So I just nod, shifting my weight to my right leg, lifting the pressure on my left.
Even that makes pain crunch up in an awful fiery knot. The muscle contracts with the movement, and I can’t stop my hiss, the growl in the back of my throat.
A thunder roll that eases away as she squeezes my hand in hers.
No, it doesn’t stop the pain.
But it makes a dude feel a little better, my chest warming. She turns to lead me toward her massage table, moving slow with her hand in mine and waiting without rushing for me to limp forward one step at a time.
It’s a relief to hoist myself up on the table, wincing as I settle down on the edge.
I promptly choke on my next breath.
Peace smiles at me merrily, twirling her finger.
“Okay, then,” she says. “Clothes off.”
I splutter. There’s a tightness in my gut that has nothing to do with pain or apprehension. “What? Why?”
Her laughter trills, and for a moment, wicked eyes dart over me before she turns her back. “You haven’t ever had a massage before? I can’t do it through your jeans for this kind of deep work. Don’t worry. I won’t look.”
“You’re gonna have to look to work,” I growl.
“Towel.” She points over her shoulder without turning back, before bending over the coffee table and giving me a sweet view of the curves of her ass and the dip of her silky spine. “You can cover yourself up pretty well.”
Good thing I ain’t naked right now.
My jeans are the only thing holding me in.
Fuck.
I tear my gaze away from her and look at the towels folded at the foot of the table.
Fine. Okay. Hell.
“Shirt too?” I ask, and she laughs again.
“Shirt too.”
“...you ain’t working on anything but my leg,” I mutter, shooting her a look.
“Oh, you’d be surprised where we hold tension in the body, and how it affects pain in other areas far from the source,” she says softly, her voice countered by the soft clink of glass vials moving together as she picks them up, reads their labels, and sets them down again. “So if I really want to work with your pain, I’ll need to find your tension centers and trigger points. Trust me, Blake. I know what I’m doing. This is the only thing I actually stayed in school for.”
“Hnngh.” I grunt but shrug out of my jacket and look around, before just tossing it toward the couch. It hits the arm, and I start unbuttoning the flannel shirt underneath. “I mean, can’t be any worse than a doctor visit.”
Her head turns like she’ll glance over her shoulder at me—before she stops and looks firmly forward. “You don’t trust doctors?”
“Never have.” I toss the flannel next, then peel out of my undershirt and throw it on the pile before hooking my thumb in the fly of my jeans. It’s less the pretty girl worrying me right now and more how I’m gonna wiggle out of these without a damn sigh of pain. “Doctors left me fucked up like this. Bad stitch-up job. Muscle never healed right. It was a combat situation, sure, and I get they did their damnedest, but...”
“And physical therapy never worked?”
Most of the time that question gets my hackles up like nothing else.
It’s a judgmental question. Like the pain I’m in is my fault because I just didn’t try some obvious thing or didn’t do it hard enough.
Only, the way Broccoli Girl asks is different.
It’s gentle. Honest. Kind.
It’s part of this weird music in her voice and the soft tink of glass oil vials.
It doesn’t feel like she’s judging me.
Just seems like she wants to hear my story.
That’s what I tell myself, anyway, as I mutter out slowly. “Tried therapy for a few years. Couldn’t even walk when I came back from Afghanistan with shrapnel embedded so deep in my leg they told me at first they’d have to leave it in. They cut it out, eventually, but not without carving me up real bad first. And the way it healed, fuck. PT just made it worse, I guess.” I shrug. “There’s something knotted up in there real nasty. Every time they’d try the exercises, it’d always pull something else loose. The surgeons messed me up, though they were trying their best, too. I guess.”
Bitter much? Fuck yes, I am. A Purple Heart framed up in the corner of my basement can’t take away years of total agony.
I hadn’t meant to tell her all that. Too late.
And although Peace ain’t supposed to be looking, for a minute she turns back, just gazing at me with those warm green eyes that make me feel like it’s spring in the middle of this snowy, ice-scoured day.
“Sometimes people’s best isn’t good enough. It’s okay to accept it,” she says. “You’re allowed to be angry at the surgeons for leaving you in this kind of pain, Blake. You don’t have to excuse it.”
“I...”
I’d never really thought of it like that.
That I was making excuses for the mess they made of my leg, or if I just downplayed it, maybe it wouldn’t be such a big deal and the pain would disappear.
I make a huffy noise in the back of my throat.
“You ain’t supposed to be looking, remember?”
Yeah. No way in hell I’m misinterpreting the way her gaze dips over my naked chest, her lashes coming down in a soft sweep before a smile tugs at her lips as she turns away.
“Not looking,” she says with this singsong lilt in her voice. Girl must sing a lot. “Pick a scent. Manly pine, sandalwood, or amber?”
I flick the button of my jeans open. “Pine’s gonna sting my nose. Sandalwood’s too strong. The fuck does amber smell like?”
She picks a bottle up and flicks the cap with her thumb, then sniffs. “Morocco.”
“That ain’t a scent.”
“It’s the best word I can come up with.” She laughs.
“Fine, fine. Make me stink like Morocco.”
Her only answer is another laugh. I let it hold me up, bracing myself for torture, and then lift myself up on one hand, tugging my jeans out from under me and since she said naked, dragging my boxer-briefs with.
There’s a brief burst of agony, one that makes me groan in the back of my throat. Then I let myself down, using my hands to shimmy my clothes down my legs, kicking my boots and socks off in the process. I’m trying damned hard not to look at my hard-on, and grab a towel to cover it up quickly, cinching it clumsily around my hips.
“Uh,” I mutter. “How you want me?”
“On your back,” she answers, moving away from me, leaning over to light a single candle before circling the room.
There are candles everywhere, I realize. She touches each wick delicately with a spark of flame that flicks in little gold tongues.
“Don’t worry, Fire Chief Silver Tongue, there’s nothing flammable near the candles.”
“Silverton,” I snarl, correcting her.
Why the fuck are my ears burning?
Even with her back to me, I can hear the grin in her voice. “I don’t know, I’ve heard your show. Silver Tongue sounds about right.”
I make a sputtering noise. Is this girl openly flirting with me now?
I’ve gotta ignore it.
So I focus on shifting to my back instead. The massage table feels a little small for me, but it doesn’t wobble as I ease myself back with my bum leg stretched out, smoothing my towel. Peace turns back toward me.