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It hadn’t looked like much when she showed me that exercise, but boy had it pulled at my underarm when I tried to do it like she showed me.
“Put the bend in your knees,” she’d said, tapping at me with those warm hands of hers, urging me to widen my stance. “Not in your waist.” Then she’d pressed my back, low against my spine, to show me where to straighten out.
It’s that touch I can’t stop thinking about now.
I guess you can’t do a job like that without the physical contact, though. It’s a necessary part of it. Still, it’s been a while since I’ve been touched like that, and it felt…
Oh, who cares how it felt. She’s my fucking physical therapist.
I spend the rest of the day avoiding any thought of Victoria. Or the exercises. But the next day, begrudgingly, I dig through the pockets of yesterday’s pants and fish out the folded piece of paper that she wrote out my prescribed exercise regimen on. Feeling foolish, I read the first one, which tells me I need to walk my fingers up the wall.
“What good could that possibly do?” I grumble. But when I try it, I actually feel something lengthening along the sore throb of my injured arm.
The paper says I should do this ten to twenty times, so I go for twenty. If I’m going to do it, I may as well do the damn thing.
And I’ve gotta admit it. My arm does feel somewhat better when I’m done, like there’s more blood pumping through the tissues in it.
The same thing happens when I try the second stretch, and the third one.
I spendmost of the next week inside the house, taking it easy even though there’s a list a mile long of things I’d rather be doing out in the yard. I can’t stand being lazy like this, just sitting around watching TV, but every time I get up to try to make myself useful, I hear Victoria’s soothing voice reminding me that I need to take it easy.
The afternoon before my next appointment, I’m laying lengthwise on the couch watching the game on TV when I nod off. Suddenly, I’m dreaming about her.
Victoria. Beautiful Victoria.
In the dream, she’s wearing the scrubs she wore during our first appointment, but now they’re tighter, more form-fitting, and I can see the shape of those full, gorgeous curves underneath. She moves closer and smiles and reaches out to touch my chest, laying a hand against my sternum.
She’s sliding that hand down past my waist when the sound of cheering startles me awake. I groan when I glance down and see that I’m fully erect in my khaki shorts. I sit up, turn the volume up on the game, and keep my eyes on the screen, not daring to even think her name as I wait for my cock to calm down.
That night, as I go to bed, I’m already full of dread for tomorrow’s appointment. As beautiful and sexy and warm as Victoria is, I can’t be having erotic thoughts about her. I can’t be getting fuckinghard-onsbecause of her. Besides the obvious issue of me being her patient, I’m just not meant for relationships. I was married before, to Dean’s mother, and it ended badly.
Well, she ended it badly.
Point is, the end of that relationship was ugly and messy enough to make me never want to be involved with another woman again. Especially not in a serious way. Not when I know the heart-crushing pain it can cause.
Loneliness is far better than ever experiencing that again.
Still. I can’t stop thinking about that damn dream during my appointment with Victoria the following day. As we go through some exercises, her beauty is just about all I can pay attention to—as well as her gentle, patient demeanor.
Why does she have to be a knockoutandso fucking sweet?
“Everything okay, Ethan?” she asks me at one point, and I realize I’ve been zoning out as I watch her model how to use a piece of equipment in the exercise room. I think she’s been saying something about how it will help me stretch my brachial muscles, but I’ve been staring at her curves, mesmerized by how her body moves so gracefully.
I know. I’m a dirty old bastard.
“Uh huh,” I say quickly, averting my eyes and rubbing the back of my neck. “All good.”
I make it through the rest of the appointment without letting myself get too distracted by her again. By the end of the hour, though, I’m sweating extra hard from the effort it’s taken.
“Same time next week?” Victoria asks, smiling at me as she walks with me to the front desk.
“Yup,” I say hastily. I say it so I can get out of there. But I’ve already decided that I’m not going to do this again. I feel guilty as hell quitting on her when she’s already put so much work into helping me. None of this is her fault—she’s been fantastic. She’s been perfect.
But I’m better off not being tempted like this.
Chapter Four
Victoria
