Berger
yes cap
Mäkinen
yes cap
Marchetti
[photo]
Avi
Marchetti.
Marchetti
sorry cap. last one
[photo]
Chapter 8 — ZAY
Iset up on the desk. Warming gel, kinesiology tape, the portable TENS unit, same order I use at the facility. The routine helps. Makes a hotel room feel like a workspace instead of a room with a king bed and a door that locks.
Two quick raps on the door.
He’s in shorts and his hair is damp from a shower and he grins at me the way he does every time, like I’m a surprise and not a scheduled appointment. “Brooks. I’m right on time.”
“As you should be.” I open the door wider for him to come in.
He walks past me, spots my book on the nightstand, my headphones coiled next to the lamp. His eyes move across my things with the same easy curiosity he gives everything, like my space is interesting to him just because it’s mine. “Nice setup. Very clinical.”
“That’s the idea. Bed. Face down.”
He pulls his shirt off and drops onto my bed face first, arms at his sides. I warm gel between my palms and press into the posterior deltoid. The tissue has been responding well. My thumbs trace the muscles and he exhales into my pillow.
“Less guarding through the lower trap tonight.”
“Is that the one near my spine?”
“Lateral to your spine. Between your shoulder blade and your rib cage.”
I’m working the muscles, pressing into the knot that forms when he overcompensates in his shot, when his fingers brush my calf.
Light. The backs of his knuckles grazing the side of my leg just below the knee. His fingertips trace a slow line down to my ankle and back up, and the touch is so light I could pretend I don’t feel it. Pretend it’s an accident. His fingers keep moving. Up the side of my calf, slow. Not hurried. Just his fingertips learning the shape of my leg like he’s been thinking about this specific patch of my body and now he has access.
“Marchetti.”
“Mhm.” His fingers trace past my knee, find the outside of my thigh. His palm warm through the fabric of my shorts.
“You should stop.”
His hand stills but doesn’t leave. Then his thumb moves, one slow circle.
“I should.” His voice quiet. “But I don’t want to.”
My pulse is doing things that have nothing to do with the posterior capsule. I press harder into the knot and he winces and I feel guilty about that, using the pressure to snap myself clinical. It works for four seconds. Then his fingers slide up another inch and my focus is gone.
