Chapter 30
Bryn
“So, what do you do for fun?” the man on my massage table asks.
“Puzzles, mostly,” I tell him, trying to sound as boring as possible.
From the second he walked through the door of the clinic, he’s given me a weird feeling. He wouldn’t stop staring at me as we walked through what he wanted worked on today, which isn’t necessarily cause for the hairs on my neck to stand up.
It was the way he never broke eye contact as he ran his hand over his hip, down his thigh, crossed back to his hamstring, and then travelled up his glute that made me uncomfortable.
The way his eyes flicked down to my chest, then back up just as quickly, like he thought I wouldn’t notice.
Or the way I could feel him watch my ass when I turned to leave the room for him to get changed.
If he’d given me this feeling when I was working at 10-42, I wouldn’t have said a thing when he mentioned being stiff after a run earlier in the day.
Then again, I was rather distracted by a certain cowboy.
“That’s cool,” he says, nodding in the face cradle. “I like puzzles. You play on your phone?”
Glancing at the clock, I pull in a deep, silent breath. Twenty-five more minutes that need to speed the hell up.
“No. Real puzzles on a table,” I explain, hands sliding up his leg to his thigh. The one that he said was bothering him.
“Wow, a real puzzle. Cool.”
Fighting against the inner need to respond to him because he’s a client, I work into his hamstring, first with my hands, then with my forearms and elbow.
He groans a few times, making me wonder if maybe he was telling the truth, and his leg did hurt.
Part of me thought it was all a rouse just so I would touch him there.
Then again, his leg isn’t thick with muscle. It’s thin. The polar opposite of Wyatt.
Wyatt. The thought of him brings a small smile to my face and makes working on the man a little easier.
I haven’t seen the cowboy for a couple of days because he was on shift, and then I worked here and at 10-42, but I heard all about him from Gran.
She took him to a greenhouse to pick out some new plants for the backyard, and then they had lunch at her favorite spot on the pier.
She’s done her best to integrate him into our lives. Into my life.
My eyes dart to the clock. Twenty more minutes. Which has me coming to the part of his massage that I’ve been dreading most. Flipping him onto his back. A position that will make it much easier for him to stare at me again.
Pulling the sheet out from where I’ve got it tucked beneath his leg, I cover him properly so only his head is undraped.
“Okay, Eddie, I’m going to lift the sheet on one side in just a second, and I want you to flip over to your back and scoot down a bit.”
“Oh, uh, sure, okay.”
Standing beside the bed, I reach over him and grab the sheet on the far side of the table, lifting it enough that he can turn beneath it while staying covered. Lifting my eyes toward the ceiling as he moves, I wait until he’s slid himself down the table to release the sheet over his body again.
He’s lying there, arm propped under his head, eyes open and locked on me. Forcing a smile onto my face, I nod, and then adjust the sheet, willing the hair on the back of my neck to lie flat.
This isn’t like the creeps at 10-42. There I’m surrounded by other people.
I can handle myself because I know I’ve got backup if I need it.
Here, I’m alone in a room with a man who is naked besides his underwear.
There’s another therapist a couple of rooms down, and then the receptionist, but the three of us are the only ones working.
I’ve never felt so uncomfortable at work before. A feeling that grows when I realize the sheet is tented over Eddie’s groin area in a way that suggests he has an erection.
Shit.
It wasn’t a bullshit line when I told Wyatt that this kind of thing happens and it’s nothing to worry about, but normally a guy is embarrassed by it. Eddie looks happy he’s got an erection, and I don’t want to know what he thinks I might do with it. The answer is absolutely nothing.
As a professional, though, I ignore it, just like I was taught to do.
“I’m going to work on your legs,” I explain to him, moving towards the foot of the table. “And then we’ll end with some neck massage.”
“Sure,” he says, shifting on the table as I adjust the bolster under his legs.
It’s disconcerting the way I can feel his eyes lingering on me.
Traveling over the parts of me he can see from his vantage point.
It makes me glad for the sports bra and crew neck black t-shirt I’m wearing, since it leaves nothing exposed for him to look at.
My yoga pants are probably another matter, but as I uncover the leg he deemed sore, and drape the sheet properly to keep the rest of him hidden, bunching it up near his groin to aid the tenting, I never turn my back on him.
“Are you comfortable?” I ask, pausing before I start any work. “Can I get you a towel for over your face? I know it can be bright in here after turning over.”
“Nah, this is perfect.”
The hope of getting him to stop leering at me disappears when his voice drops, sending a chill skittering down my spine. Pulling in a breath to ease my nerves, I glance at the clock while I start on his shin. Seventeen minutes. I can do this.
Not focusing too long on his shin because of time, I move up to the thigh he said was bothering him, doing some myofascial release on his quad.
He’s definitely tight in there, and slowly I start to get into what I’m doing, paying more attention to my technique and his response than I am his lingering stare.
Until I feel a caress against my thigh, and my fingers freeze on his leg, my heart kicking up a notch.
No. I’m imagining it. His hand is resting on the table beside his leg, and my leg is right there.
I must have leaned into the table too much.
It happens. This isn’t the first time a hand has touched my leg when I’ve been working, and it won’t be the last.
When something is in your way, remove it.
One of my instructor’s voices rings clearly in my mind, and I follow it as if I were still in his classroom. It might have been over a year ago since I graduated, but I remember it like it was yesterday.
Taking Eddie’s hand, I lift it away from the table and place it over his stomach.
No big deal.
Obstacle eliminated, I start to work on his thigh again, eyes darting to the clock. Fourteen minutes.
Pulse thundering in my ears, my focus feels shot. It’s not fair to Eddie, even if he is being a bit creepy with his constant fixation of me, and I take a deep breath to calm my nerves.
He groans when I switch techniques, applying parallel pressure in opposite directions. His hand drops away from his stomach to hang out from the table, grazing the side of my thigh in a way that feels too controlled to be a limp limb.
“Fuck, baby, that feels good.”
The words come out of his mouth, and my instinct kicks in. I step sideways and back, away from the table. The movement has a hand grazing the back of my thigh, just below my butt cheek, and I know in that moment if I hadn’t moved, he would have grabbed a handful.
Working to keep my breathing in check and my racing mind to slow down, I hold my hands up in front of me. “That was extremely inappropriate, and this massage is now done. I’m going to step out of the room and let you get changed.”
“Wait, what did I do?” Eddie asks, lifting up on his elbows, the sheet falling away from his chest.
Did I mishear him?
Have I been so uncomfortable with him that I thought I heard something he didn’t say?
Am I making it all up?
But when his eyes trail down to my breasts suggestively, I’m certain I wasn’t.
There’s a whine to his tone when he adds, “You were just getting to the good part.”
“Please get changed. I’ll meet you outside the door,” I tell him, and then I’m out of there, slipping through the door and into the hallway.
It’s well lit, and the difference from the room to here is stark. Squinting, I stop a few paces from the door, close my eyes, and breathe deeply. It does nothing to stop the shaking in my hands.
I am not hopeless.
I am capable.
I can handle this.
It’s okay. I’m okay. I’ve had worse at the bar, and this isn’t the first massage client to ever hit on me. He is the first to touch me, though, and that makes me feel gross. A scalding hot shower is definitely in my future.
The thought has me opening my eyes and striding down the hall to the little bathroom in the clinic.
I wash my hands thoroughly, letting the water wash away some of the ickiness I’m feeling.
It cleanses me, the water warming up my icy hands while I’m at it.
Normally they’re hot when I work on someone, but right now it doesn’t feel like there’s an ounce of circulation in them.
When I’ve taken more time than I probably should have, I head back down the hallway, stopping outside of the room Eddie is in. It’s good timing because the door opens two seconds later, and he steps out.
I take a step backward. “I’ll show you out.”
It’s at this moment I realize my mistake. I should have gotten Celeste from reception to walk him out with me because I have no choice but to turn my back on him now.
Thirty seconds. That’s all that stands before me and freedom from this man.
Without waiting for him to answer, I turn, heading for the door that will lead us into the reception area. He’s hot on my heels, closer than I’d like him to be, but I zero my gaze in on the door that will save me.
“I still don’t understand what I did,” he says from behind, and I force myself not to shudder with the proximity of his voice. My imagination must be playing tricks on me. I did not feel his actual breath against my neck. I couldn’t have.
“There’s a zero tolerance for swearing in a manner like you did, or calling me baby,” I tell him plainly, reaching the door.
“I didn’t do that.”
This time he’s so close I know I feel his breath against my hair, and as I pause my momentum to pull the door open to reception, a hand skims across my ass.
It propels me forward into the main area, and I barely have time to register the people in the room as I spin towards the man coming out behind me.
“Whoa, why’d you stop like that? I didn’t mean to touch you, I swear,” he stammers, eyes darting around the area.
“You need to pay and leave,” I tell him, putting my hands on my hips. “Celeste will take your payment.”
“But you didn’t even finish me,” he exclaims, gesturing back towards the massage room.
Someone growls behind me, low and ominous. “You wanna repeat that sentence?”