Rowe (Henchmen MC Next Generation 4)

“I am. But I am also all about people being their authentic selves and feeling their feelings instead of repressing them. I once had a client who had nearly lifelong hip pain until she worked through the trauma she’d suppressed from being an assault survivor. We can repress emotions, but our bodies hold onto them. So you’re only hurting yourself to push that shit down.”

He had nothing to say to that. And I noticed he pressed a fair amount of his weight down on my shoulders as we started to move across my apartment.

“Did you not get a back brace?” I asked.

“I have one,” he admitted, a little out of breath from the short walk to my bedroom, a testament to just how much he was hurting. “It hurts.”

“Well, it hurts without it too, doesn’t it?” I asked, turning him, and sitting him off the side of my massage table, facing the window.

“And I can’t get it on and off myself,” he added, head ducked, having difficulty admitting he needed help.

“Tell you what? I can help you put it on. And no one has to know,” I told him.

“You can’t—“

“Sure I can,” I corrected. “I pass the clubhouse several times a day. I can pop in and help you get it off. Then back on after a shower if that is when you are taking it off.”

“Everyone will—“

“Be told that I am doing quick massages for pain relief like we will tell them,” I supplied.

“You don’t have—“

“I want to,” I cut him off.

“I don’t remember you interrupting me so much,” he said, letting out a humorless snort.

“I don’t remember you being so wrong before,” I shot back, getting a ghost of a smile from him. “Can you lift your arms?” I asked.

“Why do I need to lift my arms?”

“So we can take your shirt off,” I told him.

“I’m not taking off my shirt.”

“If you want me to attempt a massage or put the salve on, yes, you are.”

“I don’t think any of—“

“Your preconceived notions about what I do are completely accurate,” I cut him off again, brow arching.

I was used to people doubting me. It came with the territory in modern society. Anyone who practiced alternative forms of healthcare were considered quacks.

I got less resistance for yoga and for massage, things our culture has accepted as common and if not effective, then at least harmless.

The salves, teas, acupressure, meditation, tantra, reiki, and crystals? Well, most people weren’t down with that. Most of my own family wasn’t. That was fine. They still respected me and my practices, so it didn’t matter.

But I was a firm believer of “don’t knock it ’til you try it” when it came to just about everything in life. So I could get a little testy and firm about it when I thought I could help someone, and they were being obstinate just because they were being exposed to something new.

“I don’t mean to insult you.”

Except when you practically call me pathetic.

Ugh. Damnit. No.

I had to get a grip with that.

I had to learn to let it go.

A little voice whispered that if I hadn’t been able to after all this time, that maybe I never would.

I went ahead and ignored that.

“Wouldn’t it be easier to experience it for yourself and come to your own conclusions before you judge it?” I suggested, moving forward, and reaching outward, grabbing the hem of his tee.

“Billie…”

“I need to see your back, Rowe,” I said, shrugging. “If you’re feeling insecure about it, I can take off my shirt too,” I teased. My body didn’t quite accept that I was teasing, though, and a flush moved over my chest, making a warm feeling swirl in my belly at the idea of slipping out of my dress, of his gaze on me, of his hands on me. Like I’d fantasized about more times than I was willing to admit. Yes, even after his rejection.

I didn’t expect, though, for Rowe’s gaze to heat at my suggestion.

Wait.

No.

They didn’t heat.

That couldn’t have been right.

And it was gone before I could analyze the look properly.

Damnit.

He was making me second-guess myself.

As if he hadn’t done enough damage already.

“Easy,” I said when he tried to whip his arms up quickly, leaving him to hiss at the pain in his back and shoulder. “We have time, you don’t need to try to rush through everything,” I added, voice soothing. It was the same voice I would use in any of my classes or private sessions. Calm, patient, and reassuring.

With that, his arms went up, and I was lifting his tee.

I would love to claim that I was the consummate professional right then.

Just like I’d told Vi about all cocks being good cocks, all bodies were good bodies. I saw clothed and fully bare bodies of every shape and size in the past. I never felt the need to sexualize a body outside of a sexual situation.