is turn off the lights and drift away.
So, of course his phone picks this moment to start vibrating. And worse, playing a very specific ringtone—Drake’s “Bitch Is Crazy.”
Will groans. “I thought I told you to change that.”
“And I ignored you.”
Will grabs his own phone from the nightstand, habitually set to silent after nine at night to try to avoid family drama. Too bad the entire Patterson-Molinaro clan has Patrick’s phone number now. None of them are afraid to use it. And Patrick’s a neurosurgeon, so he can’t turn his off on a whim like Will can.
Will groans. “Three missed calls from her. It’s almost midnight. What could she want?”
Patrick rolls away from Will before passing his vibrating, Drake-playing iPhone over to him. “You answer. She’s your mother.”
Will heaves up to sitting and tugs the blankets to cover his nakedness like Kimberly is going to somehow see him all flushed and satisfied.
“Mom, it’s late.”
Patrick can hear Kimberly’s voice clear as a bell from his side of the bed. Either she’s talking loudly or he needs to turn the volume down on his phone. Regardless, she’s annoying. He already misses the perfection of just a few seconds ago.
“William Patterson, don’t take that tone with me. This is an emergency!”
Will’s breath quickens and he sits up even straighter. “Is it Connor? Olivia? Are you at the hospital?”
“It’s Caitlin,” she moans.
“What’s happened?” Will starts to stand, but Patrick jerks him back down to the bed, shaking his head. “Do I need to come?”
Now that she’s roped Will in, Kimberly drops her faux-angst down to mere soap-opera levels. “She’s leaving for college tomorrow. Tomorrow! What will I do without her?”
Will rubs his eyes. “Mom, we can talk about this over coffee in the morning at Brown Gargle. I’ll meet you at eight-thirty, all right?”
“No, it is not all right, Will!”
Patrick really hates Kimberly sometimes. She always knows how to get Will wound up. He taps his fingers against the cover and listens as Will does his thing and tries to calm her down.
“I know it’s hard to let go of us kids. But it’s part of the circle of—”
“It complicates everything, baby. Who’s going to watch Connor after school? Who’s going to take Olivia to her piano lessons?”
Patrick rolls his eyes.
Will takes a long, slow breath in, obviously gathering his patience. “Olivia hates piano, Mom. Let her quit.”
“Olivia needs to learn how to play an instrument.”
“Why?”
“Because she lacks any discipline in her life.”
“Wait, what?” Will’s nostrils flare. “You’re talking about discipline?”
“Yes, I am!” Kimberly’s on fire now. Patrick’s never going to get to sleep. “And why shouldn’t she learn? Patrick plays piano and look where he is in life. He’s a neurosurgeon.”
Patrick rolls his eyes. Again. About time he finally gets some credit from his mother-in-law for being a whiz-bang, mega-awesome, crack-open-the-skull doctor for cripes sake, but this conversation still needs to be nipped in the bud.
He nudges Will’s leg and shakes his head. “Off topic.”
Will sighs and tries a firmer voice. “Mom, we can and will solve these problems, okay? Together. But not right now. Patrick has early surgery in the morning and you woke us up.”
Patrick snorts as Kimberly wails. “Will, how am I supposed to get any rest tonight when I’m not sure how I’ll manage—”
Patrick grabs the phone from Will’s hand. “Goodnight, Kimberly. Don’t call back. Your inane crisis can wait.” He disconnects the call and quickly blocks her number. He’ll unblock her again in the morning and they can endure her wrath then.
Endure, ignore. Same difference.
There are many days he wishes he could be done with Kimberly Patterson forever, but, for better or worse, Will and his family are a package deal.
“There. Handled.” Patrick tosses his phone back on the nightstand. “Bedtime now.”
Will’s lips work and Patrick thinks he’s about to be told off for being an asshole. Instead, Will bursts into laughter. “Seriously, she’s impossible.”
“If only. Alas, she’s entirely possible. Proof is rendered daily.”
Will groans. “I can’t wait for our honeymoon trip next week. We’ve put it off too long. I love my family—I do—but it’ll be good to get away from them. Very far away, hopefully.”
“We could get away from them forever if you just say the word.” Patrick ignores the subtle dig for info on their trip and guides Will back down in the bed. “I’m tired. Be the pillow.”
Will opens his arms and Patrick snuggles in close. “You’d never leave Healing, Patrick. You love your unit and Jenny and Dylan. And my family.”
“I love the kids. Your mother? Not so much.” Patrick kisses Will’s chest and closes his eyes. “Now go to sleep.”
Will flips out the light on the nightstand and strokes Patrick’s shoulder lightly. The glug-glug of Will’s steady heartbeat and the susurration of his breath lull Patrick into dreams.
And before he knows it, the alarm is going off and he hits the ground running for another day as Healing, South Dakota’s superhero neurosurgeon, while his sexy sidekick dresses for his day of dynamic do-gooding.
Their lives are hectic, but, in Patrick’s estimation, great. He wouldn’t change a thing. Much.