Page 21 of Calculated Chaos

Tank’s massive body leans into mine as he works the muscles in my legs, and the heat pouring off of him somehow reminds me of the night in the dungeon when Blaze hovered over me. Not being the tallest guy in the room, I’ve tended to date petite women, but the idea of a larger, much stronger body overpowering me is doing something to my head.

I can’t even begin to unpack the shit going on in my thoughts right now. Where do I even start?

“Oof,” Tank says softly as he runs his oiled hands up and down my bare back. “We’ve got some work to do here.”

Little does he know how true that statement is.

“What do you do for work?” he asks, focusing on a knot in my lower back.

“Accounting.”

“Ah. So you sit at a desk with a computer a lot, I’m guessing?”

“You got it. More than I should.”

“Work out?”

I huff a laugh. “Do I look like I work out?”

Tank chuckles. “I don’t make assumptions.”

“That’s very kind of you. No, I don’t work out. Axel does, but I’ve never caught the fitness bug.” I reflect for a moment. “Never had a massage either.”

“No?”

I shake my head. “This whole weekend was set up to help me get out of my funk. I’m forty today.”

“Seriously? You look good, man.”

“Thanks. I could look better though, right?”

“It’s not about looks, in my opinion,” he says. “It’s about feeling good. About having enough energy and vitality to do all the things you want to do. About aging well and not feeling like shit all the time.”

“Hmm. You sound a lot like Axel.”

Tank chuckles. “Maybe your friend knows a thing or two.”

“He does.” Tank digs into the knot with his thumb, and I moan as it literally melts away under his touch. “Oh wow.”

“Good, right?”

Blowing out a breath, I nod. “So good.”

He continues up my back while I grunt and moan my way through it. I’ve definitely been missing out on massages.

“Can I ask you a personal question, Tank?”

“Yep.”

“How’d you get into massage therapy?”

“Many moons ago I was in sales. I worked my ass off, killer hours, tons of travel. I was so young that all I cared about was money. Then the top salesman in our company dropped dead on a business trip. Massive heart attack. He was forty-two.”

“Whoa.”

“Yep. The lifestyle caught up. The stress it takes to maintain a top rank, the toll it took on his personal relationships, the unhealthy habits. The body can only take so much. It felt personal to me even though I barely knew the guy. He was who I looked up to. Aspired to be, you know?”

“Yeah.”

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