Page 69 of The Unhinged Christmas of a Cat Lady
His hands shift lower, to the middle of my back, and then—slowly—he peels back the towel just enough to expose my shoulder blades. I freeze for half a second.
Then he speaks, softly: “Just this bit, if that’s okay.”
God. Even his voice is considerate.
“Yes,” I mumble into the face cradle. “Fine. Yep. All good.” The scent of whatever oil he is using is engulfing me.
My bra strap is moved with the most delicate precision, and then his fingers are there—skin on skin now. Kneading, sweeping, gliding over knots I didn’t know I had. He finds the one under my right shoulder blade and circles it gently, coaxing it loose.
I actually groan.
Out loud.
A horrible, involuntary, low little noise that sounds like I’m auditioning for a very different kind of massage.
Jasper doesn’t comment.
Of course he doesn’t. Because he’s a grown-up. A professional. A man who probably has given hundreds of women a massage and doesn’t see anything sexual in this.
Meanwhile, I’m lying here like a Victorian widow discovering the joys of hysteria treatment.
His hands move to my arms. My forearms. My hands. He presses each palm in turn, working his thumbs in little circles near the base of my thumbs, and somehow that’s worse—gentler. More intimate. Like he knows how tired I am.
His thumbs circle one last time at the base of my palm, then gently release it back onto the sheet.
I feel the absence like a gust of cold air.
There’s a pause. A flicker of stillness in the music.
“Would you like more of your back done?” His voice is soft. Low. Still perfectly neutral—which only makes my body react more.
I swallow. “Yes, please.”
Bloody hell. I sound so prim it is laughable.
He shifts behind me. I hear the faint rustle of fabric, and then feel the sheet slowly sliding lower. He tucks it in just above the base of my spine—just enough to give him room to work, without exposing anything I’d need therapy to recover from.
“You okay?” he checks.
“Mm-hmm,” I manage, my voice doing that tight, squeaky thing it does when I’m lying through my teeth. I am not okay. I am one well-placed sigh away from spontaneous combustion.
He starts again, this time with more oil—his hands warmer, slower. Gliding from the middle of my back to the dip of my waist in long, hypnotic strokes. There’s more skin contact now. More silence. More… everything.
My clit tingles.
My heart does something unhelpful in the region ofare you falling for him?Which I ignore forcefully.
Then, as his fingers pause at the band of my bra, he asks innocently “I can’t work around this bit easily without getting oil on it. Do you want to unhook it?”
It’s not a question with a hidden meaning. It’s practical. Professional. A standard part of any massage.
But still, my brain short-circuits.
“Right. Yes. Sorry.”
I reach back, awkwardly fumbling with the clasp like a hormonal teenager. It takes two tries—because of course it does—but eventually it pops open, and I lie flat again, trying not to combust.
Jasper doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t hesitate. He simply resumes, hands pressing and sweeping over the newly freed area—the space between my shoulder blades, the top of my spine, the place where tension knots like bad memories.
