Chapter Six
Matt
My muscles scream in protest as I press through another set of bodyweight squats, sweat stinging my eyes and blurring my vision as it drips to my brows, tracing a salty path down my cheek.
My back is soaked, and my muscles burn as I strain to complete another rep.
The left shoulder pulls, but it pulls in a way that means it’s working—not the deep grinding pain of two weeks ago, but a clean ache.
“Tired?”
I turn my head just as her lips collide with mine. I feel her smile before she pulls back, those pretty eyes twinkling with laughter as she moves away.
“Was that meant to recharge me?”
“Maybe,” she grins, nodding toward the mat. “We’re almost done with the session. Don’t stop yet.”
I groan. “You’re a hard woman to please.”
“Sweet talker. Now let’s get back to work.”
I focus on the stunning woman in front of me as I drop back into position.
Ashley is the perfect distraction from the pain tugging my joints.
She’s been a perfect distraction these past two weeks, pulling me out before the demons in my head could sink me.
Today marks the end of the trial, and I have no doubt Michael will be coming back to ask if I still want him to pull her off the case.
I already know the answer to that. Ashley stays.
“Focus on your breathing, Matt,” she instructs, placing her hand on my chest. “In, out. In and out.” I follow her guidance, bracing my hands on my thighs as I push myself for the next couple of reps before I drop into a rest.
“Okay, perfect. Now, let’s adjust your form. It should help with the pain you’re feeling in your left shoulder.”
“How do you know I’m feeling any pain?” I challenge.
She leans forward and pecks my lips. “I just do.”
I grit my teeth as we start another set, and I feel more sweat trickle down my spine, a cold sensation against my heated skin.
My shoulders ache from the resistance band work she had me doing earlier, and there’s a steady throb in my left knee, but I realize that I’m getting stronger too.
The depth I can drop to in a squat now is twice what it was when she started—and I’m doing it without bracing on anything to come back up.
Before her, I’d been counting the days I could do nothing but stretch, and every attempt to push past that left me hurting in ways that felt like setbacks.
With her, the pain has shape—it’s the kind that comes from work, not damage. And I can tell the difference now.
It helps that she provides massages after every session—ones that have gotten a little more intimate and creative this past week.
“Hmm, I think that’s enough for today,” she says when I finish the squats.
My body instantly relaxes, and the room swims slightly.
I take a deep, shaky breath, one that turns ragged when I feel her hand on my stomach.
“You’re doing great, and your left shoulder and knee are getting stronger every day.
” The hand dips lower until it’s touching the waistband of my pants.
“Why don’t you drink some water, then we can move on to the massage. Let’s move it to the shower today.”
My blood rushes south, and my dick perks up with excitement. “Do you offer all your patients this service, or am I just special?”
“Only my favorite patients get premium service.”
“Is that so?” She giggles when I wrap my arm around her and yank her against me. “Then I must be top of the list.”
“The very top,” she says, laying her head on my shoulder. “In fact, you’re the only one on the list, but the massage can’t last long today. I need to leave early. I promised my grandma I would take her grocery shopping.”
“Short massage it is,” I hum, burying my face in her hair and breathing her in. Losing myself in her sweet, flowery scent. “God, you smell so good.”
“You smell good too,” she hums, locking her hands around my waist. “All sweaty and male.”
I pull back and press my nose to her throat and kiss her chin before pushing up to brush my lips against hers.
She sighs as she opens up for me, her eyes fluttering closed as I push deeper into the kiss.
Her arms move to my shoulders, and for a second, I think about lifting her—the way I used to lift things without thinking, the way a man twice her size should be able to lift a woman who weighs nothing.
My shoulder twinges in warning before I’ve even finished the thought, and the knee chimes in right behind it.
Not after the workout we just finished. Not up a flight of stairs.
“Walk with me,” I murmur against her mouth instead, and she laughs softly when she realizes what I almost did.
“Smart man.”
“Trying to be.” I take her hand, tug her up off the bench, and lead her out of the workout room down the hall to my bedroom.
I playfully nip at her lips, drawing a laugh out of her.
I guide her into the en suite, set my hands on her hips, and lift her—just up onto the edge of the sink, a controlled motion my shoulder can handle for one second of effort—and her thighs part to make room for me to step between them.
We strip each other, trading unhurried kisses until we’re both naked.
“Don’t carry me in.” She bats my hand away when I try to lift her again. “I can’t risk you slipping and falling in the shower. Then we’ll both have to hire a physical therapist.”
“You could treat us both.”
“Not taking the chance.” She laughs, hopping off the sink.
“Killjoy,” I mutter, to which I am rewarded by a playful punch to my stomach. I take her hand and bring it to my lips, kissing her knuckles as I back her into the shower. I wait until she’s wet to speak. “Now about that massage—”
She slams her lips on mine in a deep, hungry kiss, her hands scaling my shoulders, pecs, then moving down my stomach until she’s gripping my cock. “You want a massage?”
“Fuck me,” I moan.
“We can do that too.” She laughs, the sound light and airy. So full of joy that it chases away the darkness that often seems to cling to the corners of my psyche. “Make love with me, Matt. Make me yours again.”
I spin her, press her palms flat to the tile, and step in behind her. It’s hard and fast and wet. Her pussy wraps tightly around my cock when I thrust into her. Those emerald eyes meet mine in the steam-fogged glass as I take her, gripping her hips and jerking her back onto me. Claiming her.
Mine.
Steam curls around us, and I lose more than just my breath.
Ashley takes everything and claims what’s left of my heart.
Her thrilled cries echo alongside my pleasured groans as we come together.
And when we stand under the spray, wrapped in each other’s arms, I realize whatever walls I erected are all but crushed to dust at my feet.
I love her.
Fuck me. I am in love with my physical therapist.
***
Hours after she’s gone, the thought sits with me. I don’t know how to feel yet, as I’ve never before believed myself capable of settling down let alone falling for a woman, but it’s obvious as day.
I am in love with her.
I sit down to eat but realize I don’t have much of an appetite, and it doesn’t all have to do with this new development.
Lately, Ashley has been staying long after our sessions, where we make love and then share dinner.
She talks more than I do. Tells me about her grandparents, about the cousins she grew up with, about the elderly patients on her schedule who give her zucchini from their gardens.
I let her talk because I like the sound of her voice in my house, and because the more she fills the silence, the less room there is for the things I haven’t told her.
She hasn’t spent the night since that first time, but she lingers long enough that I’ve come to miss her company. It’s quieter and lonelier without her around.
Hell, now I’m turning into a lovesick fool.
Cursing softly, I pack the leftovers and put them away then grab two cans of beer and a bowl of nuts.
I bring them with me to the living room and turn on a sports channel, settling back to watch a game.
I down one beer then kick back to relax, trying and failing not to think of the woman on the other side of town.
It’s tempting, so fucking tempting to call her and ask her to come and spend the night, but the clingy thought makes me flinch.
Jesus Christ, since when am I so lovesick and pathetic?
Knowing that I wouldn’t even be asking her over for sex but for her company makes me wince even more, but fuck, who can blame me?
It was only a matter of time before I fell for her. It makes sense that I would become possessive over her.
She’s mine, damn it. My beautiful little rabbit. So fucking gorgeous.
I close my eyes, and her beautiful face comes to focus in my mind, amused when I find my dick hardening. I make no effort to reach for it. Instead, I sink deeper into the couch and allow the images of her to float through my mind.
Slowly, I drift as I imagine myself confessing my feelings for her and spending all my evenings cuddled on the couch and fighting over the remote, arguing over whether to watch her favorite show or my sports.
I’ve never seen myself as a family man, but she makes me think of starting a family with her.
I can see it vividly—Ashley and some dark-haired kids running around in the backyard, giggling as they feed the squirrels that love to invade that space.
“Matt, come play with us!”
“I will, after I finish this beer,” I call out.
Her lips move to a pout, making me roll my eyes, but as I start to get up, something yanks me back to my seat. I look down to find myself bound with a seatbelt before the scenery changes from my backyard to the inside of a Humvee.
“When I go back home, I’m proposing to my girl,” Johnny says with a wistful grin on his face. “What about you, Galloway?”
No, this can’t be happening.
I try to pull myself back to Ashley and our imaginary kids, but I’m forced back to that night.
“Galloway will be the first to actually do something with his leave,” Miller says from the back. “Bet he goes home and finally fixes up that house his folks left him. Maybe find himself a woman willing to marry him.”
“Or sleeps for a week straight,” someone adds. “Whichever comes first.”
“You’re one to talk, Johnny. Aren’t you going through a divorce with wife number two?”
“That’s why I’m proposing again,” Johnny shoots back. “Third time’s the charm.”
Now there is laughter and more teasing from the men in the Humvee before Miller breaks it. “How are you bunch thinking of going home when we still have six months left on our tour?”
“Got my eye on a piece of land back in Arizona,” Carter says. “Been saving for it. Going to open a little shop—work with my hands, finally.”
“I want the whole picture,” William adds. “Wife. Kids. House with a porch. The whole nine yards.”
My eyes scan the road ahead through the dust kicked up by the lead vehicle in front of us, half my mind on the route and half on wondering if maybe I, too, should be thinking about starting a life outside of this one.
I’ve been a soldier for nearly twenty years, and in a couple more, I’ll be turning forty.
I have enough money saved to live anywhere I wish in the world. I could…
“Galloway, what’s that—”
I surface from the dream? Nightmare? Vision or memory? I don’t know what the fuck it is, but it robs me of my breath. I gasp for air, my heart pounding in my chest at the terror of it all. I sit up, my breath coming in ragged gasps as the image of the nightmare dances at the corner of my mind.
There was no explosion. No screams or sobbing, yet this nightmare was worse. So much worse.
Christ.
I grab my beer and chug it, pressing the cool can against my pounding head, but it does little to help with the headache. My left side hurts with phantom pain, and my chest is tight with more than just panic and fear. The guilt is a deep ache inside of me.
Eight men were in the Humvee, and only three made it out. Men who had plans of going back to their families, starting their own, and living life outside of the tragedy of combat. Good men who spent their lives doing what they believed was best for their country and…they’re gone.
And it’s all my fault. No matter how much everyone says it’s not.
I was the LPO on that convoy. I ran point.
Bear and I walked that route at pre-dawn and marked it safe.
The call was mine. The timing was mine. For twenty years, I've trained and known what to look for, and I knew how to protect my brothers—and I failed them.
I don’t deserve to be happy. I don’t fucking deserve to dream of a happy life with a wife and kids.
I don’t deserve Ashley or the ease and joy she brings into my life.
She deserves better.
She deserves a man who gets to come home to her without a dozen ghosts in tow. A man who can take her dancing without flinching at the music. A man who could meet her grandparents and hold a conversation through a Sunday dinner without his hands shaking under the table.
Not me. Not what’s left of me.