I took a slow breath, then another, willing my pulse to steady. Closing my eyes, I let the room fall quiet around me.
And then I waited.
Chapter 8:Octavius
IPAUSED IN THE doorway to her room, just... staring.
Kara was already lying on the bed, stretched out on her stomach, her arms relaxed at her sides, her legs slightly bent at the knee like she hadn’t quite decided how to settle before simply giving in. The way her dress had shifted left very little to the imagination, the fabric riding up along her thighs. My gaze traced what I could see before I consciously forced myself to stop, memories from the last time I touched her rising unbidden.
The way her skin had felt beneath my touch, the way her body had responded, tension unraveling under my tentacles like she had been waiting for that kind of relief for years, and I had been the only one able to give it to her.
I exhaled slowly, forcing the thought away before my body betrayed me and revealed just how attracted I was to her.
Focus Octavius!
I needed to remember why I was here. She needed this release, and this was just another day at the office. She was just another client—a beautiful one lying open and inviting on her bed—but no, this was just business, nothing more. As soon as I absorbed her pain, I knew it would be the reminder I needed, grounding me in what I was actually here to do for her.
I cleared my throat so she knew I had entered, not wanting to startle her. “I, uh... I found a few things that’ll work,” I said,stepping fully into the room. “Some oils and lotions from your bathroom, assuming you don’t object.”
“No,” she murmured without looking back at me. “Use whatever you need. As long as you can take it all away.”
I set the items on the bedside table, selecting a tube of lotion that smelled faintly of rose and vanilla and warming it between my hands before letting my tentacles stretch in preparation.
I placed my hands against her shoulders first, giving her time to adjust before the deeper work began. Her muscles tensed briefly beneath my touch, then slowly eased as I applied more pressure and let my tentacles join in.
That was when it hit.
It wasn’t the slow, gradual pull I was accustomed to with my clients, or even how it had felt during our first session. No, this was immediate and overwhelming, a flood of emotion surging through me as I slowly absorbed it from her.
The sadness was easy enough to sense, but beneath it lay that same thread of fear, now tangled with a layer of anxiety I hadn’t picked up on before. Then again, I had deliberately muted my ability to read her emotions out of respect for her boundaries, but now I wasn’t sure if that had been the best idea. Because if I could sense it, perhaps I could have offered to rid her of this days ago. If this was what she had truly been carrying beneath all those practiced smiles and easy laughter over the past few weeks, it was no wonder it had hit her this hard.
How had I missed this during our first session?
Either I hadn’t been able to reach that part of her before, or it had built this quickly in such a short time, which, frankly, wasn’t normal. I had thought helping with the rebuild would ease some of her stress, but now I knew, without a doubt, that something else was at play. Because it was back—unless it had never truly left at all.
I steadied myself, continuing the motion of my hands, my tentacles working in tandem as I absorbed what I could, careful not to overwhelm either of us as it hit me in waves, fatiguing me as I took it into my own body.
“Kara, this is a significant amount.”
She shifted slightly beneath me. “That sounds bad.”
“It’s definitely concerning,” I said, trying not to worry her further. “You aren’t supposed to accumulate this level of emotional strain within just a few weeks.”
“Maybe I’m just an overachiever,” she mumbled, and now I knew she used humor to hide, like it was a safety net.
