14. Roman
14
ROMAN
With a heavy groan, I slump down in the seat of the leg extension machine. God, that was hard.
I miss shit being hard. I loved when workouts were hard. There was a certain level of satisfaction that came from the training sessions that ended with me dead on the couch. It was a sign that I pushed my body as far as physically possible, and that always felt like a victory in itself.
Getting back into strength training these past few weeks has been incredible. It didn’t take me long to realize after my injury that the not feeling was a much bigger mental roadblock than I anticipated—some days, I almost wished I felt pain instead of nothing, because at least pain used to be a sign of progress and strengthening. And when I started feeling fireworks in my body a few months after my injury, and I realized it was the sign I was about to recover sensation in that part of my leg, I thought I would have that sense of victory back. But it wasn’t until I really committed to this strength training with Lily that it truly returned. I revel in the soreness these days. And if I’m not sore enough, I go home and do an ab or upper body workout to compensate. Regardless of the muscle being affected, I feel alive for the first time in what seems like forever.
Lily peeks at the weight the pin is in and frowns. “When did you bump that to twenty pounds?”
I grin through the sweat dripping down my face. “I wanted to challenge myself.”
She shakes her head, but there’s a smile on her lips. “You’re either an underachiever or an overachiever—you never know how to be right in the middle.”
“I don’t like being average,” I muse, chest still heaving with exertion.
“Trust me, you’re anything but average,” Lily murmurs, her eyes still on the chart in her hand.
My grin widens. “Are you saying that as my therapist or as Liliana?”
My question makes her refocus her attention on me with a pinched brow, which then makes her quiet confession register and her cheeks to pinken.
Fuck, I love making her blush.
“So I was thinking…” she rushes to say, crossing her arms over the clipboard on her chest. “We should start doing some gait training exercises. They work best when they’re done concurrently with strength training, so I think we’re at a good spot for it. What do you think?”
I swallow thickly, all humor and playfulness disappearing as memories swarm me.
Sensing my mood shift, Lily’s voice is gentle as she asks, “Have you done any gait training before?”
Another rough swallow, but this time, I nod. I don’t want to tell her about how gait training was the trigger for my biggest meltdown last year, and the thing that made me lose all hope that I would ever walk again. It was what put me in the black hole that Lily found me in a few weeks ago. Because when I failed as miserably as I did with assisted walking, I came face to face with the knowledge that I was never going to be able to walk again. I couldn’t treat it as a maybe one day anymore.
And I’m terrified that it’s going to happen again.
“I should probably focus a little more on lifting,” I tell her, not making eye contact. “I’d feel better if I was stronger.”
Lily studies me in my periphery, and I can sense she’s about to push me.
My body tenses in preparation. I’m about to lash out at her, I know I am. I’m not ready for this shit.
“Okay. I understand. But I want to do some calves next time, instead.”
My head snaps up. “What?”
She shrugs. “I said okay. You know your body better than I do. The last thing I want to do is tell you what you are or aren’t ready for.”
Eyes narrowing in her direction, my tone is skeptical as I ask, “Who are you and what have you done with my tough love PT.”
Lily smiles, and I wonder if that was a flash of relief in her eyes just now. “She’s on vacation today, but she’ll be back next week.” Her gaze slides down to my legs. “She’d probably tell you to do another two sets on the leg extension machine if she were here. But since she’s not”—she throws a towel at me that I catch—“you’re officially done for the day.”
“I feel like this is a setup,” I mutter, dragging the towel down my sweaty face. “I swear to God, if you make me do double the reps next week?—”
Lily’s laugh is a sweet, tinkling sound I can’t get enough of. “It’s not, I swear. I just know you’re pretty sore and don’t want to push you any harder. My old trainer told me it’s better to be 90% trained than 101% overtrained.”
“Remind me to introduce you to my old boxing coaches,” I say with a snort as I transfer over to my wheelchair. “They’ll dissuade you of that mentality real quick.”
She shrugs, still smiling. “Maybe. But I’m coming from a place of health. In my experience, high-level pro athletes trample all over health as a priority when their goal is world domination.”
I don’t respond, too stuck on Lily’s experience with high-level pro athletes. Has she ever worked with a fighter? Is she currently working with a fighter? What if I know who he is? What if ? —
“Case in point,” Lily says, interrupting my train of thought as she steps closer to me. “You’re sore everywhere, aren’t you? You’ve been working out a lot. Too much.”
She gets her answer when she squeezes my shoulder muscle, and I can’t hide my wince.
“I knew it. Your movements have all been stiff today.” Shifting to stand behind me, her other hand also drops to my shoulder. When she starts to knead the muscle, the deepest groan I’ve ever heard rumbles out of my chest.
“Jesus, you’re tight,” Lily murmurs, digging even harder into the muscle. “Is this all from pull-ups? How many did you do, a million?”
I don’t know if she’s actually waiting for an answer. Even if she was, I couldn’t assemble one, lost to everything that isn’t this massage.
Fuck, it hurts. Clearly, Lily knows what she’s doing, because this is equal parts pain and relief.
“Holy shit, that feels good,” I groan, my head dropping forward to give her more surface area to massage. “Fuck being a psychologist, you could be a masseuse.”
“We had to take a massage course in school,” Lily explains, but she sounds distracted. When she moves to the area between my shoulder blades and kneads twice as hard, I let out another groan of pain.
Her hands leave my body, and I lift my head to protest her stopping. But when I catch sight of her reflection in the mirror, I realize she’s only pulling her sleeves up, a determined look on her face. Then she returns to punishing my muscles.
“Okay, note to self,” she grunts after a few minutes of massaging—and several groans later. “Put limits on your strength training homework. These knots are insane, Roman.”
I let out a half-assed sound of agreement, barely listening. In only a few minutes, her hands have rubbed out most of the knots, and now the massage has melted into that pleasant kind that people pay hundreds of dollars for as stress relief.
“Seriously. No more pull-ups for you,” she grumbles. Shifting to the side of my wheelchair, she starts to work on my arms now, her thumbs digging into my tricep.
“Whatever you say, Doc,” I slur, turning my head to watch her motions.
By the time she’s massaging my forearms, I’ve become mesmerized by her hands. They’re smooth and blemish-free, and her short nails are the cutest shade of pale pink. But it’s the way they move that really draws my attention. She’s so skilled, and the firm way in which she grips me makes me feel like putty beneath her touch. I’ve never felt like?—
Suddenly, her movements stop. When she pulls her hands back, I look up at her in confusion, only to see she’s avoiding my eyes and awkwardly rubbing her thighs.
“Well, um…hopefully, that helped,” she rambles, still not meeting my eyes. “I can suggest a great massage therapist if you’d like to stay on top of those knots; she’ll get you fixed up in no time…”
I frown, still lost about what just happened. Is a massage considered inappropriate? She just said she had to take a class?—
It isn’t until I glance down at my lap that I realize what happened.
And everything in me goes cold.
My dick is hard. And it’s not like an oh whoops, I saw a pretty girl and got a chub erection, it’s hard . Like a I popped three Viagras, and I’ve never been harder erection. And with the basketball shorts I’m wearing, there’s no hiding it.
My cheeks heat, the embarrassment so thick it feels like tar as I try to take a breath. A buzzing starts in my head. I don’t know what to say. How to react. What to do .
Logically, I know Lily is a professional. She’s entirely aware of the things that can happen with this type of injury, and she’d handle it appropriately, regardless of if I wanted to ignore it or talk about it. Medically, there’s nothing I should be embarrassed about.
Realistically, that couldn’t be further from the truth.
My skin flaming hotter and hotter, I look in the opposite direction of Lily, searching for anything I can throw over my lap and attempt to hide my shame. But there’s nothing. I don’t even have the sweatshirt I came in here with since it’s back on the treatment table.
One more second of indecision, another of sheer humiliation, and then I give up. I can’t deal with this. Turning my wheelchair, I start toward the exit.
“Roman, no, wait?—”
I ignore Lily’s plea and simply leave the gym.
* * *
It takes my mom two unanswered questions to figure out that something’s happened and I need to be left alone. She doesn’t even ask me if I need help getting into the house like she normally does; she just gives me a sad smile as she gets out of the van.
I don’t know why I rush into my house, because the second I’m in my kitchen, I’m at a complete loss with what to do with myself. Do I go to my home gym and workout until I pass out from exhaustion? Do I drink myself into a blackout? What’s the quickest way to get me to unconsciousness so I don’t need to think about what the fuck just happened?
It's been a long time since I’ve had an uncontrollable erection. I mostly figured it had to do with nothing turning me on mentally anymore. Some SCI patients get them from physical stimulation but don’t feel pleasure from it, and some feel pleasure but need physical help to get it up. I thought I was one of the lucky ones who eventually gained enough sensation to have the best of both worlds—just with no one to experience it with. I never dreamed it would happen with Lily.
God fucking damnit, does she think I ran out of there because I was shocked to spring a boner? I’m sure my mortification was obvious, but if she thinks my dick doesn’t work, I’m never fucking going back there again. A man can only take so many hits to the ego.
Looking down at my lap, I glare at my now-soft dick. Fucking useless.
I wrap a hand around it through my shorts, giving it one angry tug. Nothing .
But then I mentally drift back to the moment before everything went wrong: the one where I was watching Lily massage my arms. It makes sense that the sight of her hands triggered what it did, what with the sight and feel of them. It doesn’t take a big mental leap to picture them wrapped around my cock.
Instantly, I harden in my grip. A wave of pleasure nearly bowls me over at the thought of Lily using both hands on me, of her twisting and tugging and sliding them up and down my length. Fuck , I bet she’d feel good. Better than good. And if her hands are that good, I can’t even imagine how great she’d feel if?—
I yank back my hand with a snarl of disgust. I’m kidding myself if I think that would ever happen. She’s young, and pretty, and has everything going for her. She deserves to have a guy who has everything going for him . Even if it’s just the bedroom, she should have someone who can fuck her properly, not just lie there on his back like a useless sex doll. Even jerking off to the thought of it is a joke.
With frustration mounting in my chest, I grab my cigarettes off the kitchen counter and hope the smoke can drown out my self-hatred.