Her Mane Man (Online Shifter Dating Agency Romance)

by Sasha Winter

  Marcus was not about to let this confession out, but those were the exact same words his first girlfriend had said to him before he’d lost his virginity back in his teenage days.

  Attempting to regain some control over the situation before dropping his pants, Marcus turned to Max and ordered him to turn his back. As good as gold, his dog did just that, endearing himself to Ashley even further and helping to put the embarrassing comment behind him a little.

  “He’s so well trained,” Ashley said.

  “He’s just showing off because he obviously likes you,” Marcus replied with a fond grin. “He has his rebellious moments for sure.”

  After lying down on the examination table, the first sensation Marcus became aware of was the light touch of Ashley’s fingers upon his leg. Despite telling himself that he shouldn’t have been dwelling on such things, he couldn’t help but consider that it’d been a long time since any woman had touched him in a similarly tender way. Her hands were soft and the part of his body that had become synonymous in his mind with pain suddenly encountered a new sensation…that of pleasure. A man’s knee could hardly be described as an erogenous zone, but her touch made him feel all tingly and was nearly enough to make his eyes roll back.

  “Are you cold, Marcus?” Ashley suddenly asked. “Should I turn the heater up?”

  “No, not at all,” he replied.

  “Oh, okay. It’s just that you have goose bumps all of a sudden. I don’t want you catching a chill.”

  “I’m not sure why that is, but I’m fine,” he said, hoping that his voice didn’t sound shaky and wanting to kick himself for remaining without a girlfriend for so long. It wasn’t like he was incapable of getting women to like him—hell, he could even say he found it easy when he put a small amount of effort in....but lately, he hadn’t wanted to make that effort with anyone. It was too bad Ashley was his physio and therefore likely off-limits, because he could suddenly see a stark image of himself being with a woman exactly like her.

  After making her assessment, Ashley picked up a pen and began to list a few findings in her notepad.

  “Don’t see a pen in hand much these days,” Marcus said, trying to distract his mind from all kinds of untimely visualizations.

  “I know, but I just prefer to make my initial assessment on paper,” she replied. “I’ll add them to the online database later. You’ll have your own profile and everything so we can keep track of your progress.”

  “Looks like you’re drawing a few conclusions already?”

  “I am indeed,” she replied. “And so should you.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “This is an injury that needs a lot of time and physio in order to heal,” she continued. “It can heal, but because it’s been left untreated it could take up to a year or more to really put it behind you. So if you were hoping that today would allow you to fulfil a bet and move on then I’m going to have to disappoint you.”

  “I see,” he replied, hardly surprised. “But in the spirit of honesty, you’ll also admit that physio isn’t an exact science. It might not get better at all, in which case I’ll have spent a year of my time…”

  “It’s a bit more complicated than that,” Ashley cut in. ‘The injury is worse than I anticipated and—I can say with certainty—will continue to get worse if left untreated. You’re right, Marcus, nothing is an exact science, but you really need this.”

  It was easy to see that she was being sincere. Shutting himself away from the world and soldiering on had done nothing for him. It was time to put his faith in someone or else he would be walking with a stick in a few years, perhaps even ending up in a wheelchair someday.

  “Okay, Miss Cortes, I give in,” he relented.

  “Ashley’s fine,” she replied with a smile. “Your treatment will work better in a relaxed and informal atmosphere.”

  “Fair enough. I’ll be a good patient, I promise,” he said. “When do we start?”

  “Right now, actually. The therapy won’t only be applied in here. I’ll be giving you a list of exercises to carry out on a daily basis; I can demonstrate them here but you will need to be equally committed at home.”

  “Got it. Max will tell you if I’ve been a bad boy.”

  “Yes, I have an ally in him! First of all, though, I need to massage you.”

  “Massage?”

  “Yes. A massage will reduce the tension in your leg. Your muscles are very tight.”

  “Ah, I see,” he said, getting ready to roll over.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  Marcus had been about to turn onto his front, which showed how little he knew about physiotherapy. He’d always thought a massage was carried out on a person’s back.

  “You don’t want me on my front?” he asked.

  “No, you’re fine just where you are, only take your socks off as well. Then just lie back and relax.”

  Doing as he was told—something he would have to get used to—Marcus lay back down and allowed Ashley to show him what she meant. Beginning at his ankle, she tenderly but firmly began to manipulate his muscles, gradually working her way up towards his knee.

  “You’re very tense, Marcus,” she said. “Try relaxing a bit—no need to clench your fists. I promise I won’t do anything silly.”

  Obeying once again, Marcus let his palms straighten so he could at least appear to be relaxed, but there was actually a very good reason why he was tense. Ashley’s hands may have been professional ones, their skills practiced to suit focused physiotherapy objectives, but this did nothing to stop them from feeling so damn good. After even the lightest touch of her fingertips had given him goose bumps, the full laying on of her hands brought on a whole new realm of sensations entirely.

  Shutting himself away from the world had included getting rid of any female company, but up until meeting Ashley, he had given the absence of a feminine touch very little thought, other than the occasional half-hearted exchange on PurrfectMatch. As a result, his body was now punishing him for how much he’d allowed it to be neglected. Underestimating his yearning for a woman’s touch might not have been as serious as overlooking his injury, but from the stirring he felt in his groin, it was about to cause him humiliation nevertheless.

  “You’re clenching your fists again, Marcus,” Ashley said.

  “Sorry, can we please stop for now?” he asked, leaning up onto his elbows but knowing that there was no way of bringing an end to the massage without Ashley seeing what it had caused.

  “Is that too much pressure?” she asked, confused. “Am I hurting you?”

  “No, but there’s a problem of a different nature.”

  “But…oh!”

  And then she finally saw it. His erection was so big that it was almost impossible not to notice as soon as she looked up, but that fact did nothing to feed Marcus’ ego right then. He didn’t wait for any further instructions to decide that it time to put his pants back on, after which he turned back to apologize and found that Ashley was still staring at him.

  At least her face looked to be as flushed as his felt.

  “Please don’t worry,” she told him. “It’s happened a few times before with other clients. It’s a perfectly natural bodily response.”

  “I see. Well, sorry anyway,” he said, managing a wry smile.

  Ashley shook her head to say that there was no need for an apology, and Marcus breathed a sigh of relief while daring to stand up straight and being thankful that his jeans were tight enough to subdue his desire back to a socially acceptable level.

  “I suppose Blake was a perfect gentleman, huh?”

  “And you are too, Marcus. Just a very sensitive one—please don’t feel bad about it.”

  “That’s easy for you to say. Are you still happy to be my physiotherapist?”

  “Marcus, every excruciating moment will be worth it,” she said, doing her best to show good humor. “Do what I tell you and we’ll have you feeling like a new man.”

  “Ok
ay,” he said with a wry grin. “And at some point I’ll forget the shame and be able to look you in the eye again.”

  “No, let’s get right to it,” she urged, clapping her hands together. “Let’s show you those exercises while I have your undivided attention.”

  After what had just happened, Marcus sincerely wanted to curl up in a corner and die of embarrassment, but because their meeting couldn’t possibly have gotten any more embarrassing, he was able to pay attention and take on board what he would need to do each day in order to help Ashley instigate a long-term healing process. As a youth, he’d always been happier to play than study, but now would be the time for turning over a new leaf—perhaps making up for all those history lessons he’d failed to pay attention to back in school.

  As their first session turned out, it would’ve been impossible to forget the exercises she demonstrated. Aroused as he was, being asked to watch his new therapist adopt numerous poses that couldn’t help but accentuate her curves and make her limbs look as if they were being draped over some lucky invisible man served to make the images imprint on his mind like nothing before. No doubt his imagination was impressionable after what had just happened, but that was how he saw it, and at the end of the session, he ended up leaving her office struggling to suppress the notion that his new physiotherapist was also the Queen of Sensual Erotica. Of all people, surely he should’ve been able to rely on Blake to warn him of such a thing beforehand.

  It would take a lot of hard thinking to calm him down before their next meeting, at which point he would be determined to avoid even the slightest interruption of her utmost professionalism. Recovering fully might never be possible, but he would try.

  Once Ashley had assured him that their appointment was confidential in every way—he couldn’t bear the thought of Blake getting hold of this information—Marcus thanked her and promised to bring Max back next time as she requested.

  “It would break his heart to leave him behind, anyway,” he said. “He’ll know where I’ve been as soon as I get home; his sense of smell is too good.”

  “He always knows what you’ve been up to, then?”

  “Yes, and…erm…”

  There was no way to end the conversation without risking an inappropriate comment, so Marcus admitted defeat and left, though not before asking Veronica to schedule him an appointment for next week.

  “Gonna come back for more, hey?” said the cheery assistant. “She’s wonderful, isn’t she?”

  “Yes, very beauti…I mean, talented,” he replied, deciding to ignore the inquisitive stare she gave him. Then he told Max to stop lingering and got himself out of there. He was not limping anymore, but he thought it likely that shame was completely masking the pain in his knee, rather than thinking that Ashley’s physiotherapy was that good.

  Returning home was a massive relief. All the way back Marcus felt like anyone that looked his way could see humiliation painted all over his features, and he planned to shut himself away from the world until employment forced him to re-emerge.

  What a thing to happen! There was simply no way of kidding himself into having a sense of humor about it.

  It was only when reclining later that evening with his second glass of whiskey that he allowed his mind to think on matters further and broach the subject of his love life—or the complete lack of one. Prior to his military discharge, he’d been in touch with himself both physically and mentally, and even if he was tempted to become aroused inappropriately at a woman’s touch, he would have easily been able to stop it from happening. Ever since then, he had become completely disconnected not just from the outside world, he now realized, but also from his own needs and desires.

  He was a mess; there was no other way of assessing his situation, and failing to drag himself out of the milieu had led to the day’s embarrassment.

  This self-reflection reminded him that there had been new correspondence on PurrfectMatch, an, desperate to feel a little better, he decided then to log on and find out if Ash—what a coincidence—wished to continue chatting. She was one person in the world who, so far, had a completely unsullied view of him, and he would keep it that way for as long as possible, able to take total control of the information she was privy to.

  Pride was low, but if he could grow a steady online relationship with this woman—and if physiotherapy was really going to make a difference—then maybe in a few weeks he’d have the nerve to feel like an altered man and ask to meet her. Breaking it to her that he no longer wished to shift into a lion (part of the reason she might supposedly be attracted to him) might prove an issue, but he would cross that bridge when they got that far. This was the cautious approach he had in mind, but when he logged on, he was to find that Ash had made a leap that was quite a bit more extreme.

  The one conversation they’d had felt quite sedate, though warm and friendly. He might’ve been lacking practice in chatting up women, but he imagined the two of them would have to become far more familiar before jumping ahead to anything genuinely flirtatious.

  He was wrong.

  As if the female form could not taunt him enough that day, there it was again—well, most of it anyway. From the neck down, Ash had stripped to her underwear, and to say she was hot was an understatement, even if Marcus had not been completely undersexed as he was.

  I know why I’m single, how on earth are you? he thought.

  Popping up with the message, ‘Thought you sounded really sweet and it got me carried away. This pic is for you (I don’t usually do this!) x’, Ash was clearly embracing the capabilities of the site more readily than he was.

  ‘I’m speechless,’ he responded, ‘but you look terrific!’

  He meant it. Some devilish forces seemed to have gone to work on his life, because the sweet curves on his screen and the fabulous cleavage balancing that stethoscope could very well have belonged to the very woman whose hands had given him an erection earlier on. Putting the two fantasies together and imagining they were one and the same person was just too much of a draw for the male mind to resist—even if the girl in the picture had quite a distinct looking mark on her neck, resembling a star. Mentally speaking, he was suddenly back on that examination table, and this time something other than zipping up his pants really needed to be done about it.

  The holder of the Ash84 account did not seem to be around to respond to his message anyway, but hopefully she would take it as a compliment.

  Before his unfortunate incident—the one in the army, not the one on the examination table—Marcus had lived life by the belief that everything happens for a reason. Ever since, this had been a difficult philosophy to adhere to, even resulting in the crucifix that used to hang round his neck not being there anymore. Occasionally, however, the habit of seeking for a spiritual explanation would return and did so as he tried to relieve his ardor that evening. Of all the useless additions to a man’s life, surely self-loathing for no other reason than that of owning a penis was the most pointless.

  Another curious quality that interfering with one’s own lustful needs incurred was the ability of orgasm for distracting the mind. Once relief hit home, suddenly the most random thought would often spring into a man’s mind from nowhere, causing him to acknowledge that he had been building up defensive walls against its intrusion. To Marcus there came the chill of regret and the memory of his irreversible mistake. His squad members had patted him on the back for his actions, believing his bravery had saved some of their lives, but when the army’s laborious inquiry system finally got round to judging his case, they’d concluded he had acted ‘dishonorably’. In the chaos of ambush, he could not concede that the rage employed to overcome their foes was unsuitable. Marcus only wished that the precision with which he—and the rest of the squad—had turned the tables on their attackers had been accurate enough to avoid the consequence of having one too many counted among the dead.

  Ever since then, the philosophy that everything happens for a reason had been difficult to let back in, u
nless the reasons involved were designed to be cruel and painful.

  But now things had changed. Not only had he met this friendly Ash lady online, he’d also met another wonderful new woman in the form of his beautiful new physiotherapist, and he was starting to believe in his old philosophy again. Maybe, just maybe, he’d met one of them for a reason…

  But which one was the one…?

  Chapter 5

  A week went by, and the second appointment began to loom. The closer it came, the more Marcus dreaded having to look into the eyes of his physiotherapist again, but their relationship was now completely unavoidable. At last the reality had actually sunk in that his right knee needed a lot of attention and expertise, or else he would regret it for the rest of his life.

  Punishing himself wouldn’t make up for the past, and neither would hiding away from the world. In spite of his embarrassment, he did sense a desire for an awakening stirring within. What this might consist of remained uncertain, but maybe this physiotherapy could be a door to entering the next stage of his existence.

  If only there was some way to apologize with deed rather than word, but the only way of doing so was to be as disciplined and attentive as possible to her demands on his daily routine. In this he was as good as his word, and although the pain in his knee often came and went, he found himself suspecting that it might be on the mend—and after just the one week of following her advice, too!

  “I’ve been doing them four times a day,” he said, once back inside Ashley Cortes’s office. “And it feels promising already.”

  “I’m impressed,” Ashley replied with a friendly smile as she jotted a few notes down. “You have to keep it up now. A happy master makes for a happy dog, and I simply can’t let Max be unhappy. It would break my heart.”

  Marcus let out a laugh, which was a relatively unfamiliar sound coming from his lips. He supposed he would have to thank Blake sincerely for this someday, though, and the idea of doing so made him feel a bit strange. Their friendship wasn’t really in touch with a sensitive side, so maybe he could pay for him to have a lap dance or something; now that was gratitude Blake would understand.