I took my time in that area, slowly pressing harder and harder. “Good?”
“Mmm…” Every response was a single word.
After the area felt looser, I moved to the spine, circling over the knots at the base. Wes let out a half-groan, half-growl that shot straight between my legs.
I cleared my throat. “Should I go deeper here?”
It took a moment for him to answer. “Yeah.”
I bent to his ear, smiling. “Are you always this talkative?”
“Depends.”
“On what?”
“On who’s touching me.”
Lord,Iwas going to need a massage to relax after we finished this little session. My body felt like it had been plugged into a socket. But I tried to ignore that and focus on alleviating his pain.
I spent a good half hour releasing the tension from Wes’s muscles. Toward the end, I eased the pressure and glided my hands over his back, rubbing in the last of the lotion. “There, how was that?”
“Great.”
I smiled at yet another one-word answer and capped the lotion. Sliding back under the covers, I pulled the blanket up to my chin. After a few minutes of silence, Wes still hadn’t moved.
“Are you sleeping?” I whispered quietly.
“No.”
He turned his head to face me, but kept his eyes shut.
“Aren’t you going to roll over?” I asked. “When my back hurts, I find it helps to sleep on my back, let the spine straighten itself out.”
Wes cracked one eye open. “Can’t.”
“Can’t? Do you need help?”
“Nope.”
He looked over at my face and must’ve read the confusion because he sighed. “My body hasn’t gotten over how much it liked the massage, Juliette.”
“Oh,” I answered before the meaning sank in. “Oh!”
Wes gave a tiny shake of his head, almost amused, before his eyes closed again. I lay with my eyes open, staring at his face in the dim light. He looked so handsome, even half asleep. My pulse quickened with thoughts I probably shouldn’t have indulged. What would he do if I leaned in right now and kissed him? Would he kiss me back? Would he flip me onto my back and pin my wrists over my head? I knew he would be the kind of lover who didn’t ask, buttook. Rough, commanding. Addictive. And God help me, I’d love every second of it.
My dirty thoughts kept me wired long after Wes turned over and drifted off, his breaths evening out into a steady rhythm of sleep. Desperate for something to quiet my own mind, I inched closer and gently rested my head on his chest.
***
The next morning, Wes slept in. I went downstairs in search of some coffee and wound up sitting at the kitchen table with his mom for more than an hour. She told me half a dozen stories from Wes’s teen and tweenyears, each one funnier than the last. Apparently, he’d started noticing girls at a young age.
“Then when he was eleven, he got this crush on one of his brother’s friends,” Joanna continued, smiling. “She was three years older, like Luke, and Wes decided that if he grew some muscles, maybe she wouldn’t notice that he hadn’t even started puberty yet. He asked me to buy him some weights, but I wasn’t sure if boys that young should be pumping iron, so I told him to wait a year or two.” She shook her head. “But Wes was determined. He usually walked home after school with some friends because I worked until five o’clock, but one day I came home early and saw that the boy next door had come home, but Wes hadn’t. I asked Billy where my son was, and he said Wes had started going to Costco every day after school. I thought that was strange, so I took a ride over—and found Wes lifting the display weights.”
We both laughed, and Wes walked in mid-cackle, frowning as his head ping-ponged between us. “Oh, this can’t be good…”
I grinned. “I’m glad you’re up. I was thinking about going to the gym. Maybe we can go together.”
He cocked his head, like he was waiting for the other shoe to drop. “Okay...”
