Page 48 of Rookie Recovery

To my surprise, he didn’t fight me. “What’s on my schedule for this session?”

God, it would’ve been better if he had. Easier to push back if he was pushing first—Jesus. I swallowed hard.

“Massage.” I nodded towards the exam table. “Go on.”

He popped onto the padding, grabbed the collar of his shirt, and yanked it off. Don’t look, don’t look. Except I had to. Because it was my job.

And he was my patient.

When the hell has this gotten so complicated? And why the hell had I let it? “Roll, Bow.”

“Oh, you want me from behind?” He shot me a too-big grin over his shoulder as he flipped onto his stomach.

I groaned. No, I could do this. He was an actual injured patient who needed care. Needed me to give it to him.

Not. Like. That.

Jesus H Christ. I nearly slammed my hip into the counter as I reached for the massage oil.

“Lubing up?” Bowie snickered.

“I swear to fuck, Bowman.”

He laughed harder. “Get your slicked up hands on me, Doc.”

I withheld a sigh. Took a big deep steadying breath and gave myself another mini pep talk.

You got this, Sullivan. Professional. Clean. Mind on the shoulders, not in the gutter. Or on hips or lips or almost-kisses.

He wriggled on the bench, his perky little ass bobbing side to side and definitely—definitely—not drawing all my attention. Or sending a hefty supply of blood southward. And my mind careening back towards the gutter.

This was going to be so fucking hard. And I’d be lucky if I didn’t end up hard, too.

“All right, here we go,” I said. Was I talking to him or myself? Or the general universe, putting ‘we got this’ vibes out there as I laid my bare hands on his bare shoulders.

The skin-to-skin heat burned like an electric current. Like fire.

No. I had to be cold, distanced. Professional. I’d done this hundreds of times to dozens of athletes. No reason this should be any different.

No reason he should be any different.

My hands swept over his shoulders in a soft brush of fingers. God, his skin was smooth, warm. Inviting, begging to be touched. Explored. But I shouldn’t notice that, not now. I was a damned professional. This was my job, and I was fucking good at it.

Another broad sweep over his upper back. Not noting the bunch of his muscles under that soft skin. Not studying the light freckles across the tops of his shoulders, like he’d spent a bit too much time at the beach this summer, basking in the sun.

I timed the soft strokes of my fingers to my breath: inhale, sweep up. Exhale, swoop down. Focusing on breathing so I didn’t focus on the way his muscles softened, the way his lashes fluttered against his cheeks as he relaxed. So I didn’t linger on the hitch in his breath as my fingers skated down his ribs.

I added more pressure and worked my way back to his shoulders, forcing the skin to bend under my touch, forcing muscle to flex and loosen. Shifting from the easy effleurage into the deeper petrissage. The actual work.

I dug in. Hard. Thumbs working the stiff muscles, bending and kneading to soften the knots and areas of tension. Bowie groaned under the force.

“Ow,” he mumbled, his eyes fluttering back open. “This is not a sexy massage anymore. This sucks.”

“Yep,” I grunted, forcing more pressure into my hands to work more tension out. “No pain, no gain, Bowman.”

“When does it end?” His nose wrinkled as he winced, and I tried not to let it soften my hands. I would stay distant, professional.

“A while.” I dug in again. Hard. Deep. Deeper. He winced again, but didn’t complain. A true pro, used to riding out the pain. My fingers found their rhythm, pushing in, pulling out the tension through force and pressure. The knots eased, tightness slowly eked out.