“Let me alleviate the pressure on that ankle,” he says, carefully avoiding eye contact, one hand on the shower door handle and the other on my calf, as he finds a way to bend down and hold his position. He must have core strength that is out of this world. The firm but tender touch of his palm as he removes the source of pain makes me tear up.

And my nipples turn to pearls.

No. No, no, no. I will not be aroused by Silas in this position. Oh, no.

Hell, no.

My body doesn’t listen to me, though.

My body is a yes woman tonight.

It’s not the being naked part. I’m comfortable with that. Trust me. I have no problem being nude in front of people.

But people aren’t Silas.

Choked up, still in shock, and very, very aware of my naked inner thighs (and everything above them), I can’t speak.

“I have to get your ankle out of there,” he explains. Still holding the door in place, Silas lunges slightly and tugs on my calf.

I scream. The ankle bone is so wedged in there that it can’t make it through.

Silas readjusts the shower door.

“That’s as wide as I can make it,” he says. “Will it fit?”

I try not to giggle.

“They always say it won’t fit,” I murmur.

He laughs, a sound of shock.

“Point your toe,” he orders, composing himself with remarkable speed, eyes firmly on mine, unwavering. His focus is so precise, I can tell it comes from a place of extraordinary restraint. He wants to look. He’s holding back. Not because of basic decency.

Because if he looks, he’ll be aroused.

I try to follow his command. “I can’t. My toe won’t do that.”

“If you keep the foot in there for much longer, your ankle will swell and block it. We need to get it out now.” He suddenly searches the room, looking for something.

“What are you looking for?”

“Conditioner.”

“My split ends aren’t a priority right now, Silas.”

“I’m going to use it to lube you up.”

I giggle again.

This time he sighs, but a smile makes his mouth look lush and friendly. Grabbing the conditioner bottle from behind the toilet–mercifully on the other side of me–he squirts a huge amount all over my bare ankle, then uses his free hand to massage it in.

Oh, those fingers. The absolute last feeling I should be having is this–being turned on by Silas’s fingers massaging my injured ankle while I’m naked and hugging a toilet.

I don’t have any control of my external world. Apparently, my internal emotional control center has gone bananas, too. Warmth pours over my body like a waterfall. I stifle a moan.

“Ok,” he says, his touch featherlight and sweet. “I didn’t dig in, just got the important parts.”

Other important parts of me disagree.

“Pull out before it’s too late.”

I snort but do as he says. It comes free. I pull my foot in to my body and groan with the pain. Without looking back, Silas grabs a towel that magically stayed on a heated towel rack and hands it to me, his hand dangling the plush terry cloth.

“Here.”

“Thanks.”

Without another word he leaves, closing the door, which has a long strip of trim hanging off it from when he broke into the room. The handle doesn’t quite catch, but it stays closed just enough.

His laughter from the other side of the closed door makes me smile. Not that I plan to go out of my way to have him find me like that again, but if it makes him chortle like that, a sound of happy hilarity, I might be worth the sacrifice.

I think about that for precisely two seconds, until I put weight on my foot and pain shoots up through me like a current. It’s nerve pain, the kind that makes you feel like a bulldozer is rolling over a nerve cluster. The pain radiates up into my thigh and I gasp, grabbing a towel rack for stability.

Gingerly, I put a little more weight on it. Better.

I still have conditioner coating my hair, so I give the shower a resigned look. It doesn’t look back.

I need to get in there and rinse, don’t I?

Eyeing the shower door gap with a healthy dose of respect, I limp in and direct the water spray to my head. My fingers flow through the thick, wet lump until I can tell I’ve rinsed thoroughly. The hair around my brow is shorter, but not too short. Thankfully, that heat blast from the car bomb wasn’t a few inches closer, or I’d have a perpetually surprised look on my face after having my eyebrows burned off.

Even in my shitty life, I can find small mercies to be grateful for.

As I wash off the extra conditioner from my ankle, I relive Silas’s touch. Shame turns my insides into fire, but there’s so much more than embarrassment.

Being touched by him makes my pulse race, tempts me to lick my lips, makes me feel alive and real in ways I haven’t felt in, well–forever.

I laugh to myself. I laugh at myself. I’m being ridiculous. Silas has made his feelings about me well known. I’m not alive and real to him.

I’m just a client.

Toweling off, as the plane bumps up and down slightly with just a little turbulence, gets me dry. I grab the bag of clothes from Lindsay with the new panties and bra tucked in there. I slip on the new underwear. The bra is a close fit–a little tight, but that’s ok. I slip into her sleeveless dress and sigh.

That’s better. I’m not naked any more.

The imprint of Silas’s hands on me won’t fade. It’s as if he’s still holding my ankle, fingers slick and slippery, touching me so I can feel better. I close my eyes and force myself to feel the present. My wet hair is soaking the thin dress I put on. My ankle throbs from pain. My skin fluctuates between warm and cold, a weird series of shifts that finally even out as my heart slows down.

The airplane is level. No more turbulence.

Like any surprise, living through it is hard, but the aftereffects require more energy to process than you ever expect.

I’m still shaking on the inside. I need to figure out how to go out into the main cabin, take my seat, and not melt into the plane’s floor and ooze out into the atmosphere.

I just got myself trapped, naked, in a shower.

On a plane.

And a man who cannot stand me was my rescuer.

I hang the towel back on the rack, take a deep breath, and reach for the broken door. Squaring my shoulders, I open it, head high, and walk back to my seat. As I pass Silas, I see his eyes are closed, head against his seatback.

He’s pretending to sleep.

Cool operator.

I settle into my seat and mimic him.

By the time we land in Texas, I still have my eyes closed, but never fell asleep.

You can repeat a lot of memories that way, but the one that keeps looping through me is the tactile sense of Silas’s hands, providing more direct comfort and help than anyone has offered me in ages.

And Alice represents even more.

But her comfort comes with conditions.

Conditions I’m starting to think about.