Chapter 8 #2
We wait in silence another few seconds, but when she doesn’t say more, I go back to massaging her neck and shoulder.
The muscles are all in knots, probably from tensing around the injured area, and she flinches occasionally when I hit an especially sore spot.
It’s several minutes before I feel the muscles loosen up, and I knead hard when I find one stubborn knot that won’t let go.
The doc lets out an involuntary noise as I dig in, and I’m a hundred percent certain it’s one she makes during sex. We both go still.
“I’m-,” she starts to say, but I cut her off before she can apologize.
“This one’s tough. I should’ve warned you before I went after it.”
I see her throat jump as she swallows.
“Just let me get this one loose, and you should feel better,” I say.
“Alright,” she says, the word barely a sound.
I go back to working on the knot, but I’m now hyperaware of everything about the woman in front of me.
There are goosebumps on her arms, and when I inhale, the scent of something floral winds its way around my brain.
I’m not familiar enough with plants and flowers to recognize the scent immediately – Lavender maybe?
Jasmine? – but whatever it is resets my senses.
I’m leaning in close enough to flutter the wispy hairs at her nape with my breath, and I have the sudden, inexplicable urge to kiss the back of her neck. I lean back quickly.
I refocus on the knot and start to work at it again. My other hand holds her opposite shoulder to keep her steady, but she remains quiet this time. Finally, I feel the knot release.
“Got it,” I say, letting go of her, and she breathes an audible sigh.
I scooch back a few inches to give us some room, and the doc pulls her sweater back on before turning to me.
“Thank you,” she says. “That does feel better.”
“No problem.” I pause, and the air is thick with something unspoken before I break the silence again. “We get back into town late Thursday night, well, technically Friday morning, and then we’ll have practice that afternoon. Can you come by to meet the team?”
“Yeah, sure. I usually have Friday afternoons free.”
She looks like she’s about to say more but stops herself.
“What is it?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “It’s nothing. Never mind.”
“Just tell me,” I say.
She sighs heavily and looks down. “It…It’s about those texts you sent me the night we met.”
My brows furrow as I search my memory for what texts she could be talking about.
“I’m not sure what your expectations are, but I think we need to keep this professional,” she goes on.
I frown deeper. “What?”
“I mean, I don’t want to assume why you sent the picture,” she says, “but I think we can both agree that letting things get…personal would make working together entirely too awkward.”
“Picture?” I ask, completely confused. I don’t remember ever sending her a picture, and certainly not one that has her this flustered and flushed.
What she’s talking about finally hits me a second before she speaks.
“The dick pic you sent me,” she says.
My eyes blow wide. "Oh fuck." I shoot off the couch as I run my hand through my hair. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
I feel the doc’s eyes on me as I start to pace, but I can’t bring myself to meet her gaze as the significance of the G-r-a I saw on my phone that morning hits me. Not Grace…Gray.
I run my hand through my hair again. I almost put her in my phone as ‘Doc Mackey’ that day we met, but I decided to just use her first name instead, and the result of that simple decision slaps me upside the head.
“Doc, I’m so sorry. I mean, Gray,” I say, turning to her. “That text wasn’t meant for you. I thought I sent it to my ex-girlfriend Grace.”
Her mouth hangs open a second. “Oh. Of course. I…I suspected it wasn’t meant for me.” She pauses, then asks, “Had a few too many beers that night?”
I huff a small laugh. “High-powered sleeping pill. I was anxious about whether you’d agree to help and was having trouble falling asleep. I guess between the pill and thinking about you, the signals got mixed up in my brain…and on my phone.”
She lets out a breath that contains a laugh as well. “That’s a relief.”
Strangely, she doesn’t sound relieved.
We stare at each other, and the implications of this sink in.
“So…uh…You’ve seen my dick,” I say, trying to keep it light.
Her cheeks pinken and she looks away. “I did, but…”
Her head snaps back as her eyes lock with mine, and she winces at the movement, her neck still not a hundred percent.
“I deleted the pic,” she says quickly. “You can check my phone.”
She grabs the phone off the coffee table and thrusts it toward me.
I put my hands up. “I believe you.” A smile quirks up one corner of my mouth. “But admit, you took a good long look at it.”
Her face flames this time, and I have my answer. I shouldn’t tease her, but I kind of like doing it. The flush of color on her cheeks makes her even prettier, and I can’t help wondering what she’d also look like with tendrils of her hair sticking to the side of her sweat-sheened face after…
I shake the thought away again. Nope. Don’t go there. It’s been a few months since I’ve had sex, and my body has clearly been trying to tell me something lately, but the doc is right. She and I need to stay professional.
“I couldn’t really help looking at it,” she says defensively.
I frown as something occurs to me. “Wait, so you thought I sent you a dick pic that night, and the next day you agreed to work with me?”
This time her face drains of color.
“No!” she says. “I mean, yes, that’s the sequence of events, but that’s only correlation, not causation. I didn’t agree to work with you because of the dick pic. I agreed to work with you in spite of it.”
I eye her like I don’t buy it.
“I swear,” she says. “I almost turned down the offer because of it.”
I give her a look of exaggerated offense. “My dick isn’t that bad-looking, is it?”
The doc closes her eyes, realizing she’s not going to win this discussion. When she opens them again, she’s gotten her bearings.
“It’s a lovely dick,” she says, “and my life has been enriched for having seen it, but it didn’t influence my decision to take this job.”
I smile. “Not sure it’s ever been called ‘lovely’ before, but thank you.”
There’s a stretch of silence before Gray rises from the couch.
“I should probably go,” she says.
I hold up a hand. “No, please. I’m sorry,” I say. “I spent my childhood getting under my sister’s skin, and old habits are hard to break. I couldn’t resist teasing you, if only to mask my own embarrassment.”
Her face softens. “No apology needed. I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable.”
“It’s fine,” I say. “I’m a big boy.”
Her eyes flare, and I know she caught the unintended innuendo.
“Can we start over? Forget about the pic?” I ask.
She nods. “Of course. It was an honest mistake.”
I nod back. “Thanks for not sending it to the tabloids.”
She smiles. “It was touch-and-go for a hot minute, but my fear of karmic retribution won out.”
I return the smile. “Well, it’s good to know which way your moral compass points.”
I motion for her to sit back down, and we retake our original places.
“So where were we?” she asks.
“I think you were going to vaccinate me against trash talk or something?” I say.
Her brows furrow a second before she understands. “Ah, inoculate. Right,” she says. “We were talking about stress inoculations.”
I bite back a comment about being fine with that as long as I don’t have to take it in the ass. That would only send the conversation spiraling back in the wrong direction. As it is, the thought alone has me wondering if the doc likes anal.
God damn it. I need to get laid.