“Filled out,” he echoes, trying not to laugh. He leans back on his hands, chest flexing, lazy and absolutely intentional. Watching me watch him. “You mean devastatingly handsome and unfairly jacked?”
The words land hard. He’s testing what I’ll do with them. My stomach tightens, equal parts want and warning.
“I mean—” I mutter, frazzled, eyes locked on the neutral safety zone of his kneecaps. “Cut it out. This is a clinical setting.”
A quarter appears out of nowhere and walks across his knuckles. It’s easy, practiced from ferry-dock summers. My gaze tracks the glide before I catch myself.
“No coin tricks during treatment,” I try weakly.
“This one’s to help with breathing.” He pauses, then gently takes my wrist, turning it over. He sets the coin on my pulse, his eyes locked on mine, while I helplessly fixate on the touch of his hand. The metal is cool, his fingers steady. “You’re racing.”
“My breathing’s just fine, Russo.” I pluck the coin and set it on the table next to him. “Clinical. Setting.” My voice is steady. Barely.
He lifts his hands, palms up. “Hands to myself. Scout’s honor.” His tone drops half an octave. “You’re blushing. Is it me?”
Heat climbs my neck, prickling my skin. He tips his chin toward me. “I don’t mind you looking. I want your eyes on me.”
Tingles skitter down my spine, summers snapping into place. Back then, it was easy. Now his proximity hits a spot I didn’t know was unguarded, tugging me toward a line I’m not ready to cross. Hip alignment, muscle engagement—the work I’m paid to care about—sure. But the way he watchesme turns every adjustment into a dare, the air between us tightening.
I’m fighting to keep my focus clinical when his bicep catches my eye. A thin braided band, etched in sharp black lines, wraps around the inside of his left arm. On his darker skin, the lines look softer than they probably did when the ink was fresh, muted the way older tattoos get.
It’s simple. Familiar.
“That’s…new,” I croak. “What is it?”
He glances down, almost as if he forgot it was there. “Friendship bracelet.”
“Seriously?”
A faint shrug. “You used to make them on Fire Island. Remember?”
Purple and black. His favorite colors. I’d spent hours on that one, fingers aching from pulling the knots tight, obsessing over making it perfect. I wanted him to keep it forever. I never imagined he actually would.
Before I can stop myself, my fingertips graze the ink, tracing the curve of the band. A light, automatic touch—intimate, nothing I can pass off as clinical. His arm locks beneath my hand, muscle flaring tight, his whole body stilled in an instant. The silence between us goes taut, ready to snap, a live wire we’ve both been pretending isn’t there.
“You…wore it?” My voice is barely above a whisper.
His gaze lingers on my hand until I remember to pull it back. “I did,” he says quietly. “For a while. Till it frayed and fell apart.”
My breath catches, lodged in the space between my lungs and my throat.
“Got this done a couple years ago,” he adds, voice lower now, rougher. “The only way I could keep it.” A beat, thenhis eyes lift to mine. “Since my best friend wasn’t around to make me another one.”
The weight in my chest is sharp and relentless. The thought that he carried it with him, that he loved it enough to make it permanent…
I should toss a joke, maybe ask why a six-foot-four goalie got inked with a design better suited to summer camp. But the words jam behind my teeth, and the silence between us turns too personal.
I reach for the lotion, letting the cool bottle anchor me. “Let’s do some manual work,” I try to deflect, keeping my tone even as I step closer. “Lie back. Left knee bent.”
His brow lifts—a flicker. He knows I’m changing the subject, but he obeys, settling back on the table in a slow sprawl that makes it very hard to pretend he has no effect on me.
Get it together, woman.
I’ve treated Olympians, MMA fighters, and one guy who swore he was dating a Kardashian. None of them made me nervous. None of them made my skin hum this way.
But Nate Russo is a problem. Especially right now, stretched out on my table, a bad idea I can’t decide if I want to avoid or dive into.
His gaze is fixed on the ceiling, jaw loose, breathing steady.
