by Kylie Walker
“Yeah, until she starts making sure you make it back onto the field in time for the post season. Christ, Brett, we don’t have to worry about her hurting you worse than you hurt yourself, do we?”
I growled, ignoring his question. “Bring me my damn phone, will you?”
“Not it.” Zeke immediately fled the room like the hounds of hell were on his heels and I threw the nearest available object I could find at him – I think it might have been a foam stress football. Colin merely smirked, grabbing my phone from my dresser before bringing it to me. When I activate the screen, I frown to see that I have no less than five missed calls. One’s from Don, who I resolve to call back in an hour or so, and another’s from Doctor Williams –which probably should have taken priority.
But when I saw that I had three missed calls from Ana, my face fell.
Christ. She was going to be pissed as hell at me. I promised that I would call her after practice the day that I got injured and had never gotten around to it.
When I frowned, Colin arched a brow. “What’s up, man?”
I shook my head slowly. Seemed like the issues were piling up. I’d have to deal with one pissed woman today, and God knew what when I saw Erica in a few days.
Fuck my life.
With Ana, I managed to smooth things over. I always did. She let me off easy with a promise to have dinner at her favorite restaurant later on that week. As my first appointment with Erica loomed closer and closer, however, I found myself torn somewhere between anxiety and anticipation. I had managed not to think about the woman for close to five years, and now she was all I saw when I closed my eyes. No matter how much pain I was going to be in, a session with her running her hands all over me was bound to end in disaster. As it was, I was remembering what she tasted like – how she like to nip at my mouth when she was on top of me, riding my cock. The red welts she’d left on my back after a night of passion together. The way she’d moaned my name as I sucked on her neck just behind her ear – a spot that drove her wild.
I wondered if she was still as sensitive as she was before. What would happen if I got her into my bed again, writhing and clenching around me.
…I would probably fuck up my leg irreparably. And that was the vein of thought I had to cling to so I wouldn’t end up trying to seduce Erica.
I clung to that thought all morning, hoping that eventually something would click and I’d start considering my career over my dick. It had, I recalled, been much like this the first time I’d encountered Erica. After a single night with her, she was all I could think about.
Just now, however, I had bigger fish to fry. I had hardly given a single thought to the actual therapy I’d have to go through for the next six months – exercises that would be painful as hell and take everything I had. They would also, however, take place in my own house – thanks to the demands I made of Doctor Williams. At the time, I spoke to the doctor hoping that the comfort of my own home would help speed my recovery – and just now, I realized that having Erica in my house only made me more inclined to want to shove her up against the nearest available flat surface and fuck her senseless.
Not that I’d be able to do all that in my current position…
I passed the morning doing my best to try and make my way around the house. Williams insisted that I keep my leg elevated for at least four hours a day, but outside those four hours, I was free to move around.
Well…free was negotiable. Even doped up, my knee hurt like a sonofabitch.
But even concentrating on that, I told myself, was better than facing the prospect of Erica’s arrival…
Until she actually arrived. All at once, it was two o’clock, my boys had gone, and I was facing the prospect of God knew how much time alone with her. On my crutches, I hobbled my way to the door. Taking a deep breath, I opened it.
And tried to keep the blood from surging straight downward.
She had no right to look that good in jeans and a t-shirt. The denim hugged her long legs and, though the t-shirt she wore was modest, with the therapy company emblazoned across the chest, it still had me imagining what she would look like without it. Was she wearing a cotton bra? Silk? Lace? Were her breasts still as exquisitely full and soft as I remembered?
“Ahem.”
I snapped from my reverie, my gaze snapping to her face as I reddened slightly. I was a damned dog – but at least I was sorry about it.
At least a little. “Hey,” I hope I saved face a little bit by offering her a smile as I opened the door wide. “Come on in.”
“Thanks.” I winced slightly at the dryness of her reply before she waltzed past me, leaving a lingering scent of vanilla and pine that had my throat drying. When she closed the door behind herself to give me a once over, I reddened. I knew I looked a mess – fresh out of bed, hair tousled, unshaven, and with one leg of my sweatpants rolled up to reveal the swathe of bandages at my knee.
I was making good impression after good impression. “You look like you’ve been through the mill.”
“Thanks.” Now it was my turn to be sarcastic. “I feel like it.”
“But you haven’t.” Almost like she hadn’t heard me, Erica’s blue eyes flashed with something enough like anticipation to intimidate me. “Not yet. That’s my job.”
I couldn’t suppress a groan. “Please don’t tell me you’re going to take some perverse pleasure in this?” The powers that be couldn’t be that cruel.
“Don’t be childish, Brett.” She scowled. “I’m just telling you beforehand: This isn’t going to be a picnic.”
Was it just me, or did she seem pissed at me? I hadn’t done anything – not yet. Unless she counted being caught staring at her tits as a major offense, and I wasn’t convinced that she saw me. And on top of that, she was the one who had been haunting my dreams for the past week. Let’s be honest, for the past five years. Even when I thought I’d forgotten about her – about her ignoring my calls and simply disappearing after we’d had each other in pretty much every single way a man could have a woman – she would pop up again, every few months.
And I woke up hard as a rock, panting at the memory.
“I know that,” I snapped – maybe a bit too forcefully. “This isn’t the first time I’ve been injured.”
Erica pursed her full mouth and I had to resist the urge to lean forward and taste it. “According to your records, your last injury wasn’t anywhere near this bad – only put you out for about two months. Right?”
Grudgingly, I nodded. Of course, she would have done her research. “So let’s not underestimate this.” Erica went on lowly, her gaze steady on mine – for the barest instant, her eyes flickered lower, to the vee of my exposed chest, and my stomach tightened.
Was that interest?
It definitely felt like interest.
“Where’s your equipment?” I blinked at her almost abrasive tone, snapping back to the present. Maybe I had just imagined the look – after all, this was a woman clearly out for war – not love.
Of the physical variety, at least.
Despite my innate desire to tackle her to the floor and see how abrasive she was when my hand found the sweet warmth between her legs, I refrained. Instead, I merely jerked my head towards the hallway. “I’ll show you the way.”
As she fell into step behind my awkward lope, I wondered if we were ever going to broach the subject of the events five years prior. It was obvious by her demeanor that she remembered them – though exactly how she remembered them was anyone’s guess.
Five years was a long time – and a lot had happened in that time.
The memory made my expression darken as I frowned, lost momentarily in a cloud of painful emotion. Fuck…five years was an eternity….one I wished I could somehow rewind and start over, beginning with the fateful morning Erica disappeared.
“Here we are.” I pushed open a door just above the stairs to the basement that I’d chosen to label my “therapy room” and/or g
ym, after I’d stashed all my equipment inside. The space wasn’t huge, but there was enough space for a massage table, a few pieces of medical machinery, a couple of weight machines and a plethora of resistance equipment that helped keep me in tip-top shape during the off season.
Erica took a long look over the room before dropping the bag she hoisted over her shoulder onto the floor near the door. “Not bad.”
Only about eighteen thousand dollars’ worth of equipment. No big deal. I had actually been proud of my little room before Erica’s assessment. Now, it might as well be a back-alley basement or someone’s moldy basement.
“Let’s start here.” I watched warily as she moved away from me to stand beside the massage table.
In the space of three milliseconds, my mind went from browbeaten to utterly gung ho. She wanted to put her hands on me? At the mere prospect, my libido all but leapt out of my body and started doing a jig. I was left with the consequences, trying to fight the boner that threatened in sweatpants that did nothing to help me hide it. “You want to start with a massage?” I arched a brow. Dare I hope that her mind was secretly as filthy as mine was?
I honestly didn’t think it would be too much to ask.
Erica’s gorgeous baby blues simply narrowed. Had she always had that mole just beneath her lip? The one that begged to be licked and kissed?
“You just had surgery a week ago, Brett. Probably not smart to start pushing and pulling just now.” She was the only woman I’d ever been with – be ancient history or not – who made my insides twist in a strange mixture of nervousness and arousal. Me, who honestly couldn’t ever remember having a problem with women. “Come on…or do you need my help?”
Despite the filthiness of my mind, the last thing I needed was for her to touch me any more than I could handle. The massage was going to be tough enough as it was. Slowly, I shook my head. “I got it.” Edging forward on my crutches, I slowly levered myself onto the table, gritting my teeth at the pain that lanced through my leg. Sure, I’d been injured before, but I’d never been laid up like this.
And the recovery itself might kill me – if I was forced to let Erica put her hands on me for the next six months.
“Can you lift your hips? I need to take your pants off.”
Fuck. Fuck. Of course she did. With a groan, I leveraged myself onto my side – and came face to face with her slightly irate blue gaze. In that instant, my mouth was mere inches away from hers. I could have leaned forward and closed the distance. The light, female scent of her was enough to make my stomach clench and, despite my best intentions, I reached out…
To curl my hand into her shoulder. I took the excuse to touch her and eased myself back down onto the table after she helped me shuck my sweatpants down and off my legs. Considering that I weigh close to two hundred thirty pounds, she took the extra weight like a champ, only shifting to strengthen her stance. When she tossed the crumpled fabric onto the floor, I caught something that sounded strangely like a sharp intake of breath.
When her gaze rose from the very plaintive evidence of what her touch had done to me, all I could do was sigh in exasperation. “I feel like I should apologize, but I’m not so sure that’s going to keep you from being mad at me.”
“I’m not mad at you.” Her immediate – and pretty abrasive – answer just served to prove exactly what she’d denied.
“Aren’t you?” I ventured, giving her a once over that was only half for aesthetic reasons.
Her eyes narrowed dangerously. “Why would I be?”
Well, it hadn’t taken us very long to get around to addressing the elephant in the room. I took a deep breath, debating my very few options: I could out right ask her what had happened all those years ago, pretend to be just as ignorant as she was, or I could kiss her. While the latter option was tempting as hell, of course, being the masochist I was, I went for the one most likely to get my ass kicked.
“What the hell happened?”
I’m pretty sure any man could have taken in Erica’s body language at that exact moment and he would have believed that she had no idea what he was talking about. It was, after all, a pretty open question. I could have been talking about anything.
But one look in those gorgeous baby blues of her told me that she knew exactly what I was talking about. Her expression only changed for an instant, but in that instant I saw a flash or worry and surprise, followed by the tiniest bit of doubt. Then it was all gone, and she was pretending again. “I tried to get you positioned on the table and you got a boner,” she replied dryly. “Should I write it down in today’s notes?”
“That’s not what I’m talking about.” I replied, my mouth pressed into a firm line. “I mean at the pool party. The Fourth of July thing all those years ago. You never returned my calls.”
I was dejected as fuck. I can’t even lie. After having to grovel and beg at Adele’s feet so she would give me Erica’s number, I then had to face the agony of having her ignore every call or text I sent her way. I might have thought she was being coy for the first few days, but ultimately, I realized that she’d probably just moved on. Heaven forbid she considered the night we spent together as earth-shattering as I did. I had just interpreted all her decadent moans and sighs. I was young and cocky. It was completely possible.
At my question, she looked as if I’d slapped her. It made me feel guilty as hell – as if I’d offended her when I had no idea what I’d said wrong. Was it so terribly fucked up that I wanted to know what happened? To clear the air before I let her put her hands all over me and I did something way more reproachable than pop a boner? “You’re actually serious.” Slowly, she shook her head as she stared down at me before shoving the hand that supported me out from under me so I landed on my opposite hip – hard.
Mind you, it wasn’t my injured leg, so there was no real harm done – but the little trip smarted like a sonofabitch and I growled at the treatment. “I must have called at least a dozen times – that day. If you’re gonna abuse me instead of rehabilitate me, I deserve to know why.”
She didn’t answer. Just urged me over onto my stomach before her hands found the back of my thigh. I flinched slightly, expecting her to deal more damage. Instead, when her fingers curled into my hamstrings, there was no savagery in the gesture. Her digits were like pure silk, sliding into the stiffness of my muscle above the site of the injury so a groan escaped me.
One that, I was proud to say, had nothing to do with wanting to fuck her.
I’d been uncomfortable all morning, unable to quite relax my injured leg with the tension running through my lower body. Now, boner be damned, Erica proceeded to make me relax. Her hands slid lightly over the back of my leg, finding sites of muscular tension and coaxing them to release, one by one. For a moment, I forgot that we were in the middle of a serious conversation – that I was on the cusp of finding out why she was so pissed at me.
She was that damn good.
I could see immediately why Dan had to have her for the team – and this was just considering her skills with massage. If she understood muscles this well, she had to be pretty bang up in the actual therapy department.
For a good ten minutes, I lay like a limp fucking noodle on the table while she did her thing, all but drooling like a goddamn dog getting its belly rubbed. I’d been massaged plenty in my close to three years playing for the team, but this was like nothing I’d ever encountered. I literally forgot all the pain in my leg.
And then, all at once, it was over. Her hands left me and I had to resist the urge to demand that she continue. Instead, I merely raised my head to look up at her in grateful surprise. “That was amazing.”
Her lips quirked upward slightly – she was obviously amused with my reaction – enough to illicit a ghost of a smile. “Lots of enflamed tissue. I assume you were strutting around on it all morning?”
Goddamn it. “I was trying to get used to…being incapacitated.”
“Yeah, keep doing that
and you’ll be incapacitated for a lot longer.” Now she was walking away – picking up her bag from where she left it beside the door and dear sweet God she still had the most kissable, bitable, delectable ass I’d ever seen. Even completely clad, in jeans.
“Wait,” I struggled upward, the muscles in my upper arms bunching as I hoisted myself into a sitting position, “Is that it?” She’d hardly been around for half an hour – and most of that had been spent getting me into position on the table.
“You’ve been up and about a little too much for us to do much else today.” She replied succinctly, her expression unreadable. “Take it easy and I’ll be back, first thing tomorrow.”
I swallowed a groan as she hefted her bag higher on her shoulder. She was leaving? Already? “Erica…”
I wanted to ask her again – why the hell she’d walked away from me five years ago – but before I could get out a single word, she swept from the room with a casual call over her shoulder. “See you tomorrow!”
And just like that, I was left sitting atop the table, utterly dumbfounded.
What the actual fuck? Somehow, things weren’t any clearer than they’d been the moment she walked in. I still had a raging hard-on, and now my home gym smelled like lavender and vanilla.
And, lucky me, I’d get to do it all over again tomorrow.
For the first time since playing the hero, I cursed my judgement. This was obviously going to be the longest six months of my life.
Chapter 8
ERICA
I didn’t know if I could survive day two.
My alarm went off promptly at seven o’clock in the morning, and I shut it off within thirty seconds, completely awake. I usually wasn’t an early riser, but today I was preoccupied with my work.
That work being one Brett Kinney.
Our first session had gone just swimmingly, and by that, I meant that he’d gotten an erection – a massively impressive one – and I’d done my best to stay stoic while running my hands over two hundred and thirty pounds of perfectly sculpted masculine flesh.