Tyler
When Coach sent me down to physio room four and told me I had a session with the club assigned therapist, the last thing I expected was the hot brunette who greeted me as I walked in.
Actually, "greeted" was generous; she’d barely looked up from her iPad before barking orders at the table. And hot didn’t even cut it, she was an absolute smoke show.
No "Hello, Mr. Reed." No "Big fan of your serve." Just a command.
Damn. Did she really need to press that hard? And why was someone inflicting pain on me turning me on this much? Wouldn’t be the first time… but hell, this felt different.
“Fuck…” I hissed, jerking on the table.
“You okay?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I managed. “Definitely not picturing you doing that again.”
Her eyes narrowed. “What?”
“Nothing.”
Brain. Mouth. Filters. Pick one, Reed.
I knew her type: calm, competent, not easily impressed. The kind who saw right through the grin and the dimples, which, my agent had decided, were my entire personality now.
The sponsors had been breathing down my neck for weeks. One more fine, one more tabloid headline about a club brawl or a missed practice, and I’d be toast. Hence the "babysitting" duty. This was the club putting me on a leash and calling it ‘treatment’.
Still, I couldn’t stop watching her work. Dark, almost black hair falling in a thick wave, golden skin, toned arms that definitely saw a gym. Hands that were feminine, strong, and currently three inches away from making this a whole different kind of problem.
I shifted on the table, praying to God she didn’t notice I was getting hard, because right now, my professionalism was hanging by a thread. The last thing I needed was my agent digging me out of a sexual harassment suit on day one.
She moved her thumbs, pressing deep into the knotted muscle. It was agony, but Jesus, she was nothing like the guys in their fifties I usually dealt with. This one had control written into her DNA. She was the kind of woman who wouldn’t take my shit even if I paid her hourly.
Her fingers worked into the muscle again, a lot firmer this time.
I gritted my teeth. “You got something against hamstrings, or is this personal?”
“Breathe through it,” she said evenly, not looking up. “That’s what normal people do when they’re in pain.” Oh, this one was going to be fun, I could tell.
“Normal people don’t get paid to torture athletes,” I shot back, though it came out more of a grunt than a sentence.
Christ. If she noticed how my voice dropped, she didn’t comment.
Her clean, expensive smelling perfume lingered in my lungs, mixing with the antiseptic in a way that shouldn’t have worked, but somehow did.
I could tell she was the classy type, and she moved with this quiet confidence, completely unfazed by being surrounded by elite athletes.
She was measured. Precise. Like she could do this in her sleep if she had to.
Detached, too and fuck, that was what was driving me insane.
“Any pain here?” she asked, pressing her weight into the movement.
“Only in my pride,” I said.
Her mouth twitched, barely, but it hit me like a shot of adrenaline.
For a second, the air intensified. Her thumb stayed on my thigh, the pressure easing, her voice softening a fraction.
“You need to rest this when you can. Push too hard and you’ll end up back here at square one before your quarterfinal.”
“Promise?” I said before my filter could catch it.
Her head snapped up. Our eyes locked, and for the first time, I saw it—a flicker of something behind the professional mask.
“Try resting, Reed. It’s good for you.”
“Not really my thing.”
“I can tell.”
She peeled off a glove, the snap of the latex loud in the quiet room. “You’re done.”
I stood up, pulling on my hoodie and trying to shake the weird tingle under my skin. I lingered by the door, leaning a shoulder against the frame like the allotted appointment time didn’t apply to me.
“So… same time tomorrow?”
She didn’t look up from her notes. “You’ve been assigned to me every day this week. And match days.”
“Perfect. Plenty of time to get to know each other,” I said, flashing the smile that usually worked on everyone from ball girls to chair umpires. “Maybe over dinner?”
That earned me a raised brow. “Is that how you ask someone out? After they’ve just brutalised your hamstring?”
I grinned. That Irish accent was lethal. “What can I say? I’m an optimist.”
“No dinner. Just rehab,” she added briskly, folding a towel with military precision.
“That sounds like a boundary,” I mused, tilting my head. “Are you always this professional, or just immune to my devastating charm?”
“Not immune,” she said, brushing past me to move her notes. “Vaccinated.”
Her mouth didn’t smile but her eyes almost did.
Almost.
The laugh that rolled out of me wasn’t intentional, it just happened. She had me laughing at a rejection, and I wasn't even mad about it.
She kept her back to me, filing paperwork with no idea I’d just been two seconds away from combusting on her table.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Orla,” I said, stepping into the hallway a little disappointed she didn’t try to stop me, she didn't even look back. She hadn’t even realized I’d read her name off the door before I walked in—that I’d been paying attention to her long before she’d ever touched me.
My leg felt looser than it had in weeks. The rest of me wasn’t even close.
Fine. It was fine.
If she didn’t want me, that was her problem.
…Or was it?
As the door closed behind me I suddenly felt just how hot that room had gotten. The hallway was almost as frosty as her attitude. My mind wandered back to her dark hair, warm hands, that tiny almost-smile she hadn’t meant to give me.
What the hell was wrong with me?
I didn’t get like this about girls. It was supposed to be simple: fuck, forget, move on.
But as I limped down the hallway, one thought refused to leave me alone. I couldn’t wait for her to touch me again and it had nothing to do with my hamstring.