Chapter 6

SIX

Professionalism wasone of the most important parts of Will’s job. He worked intimately with people and their bodies almost every day of the week, and maintaining professionalism was as vital to what he did as knowing every bone, muscle, and nerve in the body and what they did.

Professionalism was what he had grabbed with both hands and thrown out the window the moment he’d found himself balanced over Oakley, his heart pounding, his cock thickening, and his mind firing with a thousand different ideas of what he wanted to do to the irritable billionaire.

It was just lust, or so he told himself. He was a normal, red-blooded, gay, British male, and Oakley was stunningly attractive. Oakley’s cuts and bruises from the accident had faded, leaving him with only a few scars. Those scars gave him a rugged, dangerous look that pushed all Will’s buttons. Oakley’s prickly, confrontational attitude did it for Will as well, if he were honest. He liked his partners to be a little on the brazen side. He liked an occasional argument thrown in with the snuggling and kissing.

Oakley ticked all the boxes on the theoretical list of what Will wanted from a sexual partner. That was all. He couldn’t help but respond to that. It would be fine, as long as he kept that logical distance and didn’t act on anything. The infatuation would wear itself out in time.

But that didn’t stop him from breathing in Oakley’s musky, masculine scent as he lifted him from the mat where they’d been working one morning in mid-February and transferred him to his wheelchair.

“You’re getting to the point where you’ll be able to climb into your chair yourself, you know,” he said as he reluctantly let go of Oakley before he was fully settled and stood straighter.

“I’m glad you have that sort of faith in me,” Oakley said dryly, looking up at Will doubtfully.

Will shrugged, pretending he didn’t want to just stand there, looking at Oakley’s sweaty form, his t-shirt sticking to his increasingly impressive chest and arms, his look full of life. “It’s fend for yourself or forever be at the mercy of others,” he said, knowing that would strike a chord with Oakley.

Sure enough, Oakley huffed, and his expression shifted through a wealth of emotions, landing on determination. He used his arms to adjust himself into a more comfortable position in his chair, then did something Will had never seen him do before. He reached for his legs, lifting first one, then the other, into his chair’s footrests.

“Well done, you,” Will said, bursting into a smile.

Oakley frowned up at him. “It was either put my legs where I want them myself or ask someone else for help.” He said the last word as if it were torture.

Will laughed. “Well, I think that little show of independence deserves a reward.”

“What sort of reward?” Oakley asked, glancing over his shoulder suspiciously as Will moved to push him out into the hall.

Oakley looked concerned when Will wheeled him down to his bedroom instead of to the elevator room to take him downstairs.

“Clean up,” Will said once he’d pushed Oakley all the way into the bathroom. “We’re going out for lunch.”

“We’re what?” Oakley asked, alarmed, twisting this way and that as Will fetched a washcloth from the shower and brought it to the sink. The fact that he could move like that was a sign of tremendous improvement. “I don’t want to go anywhere.”

“Then you’re out of luck,” Will said, handing Oakley the washcloth, then turning on the sink and moving the soap closer to him.

Some adjustments had been made to make Oakley’s en suite more accessible, but really, the bathroom needed a complete overhaul with all-new fixtures installed. Knowing Oakley, the whole thing would be done before March.

“What do you want to wear?” Will asked as he walked back into Oakley’s bedroom. “Or do you want me to pick something for you.”

“I’m not leaving my house,” Oakley called after him. “You can’t make me.”

“Perhaps we could go to McDonald’s for a Happy Meal,” Will called back to him as he sorted through Oakley’s drawers to find jeans and a soft shirt.

Oakley’s silence was enough to tell Will he’d caught the jab about him acting like a child. Sounds of washing and movement followed, and a few minutes later, Oakley surprised and impressed him by wheeling himself back into the bedroom.

Shirtless and a little damp.

Professionalism. Will gritted his teeth and reminded himself that he needed to maintain professionalism at all times.

Even if he wanted to drop to his knees in front of Oakley’s chair and run his hands all over that glorious torso and rub his face in the hair over Oakley’s pecs.

“Should I call Hillary up to dress me?” Oakley asked, pretending to be peevish with his question when Will could see the genuine suffering in his question.

“I can help you if you need it,” Will said, nothing in his voice or expression betraying how hard his blood was pounding. At least, he hoped not. “I also want to see how well you’re progressing on your own.”

“So you’re just going to stand there and watch me change?” Oakley said, that one, sardonic eyebrow of his arched.

Will took the clothes he’d pulled for Oakley to his bed, then moved to lean his arse against the bureau. He crossed his arms and grinned. “Ready when you are.”

Oakley stared at him. Everything about his expression was flat and unimpressed. Except his eyes. His eyes blazed with a dozen different emotions, from anger to determination to lust. But most prominent of all was the sort of fear Will was used to with spinal cord patients who still weren’t certain what the rest of their lives were going to look like.

Oakley’s determination won out over his fear. He started with the easiest task, putting on his shirt. The soft shirt slithered over his pink skin, making Will draw in a breath as he watched everything he wanted to touch be enfolded in cotton.

The next step was for Oakley to find his way out of his sweatpants and underwear. Will resisted the urge to leap forward and help, particularly when Oakley had trouble getting his sweatpants over the roundness of his arse. Will was seconds away from jumping in and helping when Oakley finally managed it.

“Don’t say a word,” Oakley growled ferociously once he’d tugged his sweatpants off. He’d had to lean forward over his thighs to get them off his feet, and when he straightened, Will saw he was wearing a nappy. “Don’t you dare say a word,” he repeated.

Will raised his hands, not smiling anymore. “No words said.”

But it was interesting to gauge where Oakley was in his recovery, since he was still wearing protective underthings.

As if he’d heard Will’s thoughts, Oakley said, “I don’t need them all the time anymore. I have a little control. But I’ve had a few accidents before one of the nurses could reach me and get me to the toilet.”

“So you like to have the security,” Will finished for him. “Trust me, I get it.”

Oakley sent him a surprisingly pitiful look as he scrunched up his jeans and worked to figure out how to get them over his ankles so that he could pull them up. Again, Will wanted to jump in to help him. He wanted to make some sort of crack about how Oakley was still sexy as fuck, even in a nappy, because he honestly was. The next guy might not have thought so, but nothing about Oakley’s current state was new or shocking to Will.

“Alright, I give up,” Oakley said, panting a little, once he had the jeans over his knees. “Help.” He said the word with such disgust that Will couldn’t help but laugh.

“There you go,” Will said, moving forward and crouching in front of Oakley so that he could tug his jeans up, like he’d done thousands of times before with Brandon and with his patients. “Asking for help when you genuinely need it is a sign of strength. It’s also one of the most difficult life skills for men with spinal cord injuries to learn.”

Oakley murmured something that sounded very much like, “Fuck you.”

Things went a little smoother from there. Oakley was tired after his efforts, but Will could see his mood was generally okay. He didn’t question much about where they were going until after they let Hillary know they were going out and they headed outside.

“So where are we going?” Oakley asked as Will wheeled him down the street. He hunched into his puffer jacket and sent anxious looks at the people walking past them. “To the pub?”

“Nope,” Will answered with a smile Oakley couldn’t see. “Better.”

“Better than the pub?” Oakley twisted a bit to look at him with a questioning frown.

“Ah, we’re here,” Will said as they reached his van.

Oakley glanced around at an utter loss, until Will fished his keys from his jacket and pressed the fob to unlock the van.

“You drive a van?” Oakley asked.

Will smiled. “How else do you expect me to give my brother and my patients a lift?”

That silenced Oakley, and the process of getting him into the van kept him silent. Silent and interested as Will let the back lift down, wheeled him in and activated it to raise him, then walked around to the driver’s seat. Will had a fair idea that Oakley was impressed with the modern convenience as he rolled himself to the empty space where the passenger seat would have been, and probably plotting how he could get some ridiculous, Italian designer to make one in every color for him. Will clipped his chair into place, and they were on their way.

“I’ll admit,” he said several minutes later, as Will drove toward Hyde Park, “I’ve been a bit concerned about how I’ll get around these days. I have an entire garage filled with luxury vehicles at my Keswick house, but….”

His words trailed off into gloomy silence.

Will sent him a grin, pretending that the source of Oakley’s moment of mourning wasn’t apparent or for obvious reasons, then said, “You can have vehicles of all sorts customized for whatever ails you. There are several adaptations that can be made for hand controls. I can show you some brochures, if you’d like.”

The rest of the drive was spent talking about cars and modifications that were possible for people without the use of their legs. Will was gladder for the conversation than he could have anticipated. Not only did it distract Oakley from where they were going, it gave them something to talk about that was as close to a conversation two ordinary blokes would have across a table at the pub as they’d yet to have.

It was comfortable and relaxed. Oakley let his guard down more than he ever had. Every day that had passed with the two of them working together, Oakley had loosened up a little. Will was reasonably certain that at this point, Oakley would label him as a friend and not just his physical therapist.

Which was why it felt so bloody wrong that Will wanted more.

Professionalism, dammit. Getting attached to a patient was so wrong on every level. There were layers of complexes to sort through, co-dependence, hero complex, false feelings of closeness and understanding directed at the person who was assisting in recovery. He’d studied all of them. He’d experienced all of them directed at him at some point, and he’d had difficult conversations with patients in the past before handing them off to someone else to treat.

This was the first time he’d ever had to give the lectures about false attachment and illusory affection to himself, though.

“We’re here,” he announced at last, pulling into the valet parking station beside the unassuming, grey edifice on Park Lane.

Oakley had been looking at one of the car manufacturing sites on his phone, but when he glanced up and saw that they were parked in front of The Chameleon Club, he let out a sharp, resounding, “No.”

“Yes,” Will answered with the same sort of feeling.

“I’m not going in there,” Oakley said, a bit of panic in his voice.

“You are,” Will countered, nodding to the door as one of the valets came forward to greet them.

“Good morning, Mr. Manfred,” the young man said with a bright smile. “It’s good to see you back. You’ve been sorely missed.”

“Thank you, Aaron,” Oakley said, practically withering with embarrassment before Will’s eyes.

That embarrassment turned full-blown when Aaron the valet opened Oakley’s door, then blinked at the sight of Oakley’s wheelchair, his smile dropping.

Will’s heart bled for Oakley. It was the first of what was about to be many, many reactions that he would get exactly like that.

“Oh, I…um…I don’t know….” Aaron stammered, his eyes going round as they fixed on Oakley’s chair.

“It comes out the back,” Will said, as cheerful as if nothing were wrong. “I’ve already got the lift ready.”

Oakley was silent and seething as Will unlocked his chair from where it’d been fastened into the passenger side and as he helped navigate Oakley out of the car and onto the pavement. If looks could kill, the one Oakley sent him as Will pushed him up to The Chameleon Club’s front door and inside the overly posh club would have struck him dead.

“I though you said you liked the club,” Will whispered, leaning forward as he wheeled Oakley up the ramp to the hallway with the dining room-cum-ballroom and most of the public rooms.

“I did like the club,” Oakley seethed in return, leaving what was clearly the other half of the sentence unspoken.

“It had to be done,” Will told him in a low voice as they continued down the hallway. “I care about you too much to let you waste away in that beautiful house of yours, afraid of this moment. You have to just get it over with, lick your wounds, then get on with things.”

Oakley twisted a bit in his chair so he could look over his shoulder at Will. Will expected unadulterated fury, but the look Oakley gave him was far more vulnerable.

It shot straight to his dick.

It shot straight to his heart.

“Oakley, old man, is that really you?” some posh old queen asked with a bright smile as Will pushed Oakley into the dining room.

“Theodore,” Oakley greeted the man with a nod and an utterly fake smile. “It’s good to see you. How is Luca?”

“As wily as ever,” Theodore laughed. His eyes never left Oakley’s legs, though. “We were all so horrified to hear about the accident, you know,” he said, still staring at Oakley’s legs.

“Not as horrified as I was to be in it,” Oakley quipped.

Will was reminded of all the reasons he didn’t like clubs in general and The Chameleon Club in particular.

“Oakley, how brave of you to come out so soon after your accident,” another member greeted Oakley as if he were a toddler with a boo-boo. He was another one who looked old enough to be Will’s grandfather, and who was of a generation when differently abled people were referred to as crippled.

“It wasn’t really my choice,” Oakley answered, his smile growing stiffer by the moment. “My carer here has taken me out to get me a bit of air.”

Will would have laughed, but Oakley sounded far too much like the dried-up old bastards who were staring at him with pity from every corner of the room for it to be funny.

“He looks like a fine young man,” one of the oldies who had gathered around said. “Though I’m surprised they let him into the club.”

Will couldn’t resist saying, “I’m a member of the Brotherhood and have been since I was twenty-one.”

That shut the man up.

It didn’t stop the parade of treacly sympathy from bombarding Oakley as they pushed their way on to one of the free tables.

“And to think, we saw you just before the accident happened,” one of a pair of middle-aged gentlemen sitting at the table next to the one where Will and Oakley settled said.

“If we had only known,” the other said.

“Thank you,” Oakley said, his ability to remain gracious clearly hanging by a thread. “But there was nothing to be done. These things happen.” He quickly turned his attention to the young man in wait staff black and white and said, “Hello, Daniel. I’ll have the seared scallops to start, but give us a minute to decide on mains.”

Will’s mouth twitched into a grin at the speed with which Oakley had not only shut out the gents at the table behind him, but how he’d sent their server away moments after the young man had arrived.

“I suppose the only people who patronize a club like this for an early lunch in the middle of the week are twats and aging queens and anyone else who doesn’t have an office to be in,” Will said, glancing at the menu resting on his expensive plate.

“Or arseholes who have abducted their patients in order to force them into the worst sort of torture,” Oakley grumbled.

Will’s first instinct was to kick Oakley’s leg under the table. A split-second too late, he realized how futile that was.

Until Oakley snapped his eyes up from his menu to glare across the table at him.

A moment later, Oakley’s expression changed to bewildered hope as they both held their breaths.

“Did you…feel that?” Will asked.

“I felt something,” Oakley answered a bit hoarse. He reached for the glass of water that Daniel had poured as soon as he’d reached the table and took a swig. “It wasn’t strong, but it was something more than just the pressure of being tapped.”

Will smiled. “That’s an excellent sign. It’s still early days, and if sensation is returning….”

He didn’t get a chance to go on. He wasn’t sure a list of statistics and scientific facts was what Oakley needed just then anyhow. They were interrupted by yet another club member approaching them to give his condolences, as if Oakley’s legs had died instead of just losing function.

“Such a pity that something had to happen to someone so young,” the white-haired man said before patting Oakley on the shoulder, then walking away, shaking his head.

“I haven’t sustained a head injury that’s impaired my cognition,” Oakley hissed, taking another drink once the man was gone.

Will laughed humorlessly. “Get used to it,” he said. “This is the part of having a spinal cord injury that they don’t tell you about. People who have behaved perfectly reasonably to you in the past are going to act like you’ve lost a few dozen IQ points.”

Anger streaked across Oakley’s face, followed by a sharp turn into gloom. That quickly gave way to dark shadows of depression. “Fuck you for shoving me into the middle of all this,” he whispered.

Will shrugged and took a sip of his water. “Like I said, get used to it. I can help you keep your muscles limber, your home care staff can make sure you’re clean and your laundry gets done, and your family can give you all the stifling love and sympathy you need, but the only person who can get you over the brambles of how other people are going to treat you now is you.”

Will half expected Oakley to lash out and hurl around more blame for that comment, but he grew strangely quiet and circumspect. Those emotions lasted until Daniel had brought him his scallops and taken their orders for the rest of lunch.

“My whole life, people have treated me with respect,” Oakley said at last, his eyes locked on his plate as he pushed his scallops around without eating them. Finally, he glanced up to Will and said, “Mostly because of my money and my position.”

Will wanted to make some sort of tart reply, but he could see Oakley was working through something. So he gave Oakley the most valuable thing he had, his attention.

“This cancels all that out, doesn’t it,” he said at last, not really meaning it as a question. “I can throw around my money and influence until the cows come home, but from now on, people are always going to discount me just a little bit because I’m in a wheelchair.”

Will let out a breath, and without thinking about it, reached across the table to rest his hand over Oakley’s. “Yeah,” he said. It was all he could say. The world was a complicated and unfair place.

Oakley stared right back at him, then shifted his hand so that he was holding Will’s. “I hate you for bringing me here,” he said, his eyes saying the exact opposite, “but I needed this. I needed to see what I’m up against. And I don’t mean with my body.”

“Welcome to the hidden challenges of a life-altering injury,” Will said with a flicker of a smile.

“Don’t stop treating me like an arsehole,” Oakley went on, fear and panic glowing behind his eyes as he squeezed Will’s hand. “And don’t stop acting like a cocky bastard around me. I…I need someone to make me feel like I used to, like the hard, arrogant twat I’ve always been. I don’t want to be…less.”

“You’re not less,” Will insisted, leaning into the table a little. “You’re a prick. You were before, and you will be for years to come.” He paused, then added, “Don’t you ever give up on that.”

For the briefest moment, Oakley’s eyes went glassy. Then he smiled and sucked in a hard breath. He blinked a few times, his Adam’s apple working as he swallowed away the emotion that had probably been writhing through him and making him sweat since the moment he’d realized they were at the club, then let out a breath.

“I swear to God, if one more of these wrinkled old bastards comes up to me and treats me like I’m an escapee from nursery school, I’ll upend this table and send all this fine crystal and China flying.”

Will grinned, then broke into a throaty laugh. That was it. That was the fire he wanted to see. That was what would carry Oakley through this ordeal and land him safely on the other side.

That was what he was swiftly falling in love with.