Read Not His Kiss to Take for Free Online

happened to you.”
    “ S’all right,” he muttered. “Tomorrow. I’ll tell someone tomorrow.” Maybe. Who the fuck would care?
    “ Fine. First thing in the morning, you’re going to call someone.” Evan readjusted the ice packs and then stuck a plastic gun-shaped thing in his ear. He hummed tunelessly as he worked, prodding his chest and groin and nailing him in the eyes with a small flashlight.
    “ Stop it,” Jamie moaned, swatting the light away.
    “ I’m worried about your concussion.”
    Jamie knew he had one. His head felt the same as that time he’d wiped out at the skateboard park and missed the old mattress on the landing. “I’ll be okay.”
    “ That’s for me to decide.”
    Bossy jerk fucker. Evan shifted the heating pad so it toasted the bottoms of his feet. If only something that simple could ease the pain everywhere else. A fresh wave of agony rippled over him, and he whimpered. Guess Derek was right. I guess I really am a puny wimp and can’t take care of myself . Jamie closed his eyes and rode out the wave, barely conscious of the fact that it sounded like Evan left the room. Did he leave me alone? Please don’t leave me alone! The room felt scary without him in it, even if he was a kidnapping, bossy, lying, phony hack bastard.
    Please come back. Don’t leave me alone.
    “ Jamie.”
    “ You’re back,” he mumbled with relief. The pain kept getting bigger and bigger. Less sharp, but… bigger .
    “ Will let me give you something for the pain? A shot?”
    Sounded wonderful, but— “A needle, you mean?”
    “ Yes.”
    Fuck . Kidnapped by a crazy addict. This only happened in crappy B-grade movies. “Heroin?” he mumbled. The man didn’t look like a strung-out junkie from a movie, but you never could tell.
    Evan snorted. “No, not heroin, smartass. Demerol. A perfectly legal pain inhibitor.”
    “ You’re not really a doctor, are you?”
    “ Yes, I am. And because I am, I can give you an injection for the pain. I have other stuff in pill form, but a shot is instant relief. You’ll feel better in seconds. I can only give you a small dose, though, because I am a little worried about the concussion. You want the shot?”
    Pain or no pain? Gee, junkie doc, what a choice. “Yeah.”
    “ Good choice,” the doctor agreed and patted him on the knee. “I’ll be back in a sec.”
    Maybe he dozed, maybe not, but the doc did return in what seemed like seconds. In more of those quick and precise movements, he had his arm swabbed with smelly shit and the needle in and out again before his mind registered the prick of it. Tick, tick. Jamie waited for the high, but it never came. The throb eased. The aches faded. Peace descended.
    “ One last thing, Jamie, before we’re done.”
    Great. The orderly voice again. What now? Jamie moved, winced, and then quit moving. It was either going to hurt or be humiliating, this one last thing. He just knew it. “What?”
    Evan held up a small syringe, but a needless one, thin and plastic. “This contains an antibiotic lubricant.”
    Jamie eyed it warily with his least-swollen eye. Antibiotic lubricant? Lube. Lube! Oh shit. “No. Way.”
    “ Would you like me to describe for you, in detail, what an anal fissure is?”
    Sounds gross. And painful.
    No.
    “ Exactly,” Evan said, reading his mind. Certainly wasn’t reading his swollen face buried beneath the gel-packs. “It’s what can happen when anal tears become infected and aren’t properly treated.”
    “ Will it…hurt?”
    “ This?” He wagged the syringe.
    Jamie nodded. Obviously anything called a fissure would.
    “ Shouldn’t, and if it does, it’ll just be for a second. Just gonna stick the tip in a little ways and squirt it in. Then we’ll be all done for the night.”
    Why couldn’t you have drugged me with something that made me so stoned I wouldn’t give a shit? Giving in—he was desperate for relief from the rip-burn—he nodded. Dying might almost be preferable. But not