by Sarina Bowen
“Eh,” O’Doul said, hating the sound of irritation in his voice. “Not my favorite way to spend an hour.”
“I’ll take it!” Trevi volunteered. “I like it when Ari does that thing to the base of my skull. With her thumbs?” He held up his hands and wiggled his thumbs like a loon.
“Aw, hell yes,” Castro agreed. “And when she does my feet, I always propose. How many marriage proposals do you think she gets in a week?”
“Let’s see,” Trevi said, grabbing his duffel bag off the sidewalk. “She works six days a week during the high season, six massages a day. So probably thirty.”
“Six times six is thirty-six, moron,” Castro said, shouldering his own bag.
“No kidding?” He gave Castro a playful nudge. “I passed the third grade, too. But not everyone proposes. I wouldn’t do that to Georgia.”
“I propose twice,” Castro said. “Once for each foot.”
“Oh, shut it, will you?” O’Doul hefted his own bag and turned toward the revolving doors.
“Come back in a better mood!” Trevi called after him.
Fat chance.
Ten minutes later he knocked on the door to a hotel room, the number for which had been texted to him by the bots who ran Bruisers’ travel.
A startled-looking Ari opened the door a minute later, her own Katt Phone pressed to her ear. She held up one finger in the universal sign for this will only take a minute.
He walked past her into the room where her massage table had been set up in the space where a bed should have been. Everything else about the room was standard-issue hotel fare—there was a shiny desk which looked unused, and your typical bathroom. He kicked off his shoes and wondered whether it would be weird if he just stripped off his clothes, or whether it would be weirder if he waited to be told to.
“That’s why I called a locksmith,” Ari said into her phone. “It’s not that complicated. Remove the lock that’s there, and install a different one.” She paused. “Well, the deed isn’t in my name. But last time I used your services I didn’t need it. Could I please speak to the manager? Yes, I’ll hold.” She looked up at him. “You can change in the bathroom if that makes you more comfortable.”
Busted. He went into the little bathroom and closed the door. But he could still hear her conversation. “Please look up my account. I’ve used you for years. The lock on the basement door is . . . What? You installed it? Seriously? No, I didn’t authorize it!” She was almost shouting. “He lied, okay? Men do that sometimes.”
O’Doul felt like a dick for listening. But the hotel door was thin and he had no place else to go. He removed his clothes—all of them this time—wrapped a towel around his waist and waited for her to finish up.
“Just remove the lock and give me another one. I didn’t authorize it. And he is no longer a resident at that address.”
A moment later she ended her call, and he counted to thirty and then left the bathroom. Ari had parked her backside against the edge of the massage table and buried her head in her hands. “Everything okay?” he asked stupidly. Clearly it was not.
She looked up fast. “Fine. Thanks.” She spun around and went over to the desk. From a duffel bag she hurriedly drew out a sheet and several bottles of massage oil. But her hands were shaking, and the bottles began to knock into one another and tip. One of them crashed over her wrist and dove toward the floor.
He lunged forward to catch it, and he did. But his towel fell to the floor. “Shit.”
She laughed suddenly, and the low, smoky sound of it seemed to brush across his bare skin. He grabbed the towel off the floor. Hell. Surely Ari had seen his ass before—she was in and out of the locker room on game night. But he felt like a bumbler.
“Sorry,” she breathed. “But that was excellent comedy, and I needed a laugh right now.”
He adjusted his towel. “Thank you very much, I’ll be here all week.”
Ari smiled, but she still looked a little strung out. She stacked the last bottle onto the desk beside the others. “Just let me put a sheet down on the table.” She grabbed the linens and shook out the sheet, her slim arms extending like a dancer’s. She flung one end toward the head of the table.
Holding his towel more carefully in one hand, he caught the sheet in his other hand and helped her tuck it around the ends.
She gave him a grateful look and smiled again. “Thank you.”
“No problem.”
When she moved past him to pick up her phone off what should have been a bedside table, her long hair brushed his bare shoulder. This was exactly what he didn’t like about getting a massage. It was weirdly intimate.
“Want to pick a playlist?” she asked, wrapping her hair into a ponytail.
“I liked what you played before.” When she looked away to fiddle with a pair of wireless speakers, he got onto the table and spread the towel across his midsection.
“I’m sorry you were scratched from last night’s game. Wasn’t my idea, I promise.”
“Okay.” It hadn’t even occurred to him to blame her. “It happens.”
She turned her potent smile on him. “You say that so convincingly.”
“Don’t I?” He found himself smiling back.
Ari patted his arm. “I’m going to try to warm you up for a few minutes. After that we’ll go back to the same active release technique as last time, because I think it was starting to work for you. How does that sound?”
“Fine,” he said. Because what was the alternative, really?
Standing at his side, she adjusted the towel, keeping his crotch covered, but allowing access to his hip. There was something precise about her motions that made everything a little less weird than it should have been. Her strong fingers began kneading the muscle of his upper thigh and his waist. She moved slowly, firm hands squeezing, fingers sliding . . .
Goose bumps broke out on his chest.
Christ.
He wasn’t a prude. But it was just weird having her hands on his body. Nobody ever touched him—really touched him. Sure there was sex, but that was entirely different. When he was horny enough to go home with a fan or a girl in a bar, it was because they both wanted something from one another. It was a fair trade. And the promise of release—and a drink or five—was enough to get him past the awkwardness.
This was a completely different experience, and he didn’t know what to do with it. The intimacy made him wary. Usually he found Ari’s lavender scent appealing. But he was too aware of it at such close range. And sometimes when she applied an especially firm grasp to his larger muscle groups, he could hear her exhale through the effort. The closeness made his skin prickle.
Her strong hands relaxed all at once. “You’re fighting me, Patrick,” she whispered. And the sound of his own name brought the goose bumps back.
“Sorry.” He made an effort to relax, but she moved around the table until she was at his head, looking down. He couldn’t avoid her gaze.
“I know this isn’t your favorite thing. I get it.”
He admired the shape of her big brown eyes and tried to imagine what was going through her head. “You must think I’m a total nutbar.”
“Not at all,” she said vehemently. “I could give you a sermon about how I’m a professional and this is just business, yada yada yada. But that would be bullshit.”
“It would?” He couldn’t help enjoying the shape of her sweet mouth as she said bullshit. “You’re not a professional?”
She rolled her eyes. “Of course I am. But when you walk into this room, you don’t just bring your muscles and your bones. You bring your whole history as a human being. You bring your soul. And when someone touches you, they’re touching all of that, too.”
“Okay . . .” He’d never thought about it that way.
“Did you ever stop and wonder why we shake hands?” She extended one o
f hers and shook hands with the air. “It’s a cultural thing. But do you know why?”
“Can’t say I did very well in social studies in school,” he admitted, wondering where she was going with this.
She grinned. “I haven’t the faintest idea where the tradition came from. But I have a theory. We touch someone we meet because it establishes trust. Maybe it’s only a tiny little bit of trust. But if I shake your hand, I have to get close to your body. There’s a brief exchange of heat and sensation. Give me your hand.”
He reached up, and she took his hand in both of her smaller ones, and he forgot to hate being touched for a second because his palm tingled under her touch. “See—this is just a small extension of trust. But when you’re on my table, the trust you extend to me is a lot greater than that.” She released his hand, but not his gaze. For a second their eyes were locked together, and he saw boundless compassion there.
That made him just a little uncomfortable, too. Damn it.
With quiet deliberation, she put a hand on his bare shoulder. “Patrick, people have all kinds of reactions to massage. I think you’d be surprised. Some guys get chatty and tell me a hell of a lot more than they would if my hands weren’t all over their naked bodies. Some guys fall asleep right away. This is all completely normal. Some people even start crying when I touch them.”
O’Doul barked out a laugh. “Seriously? Do I know these people?”
Ari lifted her regal chin. “I wouldn’t tell you that. Never. Just like I wouldn’t tell another soul what reaction you have to being on my table.”
“Sorry.” Now he just felt sheepish. “I know.”
She squeezed his shoulder. “I’m not giving up on you. But any ideas you have for making this easier on you, I’m all ears. I don’t know if you’re a fan of meditation, but that’s something we could try.”
“Eh.”
She laughed. “Fine. Lie back now. And tell me this—where and when do you feel most relaxed?” She moved around the table to stand at his head, and then began to rub both his shoulders. That felt pretty good.
Though answering her question wasn’t easy. He really didn’t want to get into it. “At home. In my bed. Just like anyone.”
He’d managed to live alone every year since that first apartment over the garage. And he didn’t invite people into his home. These days he lived in an expensive loft in the same converted warehouse where some of his teammates lived. But he’d bought a one-room condo, because the salesperson had said that the other units were “perfect for entertaining.” He didn’t want to entertain. His place was his sanctuary, and nobody else was allowed inside. Once in a while one of his teammates would say, how come we never watch the game at O’Doul’s? He told them he was a terrible housekeeper and changed the subject.
Ari’s hands moved down, kneading his biceps for a moment. That felt pretty good, too. “When I need a really relaxing thought, I think about the beach.”
“Which beach?” he asked. She moved down to his hip again, which he didn’t like. But maybe if they kept talking he could avoid worrying about his sore spots.
“Any beach.” She smiled. “But, okay, not Coney Island, because it’s crowded. When I was a little girl my grandmother had a place on Fire Island, and I used to stay the whole summer there with her because school was out and Mom was at work. I like the way things sound at the beach. Like they’re farther away. And the surf has a nice even rhythm.”
He closed his eyes and pictured it. “Yeah, I never spent much time on a beach.”
“What do you do during the off season?”
There wasn’t much of it. Six or eight weeks. “Last year I went golfing with Beringer.”
“You like golf?”
“No,” he admitted, and she laughed. “But it was on my bucket list, I guess. To see why all the rich guys liked it.”
“Aren’t you a rich guy?” she teased.
“On paper. But where I grew up, nobody golfed. There was hockey and football. Even baseball was for pussies.” He cleared his throat and realized that Ari’s fingers had worked their way closer to his groin. The woman was smart. She’d distracted him.
“Where’d you grow up? Wait—Minnesota?”
“That’s right. But not the nice part.” And that conversation wasn’t going to make him relax. “How about you?”
“Brooklyn. I grew up on Court Street, about two miles away from where I live now. I’m an Italian girl who teaches yoga in Brooklyn. I’ve got all the clichés working together at once.” She patted his hip. “Roll on your side for me. Let’s do this thing. Can you handle it? How’s your pain?”
“I’m looser today than yesterday.” He rolled.
“Maybe that night off wasn’t such a bad plan?”
“What—you sure you don’t want the credit?”
She laughed, adjusting his towel to cover his ass. “I never take credit. My job is to help you get out of your own way and then hog the limelight. Bend your knee. Are you working this muscle today?” She tapped his groin muscle once. “Or am I allowed to do it?”
“I wouldn’t want to put you out of a job. Go ahead.” What the hell, right? Yesterday she’d forced him to admit that he didn’t want hands on his injury because it made him feel weak. But how counterproductive was that?
“Put your palm down on the table. I want you as stable as possible. Remember—don’t use your back. We want a gentle extension, so if anything hurts, don’t push it. Ready?” She dug into his hip and his groin with strong hands. “Extend.”
He did. She worked her fingers into his groin muscles, and he breathed through it. This was fine. She had surprisingly strong hands for such a small person. Her grip was confident, as if she were holding him together.
Really, things could be worse.
“Good!” she enthused after their eighth rep. “Let’s leave it there for now. Roll onto your stomach if you wouldn’t mind. I’m going to work on your lower back and ask you a few more questions.”
He rolled, thinking to himself that he kind of liked the idea of her hands on his lower back. The questions were less appealing.
“Your goal is to avoid overcompensating with your back and quads,” she said, kneading the muscle above his ass. “The nerves attached to your hip flexors stretch down your leg and around to your lumbar spine. Here.” She stopped massaging to run two fingertips along his lower back. The light touch made his skin tingle. “So when you skate the warm-up tomorrow . . .”
“. . . If I skate the warm-up tomorrow.”
She patted his back. “Let’s be optimistic, big guy. When you skate the warm-up, I want you to think about keeping the form of your stride all night long. When you’re tired, don’t change your stance to activate your back.”
“I can do that.” He’d been perfecting his stride his whole life. Keeping his form wasn’t the issue. “The fight is the hairy part. But if I can knock that out in the first period, it’s easier to keep things stable for the rest of the game.”
Ari’s strong hands worked his back for a moment in silence. “Can I ask you something? And I don’t mean this to sound judgmental.”
He snorted. “That’s what people say right before they say something judgmental.”
She laughed, and he registered the husky sound in his belly. “That is sometimes true. But I never saw a hockey game until I applied for this job. And I want you to explain the fighting to me. Why do you do it?”
That was the multimillion-dollar question, wasn’t it? He’d been asking himself that same thing lately. “There’s a code. Most of the time when I fight, it’s because someone broke that code or someone needs a refresher. I fight to protect my guys.”
Her hands wandered up the center of his back, her thumbs finding aches to smooth out that he didn’t even know he had. “Okay,” she said thoughtfully. “But then who protects you?”
His eye
s closed. The question seemed impossibly complex at the moment, especially as her palms warmed him from the outside in. “I guess I do. I dunno.”
Maybe she picked up on the fact that he’d become too boneless to talk just then. Ari got quiet, too. He stopped tracking her exact movements. His hands unclenched, and his feet went slack.
All right. So this is what massage was supposed to feel like. His mind took him elsewhere. Behind closed eyelids he glimpsed fresh sheets of ice, and his teammates at practice. His subconscious ran a few drills—perfectly executed. Ari’s hands kept time with a rock ballad. Her pleasant lavender scent enveloped him, and he stopped listening to the sound of her breaths. They were just there, keeping rhythm in the background. Everything was fine.
Until she worked on his lower body.
At first he didn’t even notice the problem. Having allowed himself to feel some pleasure from the massage, he let his guard down. It was only when she asked him to turn over that he realized it wasn’t a good idea. His body had gotten a little too comfortable with the pair of warm hands on his naked thighs.
He was hard.
There were no end of petty humiliations this week.
“If you turn over I can work on your quads,” she reasoned, patting the back of his calf.
Nope. He could only imagine the tent he’d be raising in the towel then. “I have to run,” he said. “I appreciate it, but there are some calls I need to return.”
Ari’s expression went from serene to defeated in two seconds flat. “And here I thought we were getting along so well.”
“We are.” Too well. “Really. I’ll show up tomorrow and everything.”
“Good man.” He received another one of her pats on the back. “Let me wash my hands and then the bathroom and shower are all yours. You don’t want massage oil all over your clothes.”
As soon as she disappeared, he hopped off the table and tied the towel around his waist as discreetly as possible.
Ari emerged from the bathroom drying her hands on another towel. “Take care of yourself,” she said. And even though he still wasn’t a big fan of her services, there was no doubt in his mind that she meant it.
