She continued pushing against my skin, some touches light, some much harder, but after several quiet minutes, the agony that had dominated every one of my senses was easing. The relief was nearly confusing, as if I'd grown so accustomed to the pain that I couldn't reconcile its absence.
"Better?" she asked.
I didn't answer. I didn't think I could speak without an assortment of gratitude bubbling over. I'd spent years chasing down remedies without real success, and she brought me relief with fifteen minutes of well coordinated poking.
She flattened her palm to my chest. "Breathe. Blow that tension out. Cleansing breaths, okay?"
I did, and repeated the process as she nodded in encouragement.
"Yeah, that's better," I said eventually.
She bobbed her head, her gaze still trained on my leg. "This is a temporary fix. You need to come by my place for some treatments," she said, lifting her chin toward the village. "I'm free tonight. Eight-ish. If you think my fingers are good, wait until I get my pins in you."
I sat up, wincing as I dug my heels into the sand. Oh, yeah. The pain hadn't left town completely. "Fuck," I seethed. "Fuck."
Her hand settled on my shoulder, right above my SEAL unit's frog skeleton tattoo, and she squeezed. "I also do massage and Reiki—"
"Only in Montauk," I interrupted. The world beyond Clarksdale, Mississippi was big…and indescribably eccentric.
She laughed at that, and nodded as if she understood the oddness of this town. The gray-shingled mansions and the beach shacks. The posh village and the humble local hideouts. The boomtown summers and the ghost town winters.
"Look, I know big, tough guys like you probably don't buy into holistic approaches, but I can promise to ease some of the discomfort you're feeling. Even if it sounds like voodoo."
"The Veterans Administration hasn't taken up voodoo yet," I said, laughing.
She shrugged as she brushed the sand off my bare shoulder. "I get that. Most people have some preconceived notions when they come in, and some never find the balls to come in at all," she said. She offered a warm smile. "If you have the balls, I can promise it's not voodoo."
It was one of those smiles that didn't live in her lips but her eyes. It was more genuine than any bright, teeth-baring grin. And she really was pretty. Dark coffee eyes that matched her dark hair, and light olive skin beneath her t-shirt and running shorts. More than a few curves in all the right places. She was young but nottoo young. Early thirties, but I was certain she wasn't a day over thirty-five.
But then again—what the fuck did I know? I'd been laboring under the assumption Jocelyn's rack was real until last night. Look where those instincts got me.
"Do you know the bakery?" she asked. "Seashore Sweets?"
I pointed to my abs. My trainer was paid good money to keep them washboard quality. "Does it look like I eat many cupcakes? I may be laid out like a starfish here, but I'm not—"
"Down, boy," she said, patting my back. Her touch, it was pleasant. Easy and confident, and lingering a little too long to be chaste. "Everyone in town knows the bakery. Even the cupcake deniers."
She was right about that. You couldn't miss the hot pink seashell painted on the storefront window, or the smell of cake wafting through the village when the wind was right.
"I live in the loft above the bakery," she continued. "Stairs around back. Come up any time after eight."
I thought about this for a second. "Pins, huh?"
"You can handle it, big guy," she said, her gaze swinging from my shoulders to my toes. It didn't feel sympathetic this time. It felt like an appraisal, and a good one at that.
"Hey. Kaisall."
I glanced over my shoulder and found Will marching toward us through the white sand, his surfboard tucked under his arm. She looked at him, and then back at me.
"Above the bakery," she repeated. "If you can handle a few pricks."
She popped up and grabbed her seashell bag, winking as I watched her. Like I could leave that challenge unacknowledged.
"Trust me," I called. "I can handle anything you've got."
She walked backward, laughing, and said, "We'll see about that."
Yeah, she couldn't ignore a challenge either. I liked that. I likedher. I didn't know her name, but that was only one of the things I intended to discover. I watched her go, following the lines of her toned calves and the sway of her hips.
