Chapter 49 Sonya
SONYA
As soon as I’d caught early signs of him waking up, I jolted off the couch. Then I puttered around in the kitchen while he yawned and stretched.
Now, I’m back sitting on my couch, turned so the armrest supports my lower back. Adrian is facing me.
“Are you ready?” he asks. His voice is raspy.
I’m nodding but also—no big deal—masking a minor hyperventilation episode. Some of it’s leftover adrenaline from when I had to yank my fingers out of his hair before he caught me. Part of it is Diana’s screeching hiss that almost made me jump out of my skin as she fled the scene.
But most of it is this other problem.
That—
This man is much harder to resist when he’s coming off a nap.
It’s the soft, sleepy look in those blue eyes, and his hair that’s a touch too messy (my fault) and how he smells like he normally does, but also more. Along with his usual sandalwood, soap, and mint, there’s my apartment’s underlying earl grey tea notes clinging to his skin.
“You sure you don’t want to eat first?” I’ve gone cross-legged on the minuscule bit of cushion I claimed for myself. He takes up so much room, and that’s without his legs getting in the way as they stretch off the couch. “We can work on my report later.”
“Progress first. Reward later, darling.”
“Spoken like a true type-A athlete. Also, calling my food a reward is wildly optimistic.”
He laughs. It’s huskier than it has any right to be. “I’ll be the judge of that.”
“If you survive to tell the tale.”
“Shh.”
He’s gotten comfortable around me. I mean, he’s always been confidently cocky, very loud and asking for too much, but there’s an intimate easiness in how his finger presses against my mouth. Only for a few seconds.
Because he’s a smart man.
I bite.
Not that I would mind biting him—
What the hell, Sonya?
Focus!
A few minutes ago, he’d taken his phone out of his pocket and pulled out my report. It reminded me that’s why I called him over here in the first place. To talk about it. Actually, more likely to yell about it. Because that report? Those phrases inside it?
…emotional nature of performance block…
…reflecting on an adopted past as it’s linked…
…fear of loss of identity…
…lower the psychological demand…
It’s causing all sorts of feelings to thrash inside me.
The main one being disbelief.
How is it really going to help with ballet? I should be in the studio for as many hours as humanly possible for the next two weeks—and that’s the plan, but what if I keep falling?
That’s where hopelessness comes in.
I’m desperate, want to hedge my bets, and do anything it takes to make my routine work. But I have no idea how to dig through and apply all these different therapy techniques Team Nutcracker is implying will help.
My brow furrows and my heart tumbles in my chest.
I don’t know, but some part of me thought that if I went to him and we talked about it…it might start making sense.
“We’ll try EFT,” Adrian says. “The emotional freedom technique. My sports psychologist wrote here that it’s not meant to replace other therapies but can be an effective tool to encourage someone who struggles with voicing their fears to name them out loud.”
I glower as I raise my hand. “I guess that’s me.”
Adrian smiles and puts his phone away. “By the way, you know you can still work with my team, right? If you need them, I’ll contract them out for you again.”
My eyes widen. The offer is generous. So damn generous.
I know if I said yes, he’d do it. No questions asked, no matter how much it costs.
But recalling all those people—his sports psychologist, physician, performance coach, physiotherapist, and massage therapist—working on me at the same time, it didn’t always feel like I could breathe.
It was overwhelming to the point of making me dizzy.
Not that I cared then. I was desperate to solve my yips, so I shut up and pushed through any of that lung tightness as they interviewed and analyzed me, but—
“Let’s give this a go first,” I find myself saying. “Just us.”
“If you change your mind, let me know.” Adrian scoots closer and because my sofa is oh-so generously designed for a person and a half, my knee grazes his hip.
“For this therapy, there are acupressure points on the face and upper body that you tap,” Adrian tells me. “The top of your head. Middle of your eyebrows. Side of the eye. Under eye. Under your nose. Under your mouth. Side of the hand. Collarbone. Under the arm.”
“How do I tap?” I poke his hand. The one closest to me. “Show me.”
I had meant for him to show me on himself, but when the pad of his thumb presses the spot between my eyebrows, my ability to speak vanishes.
The last time we touched each other—properly—was at the party when we kissed. Desire flares inside me. My body still remembers every second of that night.
“So tense,” he whispers, massaging the spot briefly before moving on. His hand pinpoints the middle of my scalp and taps. It’s not a jarring movement. The heaviness of his hand is warm. Solid. Big.
So quickly, he goes to the next point. His palm engulfs my cheek and thumb stretches out. It taps the side of my eye and then underneath it.
His hands have held onto hockey sticks his whole life. Wooden-scraped blisters healed over to build rough calluses. But him touching me isn’t rough. I stutter out an exhale. No, there’s this other kind of tension building up as worked-over hands gently map my face.
When he taps the spot beneath my mouth, I go from cross-legged to sitting on my knees and then squeezing them together. The juncture between them pulses. I get wet so quickly with him around, I vaguely think with distant alarm. He doesn’t even need to touch me much, and I’m suffering.
“Sonya.”
He’s pulling back.
“There’s the body ones but you can—”
“Show me,” I insist. My voice is a whisper, even if the rest of me doesn’t feel so quiet. My skin simmers and—should I measure the warmth of my forehead? Or…his? Not that he appears to be struggling. He’s focused, sensibly composed—
Adrian looks briefly at the ceiling. Then back at me. “Show me your hand,” he says finally.
I give it to him.
He traces a line down, from my finger down to my wrist, tapping softly.
There’s another break. He needs to clear his throat.
“Next is the collarbone,” he says, speaking out loud as if giving me a chance to say something. To stop this.
My chest comes forward an inch. His hand stays hovering over the neckline of my top. One pause. Two pauses. Three.
“What?” I ask.
He swallows. “Sonya.”
There is unmistakable anguish in his voice.
“Why do you have to feel so soft?”
“Moisturizer.”
He struggles, ducking his head until it’s pushed against his shoulder as he huffs out a laugh.
At the same time, his hand makes contact. My collarbone zings. It’s never been an erogenous zone for me, but now it’s full of all these joyful nerve endings.
I swallow a gasp. “Is that it?”
“There’s one more spot. But we don’t have to—”
“Where?”
“Under your arm.”
I’m wearing a tank top. It’s utilitarian. Black. The fabric is this thin camisole material. Lifting my arm shows off how it dips on the sides to reveal the lacework of my bra. Also black.
The tendons in his neck are visible in sudden relief.
Adrian sweeps his finger across the scalloped edge.
“That’s not tapping,” I breathe out.
“Baby, I can see your nipples.”
He can. They’ve pebbled hard enough to poke through my top.
For what feels like minutes, nothing more is said. Adrian uses both hands to scrub at his face.
My lower back digs more into the armrest. “Is that it? Is the therapy over?”
“No.”
“What’s next?”
“Give me a minute.” He draws in a deliberate breath. “Would you—? Can I have some water?”
I get up, even though my legs have become noodles. Maybe it’s for the best. Maybe this distance will give my nipples a chance to calm themselves down.
Now, that’s wildly optimistic. Especially considering I go to the doorway of my kitchen, and turn right around because I also have sparkling water, and which does Adrian want?
Bubbles or no bubbles? I don’t have a chance to ask him.
He must think I’m still in the kitchen and doesn’t sense me standing there, gawking at him.
His shirt has risen up. Just an inch, so the waistband of boxer briefs is visible.
That’s not what reinvigorates my nipples…dries my mouth…makes me want to swear a million swear words…
It’s his hand. Down there. It’s cupping a bulge.
Where has this come from? Was it always there? For how long?
And can I therapy-tap it? With my face?