Chapter Four
Shawn
I'd been thinking about Nicole's ass for three days straight.
Not in a casual, appreciative way either. In a wake-up-hard-every-morning, cold-shower-isn't-helping kind of way that was starting to seriously interfere with my ability to function like a normal human being.
The yoga pants she'd worn to our training session had been a revelation.
All those weeks of seeing her in conservative suits, I'd known she had curves, but I hadn't been prepared for the reality of them.
How the stretchy fabric had hugged every inch of her hips and thighs.
How she'd bent over to pick up her water bottle, giving me a view that had nearly made me forget I was supposed to be professional.
How she'd trembled when I'd put my hands on her.
That little shiver when I'd touched her back had been like a sucker punch to the gut. Nicole Delaney, ice queen extraordinaire, had been affected by my touch. More than affected. Aroused.
And now I was supposed to train her again without thinking about what other sounds I could make her make.
This was going to be a disaster.
I checked the clock on my phone for the fifth time in ten minutes.
She'd agreed to another session, scheduled for this gray December Monday evening, but that had been four days ago.
Plenty of time for her to come to her senses and decide that working out with her neighbor was a complication she didn't need.
Part of me hoped she'd bail. The smart part that remembered how badly things had ended with Sarah, my ex-fiancée who'd decided that loving a soldier meant too much uncertainty and not enough stability.
Nicole was the same type: driven, ambitious, with her whole life mapped out in detail.
The type who didn't have room for a guy who lived out of duffle bags and didn't know where he'd be in four months.
But a bigger part of me, the part that had been counting down the hours until I saw her again, hoped she'd show up. Hoped I'd get another chance to put my hands on her and watch her lose that iron control she wore like armor.
She knocked right on time.
I opened the door to find Nicole in different workout clothes this time.
Black leggings that looked painted on and a fitted tank top that revealed more skin than I'd ever seen her show.
Her hair was pulled back in a high ponytail, and she wasn't wearing makeup.
She looked younger. Softer. And nervous as hell.
"You came," I said, stepping back to let her in.
"You sound surprised."
"A little." I closed the door behind her, trying not to stare at how her top hugged her breasts. "Thought you might change your mind."
"I considered it." She set her water bottle on the counter and turned to face me. "But my doctor was very specific about the exercise requirement."
Right. The doctor. This was about her health, not about how she'd looked at my mouth during our last session.
"How are you feeling? Any soreness from Friday?"
"Some." She rolled her shoulders, and I watched the movement with more interest than was strictly professional. "My legs were a little stiff the next day."
Good. That meant we'd actually worked her muscles instead of just going through the motions. It also meant she was going to feel everything we did today twice as much.
"We'll start with some stretching," I said, moving toward the yoga mat I'd laid out in the living room. "Work out some of that tightness."
She followed me, and I tried not to notice how she moved. More relaxed than last time, but still carrying herself like she expected an attack from any direction.
"Lie down on your back," I instructed, kneeling beside the mat. "We're going to stretch your hip flexors."
She hesitated for a moment, then settled onto the mat. Lying there in those tight leggings with her hair spread out around her head, she looked like every fantasy I'd had since Friday night.
This was going to be a problem.
"Bring your right knee up to your chest," I said, keeping my voice steady. "Hold it there."
She pulled her knee up, and I moved closer. "I'm going to help you get a deeper stretch. Is that okay?"
She nodded, but I could see the tension in her shoulders.
I placed one hand on her thigh, just above her knee, and the other on her ankle. Her skin was soft and hot through the thin fabric, and I had to concentrate to keep my touch clinical.
"Breathe," I reminded her, applying gentle pressure to bring her knee closer to her chest. "Let your hip relax."
She let out a shaky exhale, and I felt some of the tension leave her leg.
"Better?"
"Yeah." Her voice was barely above a whisper.
I held the stretch for thirty seconds, hyperaware of every point of contact between us. Her leg was lean but soft, and I could feel the slight tremor in her muscles as she tried to relax.
"Other leg," I said, releasing her and moving to her left side.
She switched positions, and this time when I touched her, she didn't tense up as much. Progress.
"You're tight through your hips," I observed, working her leg through the stretch. "Do you sit at a desk all day?"
"Most days, yeah."
"That's part of your problem. Your hip flexors are shortened from all that sitting, which puts stress on your lower back." I adjusted my grip, bringing her knee a little higher. "How does this feel?"
"Good." She closed her eyes. "Really good."
Her breathy tone went straight to my dick. I shifted position, grateful she wasn't looking at me.
"We should do this every day," I said, then immediately regretted the words. They sounded like a proposition, not a professional recommendation.
Her eyes opened, meeting mine. "Every day?"
"The stretching," I clarified. "Five minutes in the morning, five at night. It'll help with the back pain I'm betting you have."
"I don't have back pain."
I raised an eyebrow.
"Okay, maybe a little back pain."
I released her leg and sat back on my heels. "Sit up. I want to check something."
She pulled herself up to sitting, and I moved behind her. "This might be a little personal, but I need to feel your spine. Is that alright?"
She nodded, but I could see the flush creeping up her neck.
I placed my hands on either side of her spine, just above her waistband, and felt along the muscles. They were knotted with tension, hard as rocks under my palms.
"Jesus, Nicole." I pressed a little deeper, working my thumbs into the tight spots. "When did you last have a massage?"
She made a sound that might have been a laugh or a sob. "Never."
"Never?" I stopped to stare at her. "You've never had a massage?"
"I don't really do that kind of thing."
That kind of thing. Like taking care of herself was some foreign concept.
"Well, you're going to start," I said, going back to working the knots in her back. "This level of tension isn't just uncomfortable, it's dangerous. You're one stress fracture away from a serious injury."
She was quiet for a moment, and I could feel some of the fight going out of her under my hands.
"That feels incredible," she admitted.
"It's going to feel even better once we get some of this worked out." I worked my way up her spine, finding trigger points I'd never felt in any of my other clients. "How long have you been carrying this much stress?"
"I don't know. Years, maybe."
Years. This woman had been walking around in pain for years and had just accepted it as normal.
"We're going to fix this," I said, meaning it. "But it's going to take time. And trust."
"Trust?"
I stilled my hands. "Trust that I know what I'm doing. Trust that I'm not going to hurt you." I paused. "Trust that sometimes letting go of control is the only way to get better."
She turned to look at me over her shoulder, and the vulnerability in her eyes nearly undid me. "I don't know how to do that."
"I'll teach you."
The words hung between us, loaded with more meaning than either of us was ready to acknowledge. This wasn't just about exercise anymore, and we both knew it.
"I should warn you," she said, still looking at me. "I'm not very good at relaxing."
"I noticed." I resumed the massage, working my thumbs along her shoulder blades. "When did you last do something just because it felt good?"
"You keep asking me that."
"Because you keep not answering."
She was quiet for so long I thought she wasn't going to respond. Then, so quietly I almost missed it: "I don't remember."
This beautiful, successful woman had been so focused on achieving, on proving herself, that she'd forgotten how to simply feel good.
"We're going to change that," I said, leaning closer. I could smell her shampoo, something light and floral that made me want to bury my face in her neck. "Starting now."
I moved my hands to her shoulders, working the tight muscles there, and she let out a soft moan that went straight through me.
"Shawn."
How she said my name, breathy and uncertain, made me want to do things that had nothing to do with professional training.
"Just breathe," I told her. "Let me take care of you."
She did, melting under my touch in a way that was both innocent and incredibly erotic. Every soft sound she made, every shiver when I hit a particularly tight spot, was driving me closer to the edge of my professional control.
This was dangerous territory. The kind that ended with me kissing her neck and forgetting all the reasons why getting involved with my neighbor was a bad idea.
But I couldn't bring myself to stop. Not when she was finally relaxing. Not when she was trusting me enough to be vulnerable.
Not when she was making those little sounds that were going to fuel every fantasy I had for the next four months.
"Better?" I asked, working my way back down her spine.
"So much better." She leaned into my touch. "Where did you learn to do this?"
"Army medic training. We had to learn basic massage therapy for injury prevention." My hands stilled. "Plus, my buddy Jake threw out his back on a mission once. I spent three weeks working the knots out so he could function."
"What happened to him?"
The question was casual, but it hit like a knife to the chest. "IED. Two months later."
She turned to face me fully, and the compassion in her eyes was almost worse than the memory. "I'm sorry."
"It was a long time ago." I pulled my hands away, suddenly needing distance. "We should probably get to the actual workout."
She studied my face for a moment, and I could see her trying to decide whether to push. She nodded. "What's next?"
What was next was an hour of torture disguised as functional movement training. Every time I adjusted her form, every brush of skin against skin, every little gasp when she pushed herself harder than she thought she could, was slowly driving me insane.
By the time we finished, I was wound so tight I could barely think straight, and Nicole looked like she'd been thoroughly worked over in all the best ways.
Her cheeks were flushed, her hair had escaped its ponytail, and there was a satisfaction in her eyes that I wanted to see there for entirely different reasons.
"How do you feel?" I asked, handing her a towel.
"Amazing." She wiped the sweat from her face. "Exhausted, but amazing."
"Good. That's how you should feel after a workout."
She gathered her things, moving more slowly than usual. "Same time Wednesday?"
"If you want."
"I want." She headed toward the door, then paused with her hand on the knob. "Shawn?"
"Yeah?"
"Thank you. For earlier. The massage. I haven't felt that relaxed in..."
"Years?"
She smiled, the first real smile I'd seen from her. "Years."
After she left, I stood in my empty apartment trying to process what had just happened. I'd touched her, really touched her, and she'd let me. More than that, she'd enjoyed it.
And I was in serious danger of doing something stupid.
Like falling for my uptight, workaholic neighbor who was going to be gone from my life in four months whether I wanted her to be or not.