Everything Changes (7 page)

Jase bowed his head, and Carey realized with sudden horror that was the worst thing he could have possibly said to his friend, this man who had worked feverishly to save him after his injury, who had done things Carey would never understand fully, things to force Carey to live. Shame flooded through him, and he choked up.

“I’m sorry, Jase, I didn’t mean that. Oh Christ, I didn’t mean that.”

He heard Jase get up from the floor and come sit beside him on the couch, felt Jase put his arm around his shoulders and pull him close. Carey held himself stiff for a few seconds before giving in to his need for comfort, his selfish desire to have
his
pain taken away when he’d just inflicted so much of it on Jase.

“I’m just so useless, man, so fucking useless. I can’t do anything for myself. I’m a burden on everyone. God, it sucks.” And wasn’t that the understatement of the motherfucking year.

Carey felt Jase kiss the top of his head, his arm tightening in sympathy.

“Everybody keeps telling me just to be grateful I’m alive. And I guess I am, but goddamn it, Jase, I miss the way I used to be. I miss being strong and being able to take care of myself. I miss being able to drive a car to the fucking grocery store. Hell, I’d even be glad to get off this stupid-ass couch without you having to fucking help me!” Carey took a shuddering breath.

“I’m worthless, Jase.”

And that was it, the crux of the problem, Carey’s deepest fear. He was worthless, a burden on the system like he’d been most of his life, passed around, unwanted. The Marines had given him an identity, a way to feel worthy, serving his country during the War on Terror and helping to kick some insurgent ass. Now that was gone and he’d never get it back. He had nothing.

Jase pulled back, gripping Carey’s chin and forcing it around, making Carey meet his eyes.

“You’re worth something to me.”

Carey closed his eyes, a single tear squeezing out and tracking down his cheek. He felt Jase wipe it away with his thumb.

“And I wanted you to live because I didn’t want to see what it was like to live without you. I can’t imagine a world without you in it, Carey. Don’t you see, man? You’re not worthless, not to me. Never to me. You’re my best friend.” Jase patted his cheek. “Look at me.”

Carey raised his gaze. Jase cupped his cheeks in his hands and looked straight into Carey’s tear-filled eyes. His voice was low but firm.

“You’ll never shake me, buddy. Nothing you could do or say will ever make me leave. And we’ll get through this. I will help you get through this, one day at a time. Don’t think about anything else but getting through each day as it comes, okay? There’s no next week, day after tomorrow, or even tomorrow. There’s just today, Carey. Let’s get through today.”

Carey closed his eyes again, moving his hand up to grip the nape of Jase’s neck. Jase pressed their foreheads together, then started to pull back. Before Carey thought about what he was doing, he turned his head slightly so their lips grazed. Carey’s eyes were still closed, but he heard Jase catch his breath. Jase hesitated, then kissed him again lightly, almost casually, and started once again to sit back. Carey tightened his grip around Jase’s neck and pulled him closer, seeking Jase’s mouth with his. Jase settled his mouth over Carey’s, his lips slightly parted, warm and moist.

“Carey,” Jase rasped against Carey’s lips. “I don’t—”

Carey was caught in the grip of something he didn’t understand either, something he didn’t want to analyze. All he wanted was to be touched, to feel something other than pain, than anguish. He was mindless with the need for comfort. He linked his arms around Jase’s neck, pressing closer, and dimly heard him groan deep in his chest. Jase kissed him more firmly then, gliding his tongue along Carey’s bottom lip and nipping it with his teeth until Carey gasped, his mouth opening under Jase’s. They kissed deeply, Jase stroking Carey’s tongue with his own, his stubble rasping along Carey’s cheeks.

“Jase,” Carey moaned, out of his depth but at the same time not quite willing to break away. Jase pulled back, looking into Carey’s eyes, his lips shiny with moisture, red and full. Carey felt lust surge through him at the sight. Dammit, he just wanted to feel good, to feel
something
, to feel
alive.

“Help me to forget for a little while, man,” Carey pleaded. “I don’t care. Please, Jase.”

Jase tried again, his eyes troubled. “You’re upset, Carey. You’ve taken some strong medication. Do you even know what you’re—”

“I need—I need something, Jase. Please help me.” Carey grabbed Jase’s hand and brought it between his legs, over his athletic shorts, letting Jase feel the erection that strained against the fabric, the first one he’d had since before the injury. It throbbed, and it felt so normal. His cock didn’t care his leg was missing. Carey was mindless with need, and it didn’t matter that it was another man’s hand on his dick; he just wanted to feel good.

Jase groaned again, the sound almost tortured, and his hand tightened around Carey’s erection, finding the head with his thumb and rubbing it through the fabric of pants and underwear. Carey caught his breath, moving his leg to the side to give Jase room to move.

“Please, Jase!”

Jase very carefully helped Carey lie down on the couch on his back. He hooked Carey’s leg over the back of the couch cushions, gently easing his body down, being cautious of Carey’s stump, encased in its protective bandage.

Carey arched up under Jase’s body, the sensation of hard muscle instead of soft fleshy warmth against him startling, and so foreign.

Jase was murmuring in his ear, making Carey shiver. “Are you sure about this, Carey? If you want to feel good, I can make you feel good. I can make you feel so good.”

Carey responded to that whispered promise, wrapping his leg around Jase’s hips, his body arching up again, seeking.

Finally Jase, his eyes still troubled, took Carey’s mouth again with a groan of surrender. He pressed Carey back into the couch, coming down on top of him, devouring Carey’s lips with his. Carey tightened his leg around Jase’s waist, urgently rutting his erection against the hard bone of Jase’s hip.

“I just need—I want to feel good, Jase. Help me,” Carey begged.

“Shhh, Carey, I’ll take care of you,” Jase murmured, smoothing his hand down Carey’s body and sliding it underneath the elastic waistband of the athletic shorts and briefs he was wearing, yanking them down to his upper thighs. They both gasped as Jase took Carey’s erect cock in his hand, gathering up the wetness at the slit and using it as lubricant as he started a slow rhythm, stroking Carey from base to tip, his palm swiping over the engorged head on the upstroke.

Carey was lost in pleasure, which was what he wanted, what he needed. He didn’t have to think; he didn’t have to worry—all he had to do was feel. He’d never had a handjob like this, his cock handled firmly and roughly with callused fingers, not tentative and delicate like it would break. It felt so fucking good. Jase pushed Carey’s T-shirt up out of the way, and Carey could feel Jase’s knuckles rub against his naked abs as he jacked Carey hard.

Carey unwrapped his leg from Jase’s hips and rehooked it over the back of the couch, letting his stump fall far to the side, and thrust his hips up into the tunnel of Jase’s fist, fucking it hard. He lifted his head and looked down his body, watching the angry purple head of his cock appear and disappear through Jase’s grip.

It was so sexy that Carey threw his head back, gritting his teeth as he fought not to come. But coming was the fucking goal, wasn’t it? Feeling good, forgetting, was what he wanted, and he allowed himself to let go, arching his back as his orgasm swept through him, snapping his hips up, letting Jase stroke him through it. His abs and chest were covered with streaks of hot come, his cock pulsing. It seemed to go on forever, and then it was over, and Carey collapsed back into the depths of the couch.

Jase was panting, his eyes black with lust, his lips moist and parted. He reached down and ripped his jeans open and shoved them to his thighs, releasing his erection. It sprang up and slapped Jase’s belly, it was so hard. Carey barely got a glimpse of it before Jase came down over top of him.

“Wrap around me,” he grated, and Carey complied, bringing his leg back around Jase’s hips as Jase braced his hands on either side of Carey’s head where it rested on the arm of the couch.

Jase started thrusting, his cock dragging across Carey’s abdomen, and Carey realized with a flash of heat Jase was using Carey’s come as lubrication. Jase drove his hips down, rutting hard and fast, and Carey squeezed his leg tighter around Jase’s hips, thrusting up, giving Jase the friction he needed to reach orgasm. Jase groaned long and low as his cock pulsed and jerked against Carey’s abs, sending hot jets of come spurting out to mix with Carey’s own. Jase came so hard some of it splattered on the underside of Carey’s chin.

Jase collapsed down on top of Carey, their sweat and come mixing together, Jase’s face buried in Carey’s damp neck, their breathing rough and uneven. As Carey’s orgasm haze started to dissipate, he stiffened in horror and embarrassment. What had he done? He shoved at Jase’s shoulders, and Jase pushed himself up, his eyes wary and full of unreadable emotion.

“I’ll be right back,” he muttered, disappearing and then reappearing a few minutes later with a warm cloth. He gently cleaned Carey’s abs, chest, and chin of their combined fluid, and Carey shut his eyes tight, refusing to look at his friend, the man he’d just… fucked? Jesus.

“We need to talk about this, Carey,” Jase said as he finished the cleanup, pulling Carey’s clothing back to rights.

“I know, but… not now. Please, not now.”

Jase blew out a breath but didn’t say anything more, just picked Carey’s crutches up from where they had been tossed, helped him gain his feet, and watched Carey hop off to his bedroom. Carey didn’t look back, going through the bedroom door and shutting it firmly in Jase’s face.

The next morning Carey hobbled out to the dining room, drawn by the scent of coffee, and sat down at the table, laying his crutches carefully on the floor. Jase silently served him a cup along with a toasted english muffin with raspberry jelly, his preferred breakfast. Jase fixed himself his own meal, then sat down across from Carey and looked at him steadily.

“We need to talk about this,” he said quietly.

Carey grimaced. “I know. But I don’t want to.”

Jase snorted. “Noted. But if we ignore it and let it fester….” He reached across the table and touched Carey’s hand, a spasm of pain going across his face as Carey moved away.

“Tell me what you’re thinking, Carey.”

“What am I thinking? I’m thinking what the hell’s wrong with me, is what I’m thinking!”

“There’s nothing wrong with you.”

Carey clenched his hand around his coffee mug. “I’m so fucked up, Jase. I’ve been so angry and hurting, and all I wanted was for it to stop. I fucking used you to make myself feel better. That makes me an utter prick.”

“You’re not a prick, Carey. Sex is a basic human need, a comfort. You needed comfort, and I was there.”

“Yeah, but you’re a….”

“I’m a man?” Jase’s lips quirked. “I’m also your friend, and I was willing. What I’m
not
willing to do is let this affect or define our friendship. You’re too important to me, Carey, to lose you over something like this.”

“But I’m not gay, Jase,” Carey said miserably.

“Letting a friend comfort you physically, even if that friend happens to be a man, doesn’t make you gay, Carey. Last night you needed something, and you needed it from someone you can trust, someone you know won’t hurt you and has your best interests at heart. I’m honored that that person was me.”

Carey finally looked Jase full in the face. “I feel safe with you, Jase. I do. But I feel really weird about what happened. I mean, my best friend jerked me off, for fuck’s sake!”

“Carey, it was just physical release, okay? It was mutually satisfying, something that maybe we both needed. It doesn’t mean that anything more has to happen, or that I’m going to declare undying love for you now that I’ve come all over your chest.”

Carey’s eyes widened, then relaxed when he saw Jase’s teasing expression.

“Come on, man.” Jase said earnestly. “Don’t make more of it than it is. I won’t lie to you; I enjoyed the hell out of it. You’re an attractive man. No, you’re an attractive
person.
You know I don’t differentiate or label who I’m attracted to. I don’t put people in boxes and say, ‘I shouldn’t be attracted to so-and-so because of what kinds of parts they have between their legs.’ It doesn’t work like that for me.”

Carey looked back down at his coffee cup miserably. “I don’t know what to say to you, Jase. I feel really fucked in the head.”

“Carey, cut yourself some slack, man. You’ve been through hell and back. You’ve experienced a trauma that changed your life forever. It would be weird if you
weren’t
a little fucked in the head. You needed what you needed, Carey. I was here. You said you feel safe with me. You
are
safe with me.” Carey didn’t say anything, and after a minute, Jase continued in a gentle voice, “What happened last night doesn’t need to define us, Carey. I hope we don’t let five minutes in time change our friendship. Since we can’t undo what happened, I hope that you can look at and accept it in the spirit for which it was intended…. I was a friend just trying to relax and comfort you, Carey.”

“I started it, Jase. I know that,” Carey admitted. “I don’t put anything on you, man. I just feel… so fucking weird about it.”

Jase smiled sadly at him, and Carey knew he didn’t have anything more to say. He’d said everything he could to salvage the situation, and it was up to Carey to decide whether to let, as Jase said, five minutes in time totally obliterate all the history that had come before it and destroy a friendship Carey could accept he needed like he needed air, or he could choose to put it behind them and move on. It was up to him.

He took a deep breath and let a smile play across his lips. “Well, it did help, because I did sleep pretty well after all. After I lay awake for a while worrying about it being all fucking weird and tense between us this morning.”