Viktor
I’m in hell.
I can feel the flames licking at my body. They wrap around me, snapping and burning me. Sweat pours down my face and drips between my shoulder blades.
“Viktor?” the sexy temptress calls to me.
My nostrils flare and air rushes into my lungs. Only the air isn’t clean. No, it hasn’t been clean in over a week. The smell rushes my senses, and I feel my dick twitch against my shorts.
I’m in hell, and Isabel Marchant is my guard. The one holding me prisoner. The gorgeous woman with a steel rod for a spine. Tough and sweet. Soft and firm. Heaven and hell.
For one long week, she’s been coming to my home—pushing me. Always pushing me and fuck if it hasn’t worked. Not once have I seen pity in those brilliant eyes. The times I’ve seen pride shine in those deep pools, I’ve felt like I could climb Mt. Everest.
Her soft hands have touched, grabbed, guided, and pushed me every single day she has come over. All in the name of physical therapy. At times, the touches between us linger a little longer than they should. Our breaths catch, and we stare, but neither of us cross that line.
Fuck if I don’t want to cross that line. To make her cry out my name. To make her body bend to my will. To make her mine in every way I possibly can.
At the end of each session, her magical fingers massage and work the tissue at the end of what’s left of my leg. The first time her delicate and feminine hands touched my ravaged leg, I wanted to kick her out of my home, to shout and yell obscenities.
I’m a broken man. The sight of my injury makes me cringe. This gorgeous woman touching it? It makes me want to crawl into a hole and die. She sees my discomfort, but the stubborn woman only ignores me.
After a week of no pity or disgust, I’ve managed to lie back and only grind my teeth. Her simple touch is for medical purposes, and I know this. My body on the other hand begs for its turn. Each time her skin touches mine I have to force my mind elsewhere. It’s either that or subject her to my erection. And hell if I haven’t gotten hard multiple times a day since meeting this woman.
“Viktor?” she says again, annoyance clear in each letter of my name.
I smile. “Yes, beast master?”
She chuckles, and my chest squeezes at the sultry sound. “Stop calling me beast master. Now work on your push-ups. You need to strengthen your upper body.”
“Ah…You want some more eye candy to dream about, Belle?”
I smile when Isabel rolls her eyes before asking, “Belle?”
“Well, you won’t let me call you beast master. Plus I like Belle better anyway.” My gaze drifts from her to the mat under me. “No woman is going to look at my bum leg and scars and be like, ‘Yeah, I wanna take that beast for a ride.’ I’m a broken man. They’ll just move along to the newer, younger, and whole models.” Frustration and anger boils under my skin at the confession.
The silence is deafening. I sneak a peek up at her and see shock and anger flash in her eyes. I can’t bear the fact that I did that, but it’s the truth. I straighten my body into position as she asked and start my push-ups. I’ve increased my amount in a week. I’m also doing them when she’s not around. I hope I can get back to the one-armed strength I used to possess.
On my exhale, my arms straighten and a smile teases my lips. One week of Drill Sergeant Belle has done more for my body than the weeks in the hospital or in rehab. I don’t remember feeling a shred of hope in those days. Then again, I was visiting my mom who was in a state of coma that was all my fault.
“Viktor.” Her hand lays on my lower back.
I pause. I hold my body in plank position and stare at the ground. Ripples of anger roll through me. “Don’t fucking show me pity,” I snap and look at her. “You’ve never looked at me with pity, don’t start now.” I couldn’t bare it if she started now.
Her lips stretch into a thin line. “You’re a fucking idiot.”
My brow raises in surprise. Never has the always-professional temptress cursed, and hell if I don’t find it sexy as fuck. Make-up sex with this woman has to be phenomenal—her body meeting mine thrust for thrust as we race to ecstasy.
“First off, you are far from broken. Secondly, you’re not a beast. You may have the manners of a beast, but ‘beast’ isn’t the noun I’d use for you. Although, there are plenty of women who enjoy a rough ride with a surly man. And lastly, if any woman looks at you with anything other than awe for rising after being knocked down? Then she doesn’t deserve you.”
My throat thickens, and my nose flares at her words. There isn’t anything I can say. My arms begin to shake, and I force myself to push out the rest of this exercise.
I cast her a side glance. The emotions swirling around inside me are a jumbled mess. All thanks to this beautiful woman who is only spending time with me because I’m paying her to. Okay, not me but my insurance company and aunt. It’s all the same though. She’s not here by her own free will.
Mom would have loved her.
Where the hell did that thought come from? I ask myself, and a growl of frustration rumbles through me.
Belle’s hand touches my shoulder. An electric current flows down my spine at the skin on skin contact. “Hey, I don’t want you hurting yourself. Why don’t we try—”
“I’m fine,” I snap. Grief spurs my anger, and the words sound like a whip across flesh. The sound mirrors the look of hurt that crosses Belle’s delicate face. Sitting back on my knees, I mentally kick myself in the balls. “I’m—”
“Done?” She grabs the roll. “Lay on your back. Let’s work on those short arches again to strengthen your quads.”
Her tone is polite and curt. I hate it. I especially hate myself for putting that rigid posture in her body. I want it to go away, but there is nothing I can do but do as she’s asked.
The rest of my session goes in the same manner. She instructs me to do one exercise or another. I grunt in acknowledgment at her words and continue trying to figure out how to fix what I broke. Add the fact that I’m still unsure as to why I would consider Belle and my mother at the same time.
Belle grabs the oil after she removes my shrinker, and I prop my body on my elbows. “Hey?” I wince at the weak sound. I’m exhausted from today’s session, ready for an anti-inflammatory to ease some of the pain in my body.
“Mmhmmm,” she mumbles, eyes downcast to pouring oil in her palm.
My body shakes as I lean all my weight on one elbow and grab her wrist with my free hand. “I’m sorry.” Her gaze meets mine and I continue. “I thought of my mom and it made me grumpy, but it’s no excuse for snapping at you like that.” Air fills my lungs when I see her eyes soften a fraction.
Belle nods. “It’s fine.”
“No. No it’s not. I was an asshole, and you didn’t deserve that.”
She laughs and I can’t help but smile at the sound. “That you were. Now lie back down so I can finish up. I can’t stay past the hour today, so after I set you up with ice I need to clean up.”
Lying down like she asked, I close my eyes and force myself to relax in anticipation of her fingers on my skin. I breathe her in past the smell of my sweaty, overworked body. She’s becoming my drug, but I can’t even consider the ramifications of that fact.
Her hands still and I meet her gaze. My brows raise in question, waiting for whatever has made her look suddenly unsure.
“Umm…is there any way I can change in your bathroom? Feel free to tell me no. I know this isn’t part of patient-therapist benefits.”
Her words bring two things to my mind. First, benefits. My mind shoots straight to the gutter with that singular word. Sexy, dirty possibilities and my body heats immediately. Before my dick can give away the directions my thoughts have gone I’m slammed in the chest with the second reminder, patient-therapist.
Now she’s looking at me with worry. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have—”
“No. That’s fine. It’s Friday night, I’m sure you have a hot date tonight,” I tease, and see the truth in her eyes. Forcing my eyes shut, I rely on my years of training to steady myself. There’s no reason she needs to see how her upcoming activities affect me.
Of course she’s going on a date. Any man would be stupid to not see what a catch Isabel Marchant is. The woman is gorgeous, intelligent, and stronger than you’d think. I smile at the latter because she’s proven to me on more than one occasion how strong she is.
“Thanks. It’s just a working dinner,” she whispers, and we return to our silent exchange.
A working dinner. Something about it still bothers me, but I’ll admit it sounds better than her meeting with some douchebag who wants her out of her panties. I force the thought aside and focus on her hands.
I melt into her touch. My tired and overworked leg relaxes under her ministrations. This is most definitely her calling. The woman pushes me to the max and then turns around to tend to my body after she puts it through the ringer.
The familiar rustle of her instant ice sounds. “So I won’t see you until Monday. I want you to do some of those exercises I mentioned. You also need to make sure you stretch a few times a day. The better range of motion you get in this leg, the better you’ll walk in your prosthetic.”
Damn. I hadn’t even considered that with the weekend upon us we wouldn’t see each other. Every day this week she was my reason for getting out of bed. Belle is slipping under my skin, and it doesn’t make me too happy. I need this weekend to separate myself from her—to gain perspective that this woman is far too good for me.
In my past life, the one before my leg was removed from my body and my mother still lived, I could have had Belle. I probably would have had her six ways from Sunday by now.
“Okay. Twenty minutes like normal. I’m going to go clean up and get ready. Let me know if you need me.”
“Got it…” My lips twitch before I whisper, “Beast master.”
“Hey!” Belle chuckles and swats my hip.
All I can focus on is her fingertips as they graze my skin above my shorts. She didn’t mean to be sexual in any way, but when our eyes meet, I see the touch affected her as well. Belle gasps and pulls her hand back as if she touched a hot skillet. Her top teeth nip at her lower lip, and the urge to kiss her hits me hard.
“Sorry—Uh—I’m gonna go put my stuff away and get ready,” she spouts nervously.
My heart thunders in my chest as I watch her stand. Closing my eyes, I give her the space to flit around without stumbling with more nerves.
I never used to have trouble with the ladies. They flocked to me. I love women and everything about them. Their soft and firm parts. Their expressive tendencies. Their desire for more of me.
That was my life then. My life now doesn’t even involve a bout of porn or lube. It wasn’t until Belle that I learned my dick still worked. A hard-on gone to waste. I can never have her, and it was my goal this weekend to drill that fact into my sex-deprived body.