Chapter 12 #2
“Relax your arms. You’re going to feel my fingers touch your spine.” Grier moved to sit behind her, straddling Tobin from behind. The longer she evaluated Tobin, the harder it became to remain indignant. She was softening—to Tobin’s pain, to her need, to the familiar pull she’d sworn she’d buried.
Grier rested her palms lightly along Tobin’s low back, feeling for areas of warmth—there, on the left side of the spine.
She pressed her thumbs gently into the lowest segment, where tension coiled tight beneath the skin.
She followed the line of muscles up one spinal segment, and felt Tobin jerk under the pressure.
“Let me know if I’m being too mean,” Grier murmured. “I can back off.”
Instinctively, she responded to Tobin’s physical signals as she would with any of her other patients, softening automatically, her hands reassuring. For a moment, it wasn’t about the past or the hurt—it was about helping, about touch, about trust.
“I’m pretty sure we’ve established you have the right to be mean,” Tobin responded, a slight gasp of laughter palpable under Grier’s fingers.
Grier paused, wanting to respond honestly but not trusting herself to open the door for further flirtation.
She knew she wasn’t entirely over the possibility of Tobin, but she also knew she couldn’t be the one to pursue.
All she could do was keep the door open.
“I don’t relish causing discomfort to anyone on my table, but I do have a tendency to make people regret telling me where it hurts.
” Her lips twitched in a smirk, even knowing that Tobin couldn’t see her.
Tobin’s head dipped slightly.
Grier’s mind wanted to wander, but she fought it at every turn. She swung her legs away from Tobin and stood. “Can you lie on your stomach?”
“I think so.” Tobin waited while Grier elevated the headpiece of her table and indicated she should put her head in the cradle.
“I’m going to press a little harder into the muscles of your low back and move your legs around a bit while I evaluate some more. Please let me know if anything changes your pain.”
Tobin gave a thumbs-up, and Grier completed the rest of her exam. “Well, your low back is definitely hot.”
Tobin tensed slightly on the table, face down. “Thanks…?”
Shit. She probably thinks I’m hitting on her. Great choice of words, Grier!
“I mean… it’s in spasm. Sorry.
“Gotcha.” Tobin muttered, muffled.
“Have you had acupuncture? Or dry needling? Or do you have a fear of needles?” Grier doubted the last one—Tobin’s tattoos negated that likelihood.
“Yes, and no,” Tobin said. “I had dry needling from the PT after the accident. And no, I don’t have anything against needles.”
“Great. I think we should start with some acupuncture and add electric stimulation. Your muscles are way too active for me to adjust you right now—you’d just fight me and spasm more.
If we calm things down first, I think I can get you adjusted.
It feels more muscular than skeletal at the moment, but you definitely need to be adjusted after the impact you described. Are you comfortable with this?”
“Yes. Anything. Whatever you think will help the pain go away.” Grier gathered her supplies and started prepping Tobin’s back.
“I’ll need to lift your shirt a bit to expose the skin—and pull your waistband down. Still good?”
Tobin nodded silently.
Grier eased the hem of Tobin’s shirt up her back and tugged the waistband of her joggers down just enough to work. Her breath caught despite herself. More ink curved along Tobin’s ribs and flank, disappearing under the fabric. Grier bit her lower lip, hard enough to taste copper.
Grier had to fist her hands to prevent herself from tracing the intricate linework along Tobin’s ribs.
Her eyes roved hungrily over the slender limbs of a cherry tree in bloom, its branches curling around her torso and disappearing beneath the edge of her shirt.
Just visible was the lower half of a compass, its southern arrow flaring into ornate accents.
She ached to lift the fabric higher, to sensually trace the clean black lines with her fingertips, to feel what her eyes could only imagine.
The taste of copper in her mouth reminded her that she was not, in fact, supposed to be fantasizing about the woman on her table.
She tore her focus back to her work, swabbing Tobin’s skin with alcohol before delicately placing acupuncture needles along her lower back and the curve of her modestly exposed hip.
Every brush of skin beneath her fingertips caused a forceful flip in her stomach.
She tried to push the intrusive thoughts from her mind, but she was losing her will to fight the visions that promenaded behind her eyelids.
Grier attached electrodes to the needles and quietly asked Tobin to let her know when the current felt strong enough.
She set a timer on her watch as she added, “It’s a twenty-minute treatment— are you comfortable if I head upstairs for a minute?
I’ll update Harrow so she has an idea of how much longer you’ll be.
Do you need anything? Music? A blanket?”
“I wouldn’t mind some music. Silence and I don’t get along very well.”
“Any requests?” Grier asked, already climbing the stairs. “Surprise me.”
She shut the door behind her and leaned against it for a moment, steadying her heartbeat with a deep, measured breath. She fiddled with the pendant at her neckline while she pulled out her phone, connected to the basement audio system, and queued up an instrumental Taylor Swift station.
Pushing away from the door, she crossed to the living room. Several sets of eyes lifted as she entered. Delta was snuggled up to Lake on the floor, reading a book.
“How is she?” Harrow asked quickly, sitting forward.
“She’s not broken. That’s the good news. I have her on acupuncture needles right now, hoping that’ll calm the muscles enough for me to adjust her and dig into the tissues a bit. She’s too hot right now for me to get anywhere.”
Harrow looked at her, eyes widening.
Shit. “Um… hot means inflamed, painful, swollen, et cetera. It hurts—she isn’t embellishing. She’s in pretty bad shape.”
Grier watched Harrow’s shoulders relax, and a small twitch of a smile split across her face, a trace of knowing behind it.
“I’ll head back down in a bit, but figured I’d let her try to relax for now. You can go check on her if you want,” Grier offered, hoping it would give her a chance to talk to Grove and Grant alone.
“Hmm. I trust she’s in good hands with you. If you say she needs to relax, then I’ll let her relax.”
Okay, then, Grier thought sardonically.
“Works for me,” Grier said, flopping onto the couch next to Grant.
Harrow crossed her legs again, settling back into her seat, her posture loosening.
An awkward silence settled in the room. No one wanted to disturb the fragile veil of solidarity—the unspoken awareness of the sexual tension between Grier and Tobin, and the stalled momentum that staunched its explosion. No one dared pierce the agreeable gag order.
Grier closed her eyes and rested the backs of her hands against her forehead. She stage whispered, careful to keep her voice low enough that Delta wouldn’t overhear.
“Well, I know you weren’t up here discussing the obvious shit show that this entire situation is, so can we just acknowledge that it is one and move on to whatever you were discussing when I came up?”
Grove snickered.
Grant gave her an apologetic look.
Harrow cleared her throat, startled at her unabashed outburst. “Tobin said you were direct.”
Grier met her eyes. Recognition flickered between them. And then they both burst into laughter.
“This is super awkward, isn’t it?” Harrow sputtered through laughter.
“Definitely.” Grier wiped at her eyelids, laughter still trembling in her chest, the evidence of her fit glistening but not quite spilling over her eyelids. “Sometimes I think I could star in my own soap opera. Like, you can’t make this shit up.”
“I feel like we missed something…” Grove looked between her siblings, hoping for consensus from Grant and intromission from Grier.
Grant shrugged, content to let his oblivion prosper a little while longer.
“You didn’t miss anything,” Harrow explained. “Tobin’s just making this so much harder than it needs to be. On all of us.”
“Well, no kidding.” Grove huffed. “I don’t understand why you’re laughing, though.”
“What else is there to do?” Grier asked honestly.
“Go down there and demand an explanation,” Grove nearly shouted, looking between Grier and Harrow. “How dare she show up after that crap she pulled at the gala? Come on. That takes some arrogance, even in my book.”
“Demanding anything won’t work on Tobin,” Harrow cautioned. She hung her head, thinking, then looked up at Grier. “I’ve never seen her like this before. The chemistry between you two is obvious. Hell, I could feel it just standing in the doorway when we got here.”
Grier felt her cheeks flush lightly. She wasn’t surprised Harrow could feel the tension between her and Tobin, but she hoped she hadn’t appeared as cold as she’d initially intended to be when they first arrived.
“Grier, I know we just met tonight, and you don’t know me or owe me anything. But… the fact that you were willing to let me bring her here, even after the gala… well, you’re pretty all right in my book.”
“I guess I shouldn’t be surprised she told you about that?
” “Not willingly,” Harrow said with a small laugh.
“She moped around for days before I could pull any decent information out of her. But yeah, eventually she filled me in. Enough to know that calling you tonight was probably more painful than her back.”