He knew that wasn’t a fair assessment. They were the reason he was able to walk at all. But he wasn’t walking. Not really. He was hobbling. He could put on a pretty good show for as long as it took him to get off work. But it cost him. Each and every damn day.
“Great. You talked to him. You know all my dirty little secrets.” He held out his hand. “So give me the keys, and I’ll get out of your hair.”
“Sure. On one condition.” She walked back to the side table, curvy hips bumping in a smooth, steady rhythm as she picked up a glass of water and two tablets sitting next to it. That didn’t matter right now, though. Nothing did, except getting those keys, taking three steps out of the room and somehow reaching his car.
“The condition is that you tell me about how things went with your patient...while I work on your leg.”
CHAPTER SIX
SHE WAITED FOR the explosion she was sure would come, but there was none.
Instead, Luke pivoted on his good foot and sat on the edge of the bed. “I’m too tired to play this game with you right now, Kate. Please, just give me the keys.”
“I’m not playing games. Nick said you’d been injured during your time in the service. Don’t worry, he didn’t give me all the gory details. But I can tell your leg hurts. It’s been hurting ever since the accident, it’s bothering you enough that you’re having trouble walking across the room to pick up a set of keys. How safe is it for you to drive when it’s like this?”
“Safe enough.”
Okay, she probably should have met him downstairs like he’d asked, but she’d had no idea he’d be in such agony. And he wouldn’t dream of coming out and admitting he was in pain. She’d had enough difficult patients to know when one was minimizing his problem, trying to keep it under wraps.
She set the glass, along with his keys and pills, on the dresser, then knelt next to the bed. “I have a heating pad, and I brought a few of my tools from home, in case I decided to...” She’d been about to say “stay for a while,” but it didn’t seem appropriate to mention that right now. She didn’t want there to be any kind of misunderstanding between them. She wasn’t trying to start anything, but it had made her chest ache to see him try to hurry on that roadway today. He probably hadn’t even realized she’d seen him.
“I just need to get some rest. It’ll be fine by morning.”
“I don’t believe you.”
He shut his eyes for a second, a muscle working in his jaw, before he fixed her with an angry glare. “No? Well, lady, I don’t give a damn what you believe. I didn’t seem to have any trouble lifting you onto that sink, did I? So give me my damn keys and let me get out of here.”
Okay, that hurt. More than hurt. She clenched her jaw as angry words whisked up her airway and tumbled into her mouth, beating against the backs of her teeth in an effort to get out.
This has nothing to do with you, Kate, and everything to do with Luke trying to protect himself.
She’d had men like him cross her treatment table before. Military types who hated admitting weakness and hated it even worse when Kate focused all her attention on that weakness—which was what she had to do in order to help them. She was charged with manipulating the very spot, knowing the injury was as much a source of mental anguish as it was physical. And sometimes facing their own mortality day in and day out was more painful than anything else.
“No, you didn’t have any trouble. But I should have noticed something was wrong even then.”
“And if you had? Would it have made a difference?” The challenge was unmistakable.
Would she have still let him do what he had?
Definitely. It didn’t make him any less attractive.
“No, it wouldn’t have made any difference.”
Admitting it made what they’d done seem that much worse, for some reason. Her patients were usually in a vulnerable place when she saw them. She would never dream of taking advantage of that.
But Luke wasn’t her patient. She hadn’t known about his injury at the time—he’d hidden it well. And he sure as hell hadn’t been the picture of vulnerability. Then or now.
Because he was good at hiding his weakness.
But not nearly as good as her mother—who’d almost taken her secrets to the grave.
She pushed that thought aside. It had nothing to do with what would or wouldn’t happen in this room. If Luke stood and demanded his keys, she’d give them to him and let him walk away. And she’d walk away, too. He’d talked about being too tired to play this game. Well, so was she. She was hurting inside, just like he was, even if it was for a completely different reason. And she wasn’t sure if she could manage her pain and his right now.
All she wanted to do was ease a little of his hurt. Nothing more. And doing so would take her mind off her own problems. Off the fact that she still didn’t know how she was going to deal with her newfound knowledge or what Nick’s place would be in her life.
Or if she even wanted him to have a place.
She sucked in a deep breath and stood. “Come on, Luke. Surely it can’t hurt to have me work on it a little bit. You can just think of it as getting a free massage.”
* * *
A free massage.
Unfortunately that was not what he was thinking of at all, but he wasn’t quite sure how he was going to get out of this room. His physical therapist had once told him he should use a cane, but he’d refused to go there. And most days he got along just fine without one.
It was only when he strained the damaged muscles beyond their limits that they gave him trouble. And when they rebelled, they went all out. The muscles were currently bunched in an angry ball at the top of his thigh. Forcing them to keep on working just made the knot tighten further.
A muscle relaxant would help, but it would take hours to take effect, and he’d still have a devil of a time getting to sleep tonight. And he was due at work first thing in the morning.
He wasn’t sure he wanted Kate’s hands on him right now, though. Not after what had happened between them before.
She hadn’t bothered to wait for his response but was busy setting various items on the bed.
What could it hurt? If he embarrassed himself, it wasn’t like she was going to be around to remind him of it. And he was dog tired. The last thing he wanted to do was stand up and somehow make his way back down to the car. His leg was going to fight him every step of the way.
“Where do you want me?”
Her fingers paused on a towel that she was rolling into a tight tube. “I’ll lay a blanket on the floor. The bed is too soft.”
She went to the closet, pulled a heavy brown blanket from the top shelf and folded it into a pallet, placing it at the foot of the bed. “Take your shoes and pants off, please.”
Pants? Oh, hell, no.
“I’d rather keep them on, if it’s all the same to you.”
“Your shoes?”
He gave her a tight smile. “I think you know what I mean.”
“I have to really knead those muscles, and to do that, I need to see what I’m working with.”
His joking comment to Nick—asking if he wanted him to drop his pants and show Kate his handiwork—came back to taunt him. Yeah, well, he’d never expected to have to drop them...literally. And he wasn’t all that thrilled with the idea of her seeing the ugly network of scars and divots where there should be a smooth layer of skin over muscle.
She stopped organizing stuff and looked up at him. “I’ll put a towel over you. Besides, it’s not like you’ll be naked or anything.”
He hadn’t been naked that time in the supply closet either, but that hadn’t stopped him from pulling her hips against him and sinking deep.
Yeah, something he’d better stop thinking about. Now.
Instead, he concentrated
on the ache in his leg and the exhaustion that made him want to fall back onto the bed and ride out the pain with his eyes closed. He wouldn’t be able to sleep, but he could at least stop thinking about things that didn’t revolve around pain.
“How long will this take?”
“Around a half hour.”
Surely he could survive that length of time.
“I want the towel first.”
“Of course.” She lifted a decent-sized bath towel. “I’ve got it right here.”
Since the principal injury was at the top of his leg and hip—the explosion had damn near blown his balls off—that should cover the worst of his wound. She’d only need to see the scars that ran down the top of his thigh, where the shredded muscle fibers had been painstakingly stitched back together.
He was damned if he was going to undress in front of her, though. So he grabbed the towel from between her fingers and made his way—step by painful step—into the bathroom, where he proceeded to toe off his loafers and unzip his slacks. He didn’t try to bend down and pull them off, he just let them slide down his legs, avoiding the mirror.
It seemed pretty stupid to worry about aesthetics in the face of everything else he had to worry about. But if he didn’t look, he could avoid remembering the sudden searing pain that had ripped the breath from his lungs and the weakness that had stolen over him as his lifeblood had seeped from his body.
Flattening a hand on the vanity top, he supported part of his weight as he stepped out of the slacks. He then wrapped the towel tightly around his midsection and secured the loose end, thankful it hung almost to his knees.
There. That should do it.
He limped back into the room, the sound of elevator music coming from the television speakers.
Great. She was determined to really play this therapist thing to the hilt, wasn’t she?
Kate patted the blanket, where she’d already laid out a pillow. “Let’s put you on your back, head up here.”
Holding the edges of the towel together with one hand and putting his other on the edge of the bed, he somehow managed to lower himself without falling. He stretched out, and just the act of being off that leg was heavenly. It still hurt, but now it was just a deep ache that went in through his skin and bored through all the layers before anchoring itself in his bone.
“Sit up for a second.”
Once he did, she handed him a couple of pills and a glass of water.
He glanced at the pills. Ibuprofen. He lifted his brows. “Really?” He’d been planning on taking something a hell of a lot stronger when he got home.
“They’ll help with the inflammation and at least take the edge off the pain. Hopefully by the time you’re ready to leave.”
“I know what they do.”
“Oh.” She colored. “Of course you do. Sorry. I don’t have anything stronger.”
He tossed the pills into his mouth and downed them with a long swig of icy water. He kept drinking until the glass was empty. “Thanks.”
She took it from him. “You’re welcome.”
“You really don’t have to do this.”
“I know. But I want to.” She nodded toward the pillow. “Lie back.”
She slid the towel she’d rolled earlier beneath the knee of his injured leg to support it.
So far, so good.
The second she pushed the towel up, however, and he felt the first splash of warm oil hit his skin, Luke knew he’d made a terrible mistake.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE SCARS WERE everywhere. And she had a feeling she hadn’t even seen the worst of them.
Kate swallowed back her horror as she smoothed the massage oil across his skin.
From beneath the towel a deep concave groove appeared, which branched into a spider web of smaller scars, the whole tangled mess stopping just before it reached his knee. Two square patches of skin appeared to have been slapped over a portion of his leg, one of them longer than the other, disappearing beneath the lower edge of the towel.
Skin grafts.
Where had they harvested them from?
Probably the back of his hip.
Luke’s other leg was untouched. Smooth skin over strong muscles. His good leg had taken up the slack during the healing process, growing stronger even as the injured leg grew weaker. There was a size differential that was unmistakable.
When she glanced at his face, she saw his eyes were shut, long, curling lashes appearing at odds with the fierce lines of his cheekbones. He probably hated knowing she was looking at the damage—wondering if she was disgusted by the sight.
Not at all.
But she did feel a deep sadness at what had happened to him. She knew soldiers every day were struck down in the prime of their lives. Luke was lucky to be alive. And if she wasn’t mistaken, he was very lucky to still have this leg. The damage had been extensive. Whoever had repaired it had done a good job. Nick? Not likely. It looked to be the work of more than one specialist. But he’d mentioned Nick saving his life, so he’d been involved somehow.
She pulled her mind back to the job at hand. “This is going to hurt at first, but it should start feeling better as things loosen up.”
“I’ll be fine.” Even as he said it, the muscles in his leg contracted as if undergoing an assault. And really it was. But it needed to be done.
She wouldn’t dig in deep right away. She’d slowly work her way up to the hard stuff.
An unwilling smile tugged her lips.
Laying her hands on his leg, she started to massage, using long silky strokes that had little therapeutic value. It was really just a ploy to make his muscles think she wasn’t going to go after them. As if by magic, the tension in his leg began to ease. She kept at it, discreetly edging the towel higher and higher, trying to do it without him noticing. Not because she wanted to sneak a peek, but because she had a feeling the worst of the damage was yet to come. She was right. More grafting. Furrows where skin should have overlaid muscle. It looked like he’d lost some actual muscle tissue. No wonder the leg was weak. It was a wonder he was walking as well as he was.
A low huff of air escaped his lungs, making her smile widen. He was determined to make her work for this, wasn’t he? Well, he’d find she could be pretty stubborn herself. She wanted to get just one satisfied groan out of him.
She also needed to get her mind out of the gutter. She’d never had a patient affect her like this.
Because he wasn’t her patient. And why did she feel the need to keep reminding herself of that fact? Maybe because she’d never worked on anyone she’d had sex with before.
Her strokes got firmer, but still not hard enough to make him wince. She stopped to pour a little more oil on her hands, letting it dribble onto his leg.
“The hotel’s not going to be very happy if you get that stuff on their blanket,” he said.
“It’s water soluble. I’ll take it down and ask them to clean it tomorrow. No biggie.”
“Water soluble? As in...?”
Leave it to a doctor to understand the implications. “Don’t worry, I’m not using that jelly on you.”
His lips quirked, one eye opening to glance at her. “No need to, from what I remember.”
Egads. Heat splashed hot and fast into her face. The man sure wasn’t burdened by many inhibitions, was he?
Her best bet was to ignore that remark. “I want to get a couple of warm towels to put on your leg. Be right back.”
She turned the hot tap on in the bathroom and reached to get a hand towel from the chrome fixture above the toilet. Her eyes met their reflection in the mirror, and she shook her head when she noted her face was as pink as she’d feared. If they were going to talk, she needed to direct the conversation and keep it in the shallow end of the pool.
T
esting the water with her fingers, she refolded the towel into a rectangle that would fit over the muscles just above his knee. The towel would help loosen those while she worked on the upper ones. She could reverse it later on.
She slid the towel beneath the flow of hot water and wet it enough to be effective, but not so much that it was dripping. She then switched on the heating rack on the wall and let it work on the bath towels already draped over it.
“Kate?”
“Coming.” She hurried into the other room and knelt beside him again, sliding the towel into place and letting the moist heat soak deep into his muscles.
He groaned.
Success!
She worked for a few minutes, casting around for some innocuous topic of conversation. But Luke seemed pretty happy just to lie there for now, so maybe there was no need to talk. And judging from the twitch she’d just spotted behind that towel, he was struggling to keep his mind off how close she was getting to certain areas of his body.
Afraid he might leap up and demand to leave before she’d finished, she eased away and headed back down toward the center of his thigh.
A little more muscle went into the next wave of strokes as Kate tried to isolate muscle groups and loosen the thick adhesions caused by the scarring process. This was where things got serious, and in the same way her manipulation of his leg became more aggressive, so did Luke’s demeanor. Not that he lashed out verbally, like he had earlier, but the bulge behind his towel subsided, and a muscle in his cheek began to pulse, letting her know he was struggling to deal with the discomfort. But he stayed put. It was probably a matter of pride more than anything else right now.
He may be a doctor by profession, but at his core he was still a tough military guy. Don’t give quarter, don’t show pain.
She stopped twice to replace the cooling towel with a fresh hot one, and shifted her attention to the lower section of his thigh, hoping to draw the pain down and out of his body. This area was less damaged than the upper portion and evidently less sensitive as well, because Luke relaxed the second she slid the warm towel up to cover the part on which she’d already worked. She sensed his relief that she was moving away from that area.
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