CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Layla
I’m making my way down the hall from the staff room at the clinic, pulling my hair up into a high ponytail as I get ready for my appointment. Reception has told me this client is new, so I have a sixty-minute slot booked for an assessment and the first treatment.
I put my phone in my cubby at the front desk.
I don’t take it into sessions, and I find myself wondering what will be waiting for me when I finish.
I’ll admit, life has been a hell of a lot more interesting since I met Sean.
He doesn’t care what anyone thinks, or about fitting into anyone else’s version of normal.
In turn, that makes me care less and less about fitting into anyone else’s mold.
I actually found it funny when a horrified Mrs. Fielding, my elderly neighbor who also happens to attend my old church, glared at me as Sean and I started off down my driveway to come to the clinic.
I’ve seen her out there the last couple of days, milling about, probably wondering whose Harley is parked at my house.
Waving at her like I didn’t give a fuck felt like I was shedding one more layer of my old life.
The old me would have cared what she thought.
But the version of me when I’m with Sean just can’t be bothered.
He is unapologetically genuine, and that gives me a kind of confidence I’ve never had before.
I actually laughed at the look of pure horror on her face when the sound of Sean’s bike almost shook all the houses on our quiet street.
But I’ll need to brace myself for the questions that will come, because I can almost guarantee that when Dell next sees her at church, he will hear all about the big bad biker who was at my house.
I pick up my client’s file and knock on the door, then freeze as the name on the intake form practically jumps off the page. I push the door open to a familiar scent as the harrowing green eyes I can’t get out of my head meet my gaze.
I close the door behind me and drop the file onto my desk with a little extra force, never breaking our stare. The only sound in the room is the spa music that plays quietly on a loop.
“Anyone ever tell you you’re relentless?” I ask rhetorically.
“I just seized an opportunity,” Sean answers. “You said I couldn’t get in until next week, but it seems there was a cancellation.”
“Mmm-hmm.” I sit down across from him at my small desk and look down at his file, not even wanting to know how he managed to pull this off.
I read the answers he provided on his questionnaire like I would with any other client, and do my best to focus, but under my outward professionalism I can’t stop thinking about what he looks like under those clothes, both dreading and anticipating that I’m going to have to put my hands on him.
We spend the next few minutes talking seriously about his treatment.
Or rather, it’s me talking—stalling. I explain what I expect from him, how we’ll start adding yoga and deep stretching into his routine.
He answers truthfully about when he feels the most pain and describes it as I take notes.
When I can no longer stall, I take a deep breath.
“Alright, let’s see where you’re tight and what we can improve,” I tell him as I stand and make my way to the cabinet beside my massage table to set up.
When I turn back around, he’s already behind me.
“Where do you want me?” he asks in a low voice, from only a few inches away. My entire body heats with thunderous desire as I look up into those eyes.
Fuck. On top of me?
He pulls his cut off and hangs it over the back of the chair.
I swallow before I answer, questioning my sanity. “The massage table is fine.” I have to figure out how to separate and compartmentalize working with him and wanting him, because I’m a total goner for this man the moment he comes anywhere near me.
“Perfect,” he says, then—using one hand to reach behind his neck—he pulls his t-shirt off and folds it, setting it on the same chair his cut is draped over. I think he begins to speak but I have no idea what he’s saying, because under that shirt is the kind of body I’ve seen only in my dreams.
Sean’s so defined that I can see every ripple of his tight abs and the deep V that disappears into his black jeans.
His chest is thick and solid. Ink lines his arms and shoulders.
My God, his shoulders. His arms make me want to curl up with them around me and make a home there.
There isn’t much of him that isn’t covered in ink, but what I can see is smooth and tanned.
The dog tags remain around his neck and remind me of his sacrifice, his bravery and his strength, somehow making his allure even stronger, as if that were even possible. Goddamn.
Sean Hunter is all man and fucking incredible-looking.
“Jeans too?” he asks, grasping for his buckle, snapping me from my living daydream as I focus on his eyes, which are watching me intently and filled with that cocky amusement. It hits me then that I’m the one who’s going to suffer the most through this massage.
Okay … maybe I didn’t think this through very well.