Emma stood in her therapy office doorway, saying goodbye to her previous patient as Asher entered the clinic’s reception area. The receptionist had gone for her afternoon break, so he didn’t stop to check in, just continued on toward her.
“That guy only comes in here to see you, you do realize that, right?” Asher asked as she led the way into the therapy room. Asher’s gaze—or rather, glare—was still focused on Marcus Fields—a single dad who’d just moved to town with his daughter the month before—as he left the office.
She rolled her eyes. “Right. It has nothing to do with his dislocated rotator cuff,” Emma said, placing a new sheet on the therapy table. She’d learned a long time ago not to get her hopes up about Ash being jealous. He was merely afraid of another guy interrupting their arrangement. “Besides, I only cause him pain.”
“Maybe he likes that.”
She sighed. “And maybe you’re just trying to prolong the inevitable. Pants off.”
Asher laughed. “See, I bet he likes it when you’re bossy, too,” he said, bending down and removing the brace.
She took it from him and set it aside as Jane, the receptionist, knocked and entered.
“Emma, I’m heading out. The snow’s getting bad out there and I need to pick up Aiden from…” She stopped when she noticed Asher unbuttoning his jeans. “I, uh…sorry, I didn’t realize you had another patient today…Hi, Asher, I mean Mr. Westmore, Ash…”
Oh geez. The three of them had gone to school together since kindergarten. And it was just Ash. Watching women get blubbery around him definitely ignited Emma’s jealousy fuse. It was annoying enough knowing women fell at Asher’s feet wherever he went, seeing it made her gag.
He smiled. “Hey, Janie. How are you?”
The receptionist blushed. “Janie—wow, haven’t been called that in forever…”
Okay, that was enough. “No problem, you can head out. I’ll lock up,” Emma said, sounding sharper than she’d intended. The beautiful redhead with the curves of Jessica Rabbit made her feel inadequate on the best of days. She really didn’t need Ash comparing the two of them.
Emma would lose.
“Right. I’m leaving,” Jane said. “Sorry to hear about the knee and the game. My son cried watching it on television,” she told Ash quickly.
“Tell him I almost cried living it. But Emma’s going to get me back on the ice in a couple of weeks…”
“Six to ten.” A couple? He was insane.
“A couple, and then I’ll make everyone proud,” he said.
“Oh, you already do…You and Ben,” Jane gushed.
Emma noticed him twitch and his smile fade slightly at the mention of Ben, and she wondered if he’d spoken to his brother yet. “You better go,” she told Jane, glancing out the office window. Thick, blowing snow blocked her visibility of the buildings across the street. “It looks nasty out there.”
Jane nodded. “Yes. Right.” Her gaze returned to Ash and she hesitated. “Unless you need me to stick around…”
Nope. Definitely not. “I can lock up,” she said.
“Okay. Thanks, and be careful leaving. A lot of snow has accumulated already.”
“Thanks. Drive safe,” Emma said as the receptionist shot a final dreamy look at Asher, before shutting the door.
“She’s still as cute as ever,” he said.
Cute? Ha! The woman could be a playboy model. “You do realize I’m in control of how much pain you experience here today, right?” she snapped.
He laughed as he slowly removed his jeans and sat on the table in his boxer briefs. “Don’t be jealous, Em. You’re still my favorite.”
She ignored the comment. “You’re supposed to wear shorts to therapy.” Her mouth was slightly dry at the sight of him in his underwear. Sure, it was a sight she saw often, but never in her workplace.
“It’s November, Em. Where would I get shorts? Besides, I didn’t think you’d object.” He winked at her.
And damn, she wished it had zero effect on her, but even after years of friendship, years of add-on benefits, the simple, playful gesture had her heart in a mess. It wasn’t fair that she’d moved to this unrequited love territory and he was still the same old oblivious, fun-loving Ash.
She sighed, pushing the thoughts aside for fear of actually taking her frustration out on him during the session.
Professional. Just keep it professional. “Okay, let’s get started.” Lifting his leg, she helped him rotate to lie on the table. “I’m just going to slowly start adding movement to the knee joint…”
As Asher lay on his back, she carefully lifted the leg and slowly started to bend the knee. “Let me know when the pain gets to a five or six…” Normally, she’d start slower on a patient, but Ash was an athlete, an athlete in top physical shape other than his knee, and his body could handle an extra push. While she’d insisted moments before that his recovery would take the full six to ten weeks, she knew it would be faster.
He winced as the leg approached a ninety-degree angle and she eased back on the pressure slightly. The surgery was less than a week ago; she wouldn’t push him too far too soon.
“It’s okay. I can handle the pain,” he said, gripping the white sheet at his sides.
She straightened the leg slowly and the tension eased from his face. “Okay, take a breath. We’re going to bend farther this time,” she said.
He closed his eyes as she folded the leg at the joint, taking him slightly farther than the first time. Several more back-and-forths and beads of sweat appeared on Asher’s forehead.
She hated seeing him in pain. Working on strangers was tough enough; rehabilitating him would be a whole new challenge. He wanted to get better quickly and he could handle anything she threw at him, but she questioned her ability to get him where he wanted to be as fast as he wanted to get there.
And no part of that had to do with the fact that a speedy recovery meant less time with him in Glenwood Falls. None.
After several more slow bends, she straightened the leg and laid it on the table. “I’m going to hook you up to a CPM,” she said, moving away to get it.
The continuous passive motion device would move the damaged joint through a small, continuous range of motion that she would increase each session.
“Does it hurt?” Asher asked as she placed the device around his knee.
“It might, a little, but we’ll start slow and work our way up to complete range of motion.” She touched his arm. “You’re not going to heal overnight, Ash.” Patience in his recovery would be his biggest challenge. She knew exactly how it felt to want to heal faster, how frustrating it could be when the simplest actions required so much effort and had often resulted in pain in the first few months following her own injuries.
He nodded, touching her hand. “Just don’t go easy on me, okay?”
She couldn’t make any promises, so she ignored the question, turning her attention to the machine. Setting the range, she turned it on and watched his expression for signs of pain.
He took a deep breath, but relaxed against the pillow.
“It feels okay?”
“It feels like shit, but that’s okay.”
She sat in the chair next to the bed and jotted a few notes on his file, then, setting it aside, she said, “So, have you talked to Ben?”
His expression hardened slightly. “He stopped by this morning.”
“I assume it wasn’t the apology you were hoping for?”
He sighed. “Not exactly.” He shifted on the table, and she saw his hands clench at his sides. From pain or the mention of Ben she wasn’t sure.
She hesitated. “You know Ben’s not my favorite person, right? But he was really a mess that night at the hospital. I don’t think he knew how injured you were going into that game.” No one had really known, because Ash had kept the extent of the injury to himself. Examining his knee now, she saw the markings of the multiple injection sites.
Obviously, someone had known. The team’s doctor, most likely.
She knew it was useless to ask him who’d been providing the cortisone injections and meds.
He nodded. “The only person I have to blame is myself,” he said, but she wasn’t sure he fully believed it.
He rotated slightly and closed his eyes as his forehead wrinkled. She watched his chest rise and fall as he took several deep breaths. She remembered her own recovery—the intensity of the pain, the back and forth between determination to get better and a lack of will to push through.
Removing the machine a few minutes later, she gently touched the red, swollen joint. “How does this feel?” she asked, her fingers applying a little pressure as she massaged.
“A lot better than the machine,” he said, releasing another slow, deep breath.
She increased the pressure as she continued to massage, careful to avoid the area around the surgery incision. Her fingers roamed over the bruises from the needle injections he’d been administering himself and she swallowed hard. “You should have told me how bad this was,” she said.
“You would have convinced me to stop.”
“Exactly.” Her hands circled the knee joint, her fingers caressing the soft, tender flesh. She couldn’t believe he’d done this to himself. “I know the timing sucked, but I’m actually glad this happened now. You don’t know how much more damage you could have caused if you’d kept going.” Or how bad of an addiction to the pain meds he could have developed. That thought haunted her most. Asher was a strong, capable man. His heavy reliance on the drugs was out of character for him, and she hated to think that if this hadn’t happened, he might have spiraled into a situation that would be even harder to climb out of.
He reached out and touched her arm. “I’m not happy that this happened when it did, but you’re right. I messed up,” he said, sliding his fingers down her bare arm and back up again. Down and up. A shiver danced along her spine and her knees felt slightly unsteady. The simplest, slightest touch from him and she nearly came undone. The gentle way his rough fingers stroked her skin caused goose bumps to surface.
Suddenly, she was aware that they were completely alone. The office was quiet and empty. Everyone else had left for the day. The sound of the old baseboard radiator kicking in echoed in the hallway and the wind howling outside the old, thin-paned windows were the only noises shattering the silence of the building.
She swallowed hard and focused her attention on his knee. This was her office. Her place of work.
Professional. Keep it professional.
Taking her right hand, he slid it farther up his thigh, away from his knee. “You know, it kind of hurts here as well.”
She shot him a look, but proceeded to massage the thick, sexy muscle just inches from his crotch.
Not professional. And just the thought was turning her on. Not professional at all.
What was she doing? He was her patient in that moment. Not her best friend with benefits that she was desperate to climb on top of. She tried to return her hand to the knee, but he held it at his thigh. “That feels good, and it’s taking my mind off of the pain in my knee,” he said, sliding her hand even higher.
She sighed. The point of therapy was to make him feel better, right?
No. Not like this!
Still, with her left hand, she continued to massage the knee, while she allowed him to move her right hand higher and higher, until she could feel his erection beneath it.
She swallowed hard as she slid the hand inside the underwear and around his cock, squeezing slightly. He moaned, closing his eyes as he rested his head back against the pillow. “See…much better,” he said. “I can hardly feel the pain anymore.”
She stroked the length of him slowly, rolling her thumb over the tip, as she continued her therapeutic massage on his knee. “I’m pretty sure I could lose my license for this,” she said, feeling her body tingle with desire for him. Her own aching throb between her legs matched the pulsating throb she felt beneath her hand.
“Only if I file a complaint, which I almost certainly won’t,” Asher said, reaching down to cover her hand with his own, forcing her to apply more pressure and quicken the pace.
Damn, he was far too sexy to be injured and out of commission.
Her patience would be tested as well while he recovered.
She tightened her grip around him, abandoning the knee to move her other hand inside the underwear to cup his balls, applying pressure where she knew he liked it most.
He moaned, opening his eyes and reaching for her. Grabbing her shoulders, he dragged her body down toward him, then, cupping her face between his hands, he brought her mouth to his and kissed her.
She savored the taste of his lips, deepening the kiss as his breathing increased. Both hands working to make him harder, she parted his lips with her tongue and started an exploration of his mouth. She could feel her own ache grow and the need to have him inside of her intensified with each second that passed.
He ran his hands down her body, slipping them down the back of her pants, inside her underwear to cup her ass, his fingers digging into her flesh. Her breath caught as he separated her cheeks and slid his fingers along the folds of her pussy.
“Do you always get this wet while massaging your patients?” he murmured against her lips.
“Just the crazy hot ones,” she teased, rubbing her thumb along the tip of his cock where pre-cum had moistened it.
Removing her hands from inside his underwear, she moved the fabric aside, freeing the hard erection. Then, her gaze locked with his, she lowered her mouth to it, flicking her tongue around the head.
Asher’s grip tightened on her ass as he moaned.
She continued to lick and tease him, sliding her tongue all the way to the base of his cock and back up. Watching him watch her, the desire and need reflected in his icy blue eyes made her body surge with heat.
“Emma, I need to feel your mouth around me,” he said.
“Like this?” she asked, before taking his full length into her mouth, allowing her lips and tongue to connect with every inch. Slowly, in and out. She grabbed the base of his cock and followed the up and down motion with her hand as she went.
He removed his hands from her pants and tangled his fingers in her hair as he guided her head over him. “Fuck, that feels so good. I can’t feel my knee at all anymore,” he said.
She paused, letting him slide slowly out of her mouth. “So, should I stop?”
“Hell, no…Actually, on second thought—yes.” Sitting up, he grabbed her by the waist and lifted her effortlessly to set her on top of him.
Her legs on either side, straddling him, she prayed the table could hold their combined weight. “I think maybe me being your therapist is not the best idea.” Though the idea of anyone else touching him, healing him, didn’t appeal. She wanted to be the one taking care of him. The one he needed.
“I think it’s a perfect idea. You are very good at your job. I feel better already,” he said, taking her hands and sliding them up under his shirt. “I want to feel those hands everywhere.”
Oh God, he was impossibly sexy and impossible to say no to…But as she scanned their surroundings, remembering where they were, she put on the brakes. “I can’t do this. This is my therapy room. We can’t do this here.”
“Why not? We’ve done it almost everywhere else.” He removed the shirt and as always the sight of his body sent common sense packing. “Besides, you just had me in your mouth, this can’t be any worse.”
He had a point. But…“If my boss walked in, I would be fired.” And more than likely have her practice license revoked…And she could say goodbye to the PhD program at the University of Florida. The one she’d yet to tell him about. That thought, too, made her hesitate.
“No one’s here. Everyone’s gone for the day. It’s just you and me.” He kissed her neck, sliding his hands under her shirt and around her back, unclasping her bra, making her forget her reservations. “Besides, if you got fired, I’d hire you to be my own personal therapist. Fly you everywhere with me.”
Her breath caught at the thought. Be with him on the road while he traveled with the team. Be with him in New Jersey. Just be with him…They’d never ever talked about anything close, though in recent months, they had been talking about the future. But was he just messing with her again or would he actually like having her with him? And would it be just a therapist and sex partner he’d want, or something more? She had to get answers to that.
Soon.
Later.
Right now, his hands were moving upward over her ribs, higher to cover her breasts. He squeezed, massaging gently at first, then harder, his thumbs rolling over her hardened nipples.
Fuck, it felt so good. Almost worth kissing her career goodbye. Almost. “Asher, we have to stop…” What if someone came back? What if Jane forgot something or Dr. Masey had a late client booked? Though the weather outside suggested no one was venturing back to the clinic that day.
Asher ignored her anyway, lifting her shirt over her head and tossing it along with the bra onto the floor. His head fell into her chest, and he took a deep breath before letting his lips drag across her skin, over to her right breast. He licked her nipple, before taking it into his mouth to suck hard.
She gasped as his teeth brushed over it and he bit gently.
She clung to his shoulders, feeling his erection pressing into her leg.
Moving to the other nipple, he repeated the lick, suck, and bite—harder this time. The mix of pleasure and pain sent shock waves through her core and she felt her panties get wetter between her legs.
“Take your pants off,” he whispered against her ear.
She hesitated slightly. They were really going to do this? Here?
Could she really take that risk? She glanced toward the door…They’d hear someone coming in…
“I want you, Emma,” Ash whispered, sliding his tongue along her neck.
Screw it.
Climbing off of him, she quickly removed her pants and underwear, then, naked, she climbed back onto the table to straddle him once more. “You’re the worst-behaved patient I’ve ever had.” She pressed her pelvis against his straining erection and rocked her hips back and forth, allowing her wet folds to moisten every inch of his cock.
“I’ll settle for the best sex you’ve ever had,” he said.
There was no competition there.
He gripped her waist, his hands holding her firmly in place as he lay back against the pillow. Then his fingers trailed the length of her thighs and back up over her stomach and ribs and breasts. The sensation caused ripples of pleasure to dance down her spine. The tickling torture of the soft touch making her body come alive.
One hand slid between her legs and his fingers found the wetness there. He grinned. “Okay, so I wasn’t the only one turned on by that massage?” he asked, pushing his body up so his gaze met hers.
She swallowed hard as his fingers traveled along her folds and one slipped inside.
“So wet,” he said, his voice hoarse as she slid her body up and down over his finger, clenching tight, needing to feel him fill her completely.
“Asher, I want you inside of me,” she said, lowering her body to his. Now that she’d made up her mind to break every one of the rules of her code of ethics, she was desperate to have him.
He needed little prompting. Sliding the finger out, he immediately replaced it with his cock. The feel of him entering her nearly brought her over the edge and she pressed her mouth to his. She loved kissing him while he was inside of her. It made the physical connection between them feel that much stronger. Having sex with him was one of the best sensations she could ever wish for, but kissing him filled her heart with the foolish hope that maybe it was more than just sex. And she needed that foolish hope. She clung to it, just as she clung to him now as he pushed deeper into her body.
Moving faster, desperate for release, Emma rocked her hips back and forth, feeling him slide out all the way to the tip, then plunging back in before he could leave her completely.
He broke the kiss, burying his head into her shoulder as he grabbed her ass and pumped her harder. “Jesus, Emma…it gets better every time.”
Closing her eyes, she arched her back to bring her breasts against his chest, rubbing her nipples against his pecs, her mouth watering over the intense sensations happening everywhere all at once.
“I’m coming.” Asher’s warning was right on time as she felt her own orgasm topple over the brink of pleasure, creating waves of release and a feeling so good, she tried to hold on as long as possible, before collapsing against him on the therapy table.
“Damn,” he muttered, gripping her shoulders. His eyes rolled back slightly and she frowned.
“You okay?” she asked, immediately shifting her weight off of him, remembering her patient’s leg.
He nodded, grabbing her hands and pulling her back into him. Kissing one palm, then the other, his gaze never leaving hers, he said, “You’re the best drug I’ve ever found.”