Damn. Did she really need to press that hard? And why was someone inflicting pain on me turning me on this much? Wouldn’t be the first time… but hell, this felt different.
“Fuck…” I hissed, jerking on the table.
“You okay?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I managed. “Definitely not picturing you doing that again.”
Her eyes narrowed. “What?”
“Nothing.”
Brain. Mouth. Filters. Pick one, Reed.
I knew her type: calm, competent, not easily impressed. The kind who saw right through the grin and the dimples, which, my agent had decided, were my entire personality now.
The sponsors had been breathing down my neck for weeks. One more fine, one more tabloid headline about a club brawl or a missed practice, and I’d be toast. Hence the "babysitting" duty. This was the club putting me on a leash and calling it ‘treatment’.
Still, I couldn’t stop watching her work. Dark, almost black hair falling in a thick wave, golden skin, toned arms that definitely saw a gym. Hands that were feminine, strong, and currently three inches away from making this a whole different kind of problem.
I shifted on the table, praying to God she didn’t notice I was getting hard, because right now, my professionalism was hanging by a thread. The last thing I needed was my agent digging me out of a sexual harassment suit on day one.
She moved her thumbs, pressing deep into the knotted muscle. It was agony, but Jesus, she was nothing like the guys in their fifties I usually dealt with. This one had control written into her DNA. She was the kind of woman who wouldn’t take my shit even if I paid her hourly.
Her fingers worked into the muscle again, a lot firmer this time.
I gritted my teeth. “You got something against hamstrings, or is this personal?”
“Breathe through it,” she said evenly, not looking up. “That’s what normal people do when they’re in pain.” Oh, this one was going to be fun, I could tell.
“Normal people don’t get paid to torture athletes,” I shot back, though it came out more of a grunt than a sentence.
Christ. If she noticed how my voice dropped, she didn’t comment.
Her clean, expensive smelling perfume lingered in my lungs, mixing with the antiseptic in a way that shouldn’t have worked, but somehow did. I could tell she was the classy type, and she moved with this quiet confidence, completely unfazed by being surrounded by elite athletes. She was measured. Precise. Like she could do this in her sleep if she had to. Detached, too andfuck, that was what was driving me insane.
“Any pain here?” she asked, pressing her weight into the movement.
“Only in my pride,” I said.
Her mouth twitched, barely, but it hit me like a shot of adrenaline.
For a second, the air intensified. Her thumb stayed on my thigh, the pressure easing, her voice softening a fraction.
“You need to rest this when you can. Push too hard and you’ll end up back here at square one before your quarterfinal.”
“Promise?” I said before my filter could catch it.
Her head snapped up. Our eyes locked, and for the first time, I saw it—a flicker of something behind the professional mask.
“Try resting, Reed. It’s good for you.”
“Not really my thing.”
“I can tell.”
She peeled off a glove, the snap of the latex loud in the quiet room. “You’re done.”
I stood up, pulling on my hoodie and trying to shake the weird tingle under my skin. I lingered by the door, leaning a shoulder against the frame like the allotted appointment time didn’t apply to me.
