I tapped his shoulder until he went flat again. “Yeah. I was interested. Especially when you didn’t choose surgery. Getting to work on your back is actually pretty exciting. It’s just too bad it’s still connected to you.”
He grunted. “Yep.”
I worked in silence for a while, learning the true layout of his back without anything else distracting me. I mapped his muscles with my fingertips and noted every place I found that was holding more tension than it should’ve been. As much as I hated to admit it, I really was in nerd heaven getting to work on him. It was even better if I pretended he was someone else.
“You know all the other massage therapists who work for the team are men in their fifties and sixties?”
I made a noise of acknowledgment and grazed the top of his ass while feeling out his sacrum. From there I found the piriformis muscle and clicked my tongue at the tension I could feel there. “You’re having sciatica pain, aren’t you?”
“Cassidy.”
I rolled my eyes and worked at the muscle. “The other massage therapists probably followed the normal track to their licenses. I knew what I wanted to do when I was still a kid. I started working with the physical therapists at USC before I could ride a bike without training wheels. I wasn’t much help back then, of course, but Coach Carrington took Jax to work with him and I just tagged along so he let me stalk the team physicians. He wasn’t the coach back then, of course. I did everything I could but I still had to wait to get my massage therapist license until I turned eighteen. Freshman year was a bitch. I took gen eds at USC while taking 500 course hours for my license and cheering. I don’t think I slept at all.”
Not that it mattered to me then. I’d been miserable. Cole had gone from high school to college star playing on all the big sports channels. He suddenly had a never-ending buffet of girls and women waiting for him.
“Impressive.”
“Now, answer my question.” I pressed a little harder on his muscle and heard his answering groan. “This is your piriformis muscle and it feels inflamed, which means it’s probably playing footsie with your sciatic nerve. Yes?”
“Fuck.” His hands were white-knuckling the table. “Yeah. It fucking hurts.”
I worked on the muscle until I felt some of the tension release. Smiling, I stuck my tongue out at the back of his head. I could tell he felt a little better already by the way his big body relaxed under my hands. It was a heady feeling, being able to help someone. Especially someone who used their body for a living and needed it to work for them. That was the reason I loved doing massage therapy while working towards becoming a physical therapist.
With some of the pain eased Weston started to really enjoy the massage and every few minutes he’d let out a moan or a sigh that sent a wave of awareness through me. I suddenly wasn’t feeling muscle or tension anymore but instead I was feeling hard muscle under hot skin. No matter how much I tried to remain professional, his noises were killing me.
Without thinking, I stepped back and told him to roll over. I’d usually finish a massage with a little work on the arms and hands, just a finishing touch to help relax my patient before they went back to work. I didn’t need his chest exposed, though. Not when I was already clinging to my anger at him with the very tips of my fingers.
He rolled over and I adjusted the sheet to cover him again, just to have it stubbornly refuse to go down. It took me anothertwo seconds to realize why the sheet wouldn’t flatten. I nearly choked on my shock at seeing his erection just as he started apologizing.
23
***Cass***
“Fuck, Cassidy. I’m sorry. About my dick. I…shit.” He sat up and rubbed his face. “About my dick and about the other night.”
I was torn between looking at his very obvious erection and his face. Until I saw the look of shame on his face.
“I let things go too far. I’ve just been so fucking angry. The injury… I don’t know. I don’t want to admit just how bad everything’s gotten. But this, your face, it’s the last fucking straw.” He leaned forward and gently touched my chin. “I did that. I hurt you. I’m fucking sick about it. I’m not drinking anymore. Not after this. I promise. I’m sorry it took this for me to get my shit together.”
I pulled myself up on the table next to him and frowned. “I don’t want you to make promises that you can’t keep. You aren’t the first man to promise me he was done drinking, Weston.”
He winced and looked away. “I’m sorry.”
“Is it all about the injury?”
“Yeah. Maybe? I don’t know.” He stepped down and walked to the other side of the room. Turning back to face me, his eyes looked haunted. “Everything just feels fucking unfair. And I’m fucking angry about it. I’m angry at my fucking body for not being better yet. And the fucking doctors and their pain meds. They’d still be shoving that shit down my throat if I hadn’t said I was better. But I’m no better. I just chose alcohol instead of their pills.”
“Why didn’t you have the surgery?”
“What if they did their surgery and my back was still fucked? There was no guarantee.” He grabbed his pants and shoved his legs into them before straightening and freezing. “What the fuck?”
I raised my eyebrows. “What?”
“Where’d the shooting pain go?” He eased side to side and stepped closer. “What’d you do?”
I grinned, excited to see I’d helped even in the shadows of all the dark shit we were both feeling. “I did what any other massage therapist would’ve done had they been given the chance to work on you. It’s not a cure, Weston. You still need a permanent fix. I just worked on the muscle aggravating your sciatic nerve.”
He came even closer. “You hate me. You didn’t have to help.”
