Chapter 6 Pressure Points #3
She's face-down, sheet covering from mid-back, shoulders bare and golden in the dim light. Her hair's piled on top of her head, exposing the curve of her neck. The spot just below her ear where I pressed my mouth last night.
I clench my hands into fists.
Not now. Don’t go there.
The door opens. Two therapists enter—Anya and Christoph, both serene, both completely unaware they're about to facilitate the most torturous hour of my life.
"Good afternoon," Anya says softly. "I'll be working with you today." She moves to Jane's table. Christoph settles beside mine.
"Please just relax," Anya instructs. "Let me know if the pressure is too much."
"Okay, don’t worry about me. I like it deep. Level four, please." Jane breathes.
Sweet mercy.
Christoph's hands land on my shoulders—firm, professional, completely irrelevant. Because my entire nervous system just locked onto the table next to me like a targeting system.
Anya works Jane's shoulders first. Slow, deliberate pressure. Jane lets out a small sigh—barely a sound, more an exhale.
My jaw tightens.
"You're carrying significant tension here," Christoph observes. "Try to let go."
Let go. Right. While Jane is right next to me and Anya is about to spend the next sixty minutes turning her to liquid.
Christoph moves lower. I feel nothing.
Anya hits a knot in Jane's upper back.
“Oh—" Jane's voice breaks on the syllable, breathless and unguarded. "Right there. Don't stop."
She's talking to the masseuse.
I'm dying.
My hands fist in the sheet.
I know exactly what that sound means. I heard it last night, against my mouth, when I—
"Mmm." Jane shifts slightly. "That's really good."
The blood drains south so fast I get lightheaded. My cock is so hard the sheet might as well be a tent. I wonder if she’ll moan just like that if I'm inside her.
Christoph is explaining something about fascia and myofascial release. I nod without hearing a word.
I hear Anya move and starts working deeper. Jane makes another sound—softer this time, almost a murmur—and I grip the edge of the table hard enough to whiten my knuckles.
So much for Game Day focus. This woman is dismantling me with a massage she doesn't even know I'm listening to.
"Oh," Jane breathes. "Right there."
I close my eyes.
Christoph works on my right shoulder. I catalogue every sound Jane makes—the small catches, the quiet exhales, the way her breathing goes slack when Anya finds the right spot.
"Your heart rate is elevated," Christoph notes, mildly concerned. "Are you sure you want to continue?"
"I'm fine," I say through my teeth.
Anya asks Jane to shift position—turning her onto her back so she can work her front. Jane moves with a rustling of the sheet, and I keep my eyes shut, but I hear the adjustment. Hear the sheet settle against skin. Hear the small intake of breath as Anya's hands find new territory.
I turn my head and open my eyes. Just a fraction. Just enough.
Jane is on her back now, sheet draped across her chest, one arm resting at her side. Anya works the other arm—fingers pressing into the muscle of Jane's forearm, drawing out another quiet sound that does things to my pulse I'm not going to examine.
Anya moves on to Jane's shoulder. Jane's free arm slides off the narrow table.
Hangs there. Just past the edge. Her fingers loose, relaxed.
My right arm is doing the same thing on my side. Dangling off the table because there's nowhere else for it to go. We're that close.
Jane shifts—just a small adjustment, settling deeper into the table—and her pinky grazes mine.
Barely a touch. Skin against skin for maybe a quarter of a second.
Neither of us reacts. Outwardly.
Inwardly, every single nerve I have goes quiet. Like the moment before a penalty shot. Everything narrows to one point.
I look at her.
Her eyes are closed. Her expression is soft, open, completely unguarded.
She looks peaceful. Trusting.
My hand moves.
Slow. Deliberate. I close the small gap between us and hook my pinky around hers.
Not accidental this time.
Jane's eyes open. She turns her head toward me—just slightly, just enough—and finds me already looking at her. Something shifts in her expression. Surprise, yes. But not alarm. Not even a question.
She just...lets it happen. Her pinky curls around mine too, warm and steady, and holds.
The contact sends something through my chest that has nothing to do with nerve endings. Three years I haven't let anyone touch me like this. Not casually. Not gently. Not like I'm someone worth holding onto.
Her thumb strokes across my knuckle. Once. Twice.
I feel it everywhere.
Anya works Jane's waist. Jane's eyes flutter closed again, but her grip on my finger stays firm—tighter, even, as Anya hits another spot and Jane's whole body goes slack with a soft, broken exhale that makes my blood run hot.
I want to be the one doing that to her. I want to put my mouth on the spot Anya just touched and feel that sound vibrate against my lips.
I also want to abandon higher reasoning entirely, hoist her off this table, and carry her back to the casita like a caveman who’s just discovered fire and poor impulse control.
The thought is so vivid, so physical, that I have to shift on the table and pray the sheet holds.
"Almost done," Anya murmurs to Jane.
Jane's thumb strokes my knuckle again. Deliberate. A question and an answer at the same time.
Christoph finishes my back, steps away. I don't move. Don't let go.
Anya eases Jane's other arm back to her side—gently, professionally—and Jane's fingers slide from mine.
The loss of contact hits like a door slamming shut.
"Take your time getting up," Anya says. "Water and fruits are available outside."
The therapists leave. The door clicks closed.
The room settles into silence.
Not the peaceful kind. The kind that has weight to it. The kind that fills the space between two bodies that are suddenly, undeniably alone.
I don't move.
Neither does she.
The air is warm—too warm, the way it always is in this place, thick with eucalyptus oil and the faint salt drift from the open windows.
I become aware of things I wasn't tracking before: the sound of Jane breathing.
The way the dim light falls across the bare curve of her shoulder.
The sheet riding low enough on her back that I can count the ridges of her spine if I wanted to.
I want to.
"West," she says. Just my name. Quiet. Almost swallowed by the room.
She's looking at me. Not at the ceiling, not at the door. At me.
She sits up slowly.
The sheet slides. Not all the way—not enough to see what I'm already imagining in sharp, specific detail—but enough.
A half-second of bare skin curving into shadow before her hand comes up and catches the fabric at her chest. The movement is instinctive, not modest. She's not embarrassed. She's just... adjusting to being seen.
Her hair has come loose from its knot, dark strands sticking to the damp skin at her neck. Her cheeks are flushed—from the heat, from the massage, from something else entirely. Her lips are parted, just barely.
She glances down at my hand like she wants to reach for it again but isn't sure she's allowed.
I sit up too. The sheet falls to my lap.
We stare at each other.
Jane opens her mouth—to say what, I don't know—
The spa door opens.
Not a therapist. Not an attendant.
Scarlett Thorne stands in the doorway, draped in white linen and oversized sunglasses, a flute of champagne balanced loosely in her hand. Her gaze sweeps the room and lands on us—shirtless, sheet-wrapped, flushed, frozen in the unmistakable aftermath of something we shouldn’t have been doing.
Her smile tightens. Precise. Lethal.
“Oh,” Scarlett says lightly. “I didn’t realize this suite was occupied.”
She doesn’t move to leave.
Which is interesting, considering she handled the scheduling.
Someone made sure we’d be here at this exact time. Someone made sure she’d walk through that door right now.
A setup. To catch us. To see.
Fine.
I stand. Let the sheet drop to the floor. I'm not modest and I'm not embarrassed, and I want her to see that clearly. I reach for my robe, pull it on slowly, and turn to face Scarlett with the calm of someone who planned this himself.
"Scarlett." I keep my voice flat. Easy. "We were just finishing up."
I extend my hand to Jane. She takes it—her grip steady, her eyes sharp, reading the room faster than most people I've played against.
“Jane and I are heading back to our casita," I say. Loud enough. Clear enough. The words land like a line drawn in sand. "Together."
Scarlett's smile doesn't waver, but something behind her eyes flickers. A recalculation.
"Your casita," she repeats.
"That's right."
Jane squeezes my hand once—tight, quick, a signal I already understand—and leans into my side like she belongs there.
Because right now, she does.
Scarlett holds our gaze for another beat, then lifts her champagne in a mock toast. "How lovely for you both."
She turns and disappears down the hallway.
Jane and I stand there, hands linked, until the sound of her heels finally fades.
“She either set that up to ruin me,” Jane says quietly, “or so Blake would hear about it.” Not a question.
“Yeah.”
“So now she knows we’re staying together.”
“Now she knows.”
Jane exhales, a short, disbelieving sound that's halfway to a laugh. "I can't believe she walked in on us. Of all the moments."
"We weren't exactly doing anything," I point out.
Physically.
Mentally is another story. My brain had planned the next several hours in pleasurable detail.
She glances at me and I straighten my face. "I know. Logically. It was a massage."
Jane shakes her head slowly, more bemused than panicked. "I was so focused on watching Blake and Scarlett, I didn't even consider she'd be watching me." She lets out a breath. "Guess that's on me."
"She plays dirty," I nod.
Jane's mouth tightens—not angry, just thoughtful. "Yeah. She does."