He hobbled into the hallway and looked at the stairs leading to his room. So many damn stairs. His mood turned black. “Screw shorts.”
He headed toward the gym, where he found her crouched beside the portable exam table she’d dragged from her car earlier, the kind masseuses used. He unfastened his jeans and shoved them down his legs, then pulled his feet free.
When she turned to face him, she took one look, and lifted her arms to the sides. “Noah.”
“What? These are shorts.” He gestured to his cotton boxer briefs. “Sort of. Besides I’m not going up those stairs until you fix what you broke.”
She pulled a sheet from a duffle at her feet, muttering something he didn’t hear, nor wanted to hear, and snapped it onto the table’s four corners, then gestured to the flat expanse. “On your back.”
“I like the sound of that.” But he tested the table’s stability first.
“I’ve had bigger guys than you on that table,” she said. “It’ll hold three hundred and fifty pounds of muscle.”“Don’t like the sound of that.” Just another reminder he was nothing special to her. She worked with hard bodies and thick wallets day in and day out. Probably slept with her fair share of them too. The whole “I don’t sleep with clients” was nothing but a smoke screen she hid behind when choosing who she wanted to sleep with and when.
And as he levered himself onto the table and shimmied around to lie down on his back without putting pressure on his bad leg, his mind scanned their night together, searching for what caused her to pull away from him now. He lay back and closed his eyes, trying to relax. But he saw her as she’d been the night before, perfectly naked, collapsed on him after an amazing ride. It had been good for her too—the whole night, not just one ride.
He did everything humanly possible to make sure every woman left his bed satisfied.
Usually, that was a pride thing. An ego boost. But with Julia… He shook his head and scraped a hand through his hair. With Julia, it had been even more important, and in a whole different way.
But the pain in his leg was seeping in, and he couldn’t think anymore.
“This is warm.” Her soft voice slid into the muck and cleared his mind like a fresh breeze. Then her hands slid over his lower leg, wiping something slick along his skin. “Just relax. Nothing I’m doing will hurt.”
The reassurance helped. Her voice helped. But what really made him release all tension and sink into the padded table was her touch. The simple act of having her hands on him made his worries drift, his anger vanish, and filled Noah with a deep sense of well-being.
He sighed and dropped his forearm across his eyes. “How long have you been doing this?”
“Four years,” she said, her voice smooth and relaxed as if the act gave her the same sense of relief as it did Noah.
“What about before Performance?”
“Performance was my first job as a therapist.”
“Your first job out of school, and you landed one with such a high-profile company?” he said. “How’d that happen?”
She probably slept with someone. He knew how the world worked—success amounted to contacts, favors, and cash. Sure, someone had to have the base talent to begin with, but lots of people had talent. Talent or a contact might get your foot in the door, but favors got you all the way in.
“Same way it happens for everyone,” she said. “I applied, interviewed, got the job.”
He lifted his arm and opened his eyes, glancing down at her where she pushed her hands along the sides of his calf. Her sweater gapped a little at the neckline, giving Noah nothing but a tease of what lay beneath. “They let a little girl right out of school work on multimillion-dollar athletes? I don’t think so.”
She gave him a heavy-lidded, disgusted look. “You just refuse to give me the benefit of the doubt. Guess time will tell for you. Hold on, this will be uncomfortable at first.”
He propped himself up on his elbows as Julia stepped forward and pressed the bottom of his foot to the center of her fuzzy sweater and her taut abs beneath. She crisscrossed her thumbs over an indention in his foot just in front of his ankle.
“Hey, my incision—”
“Is completely healed, and I’m not even close.” She pressed on the pressure point while flexing his foot by leaning toward him.
He sucked air and tensed, expecting a jolt of pain, but only stiff pressure tugged at his foot and leg. She eased back and released her hands, giving him a second of rest.
“Your range of motion sucks.” She repositioned, pressed his foot into a flexed position by pushing down on that indention again, this time harder. He felt the same pressure and a wide stretch in his ankle.
“Sucks is another technical term, right?”
“Very technical.” She repeated the motion another half dozen times, each pass bringing more flexibility and reduced pain. Noah’s tension melted little by little until he collapsed back against the table and let relief slide through his tense shoulders.
“Oh yeah. Much better.” He breathed deeper. His arms hung looser. His mind opened. Whatever she was doing gave Noah a sense of deep comfort. A glimmer of hope.