He nodded, his perfect lips turning up in a slight smile. “For you, little Molly, I’ll try. How about that?”
Spinning away quickly while he laid back down, I pretended to make a note on his file so that he didn’t catch me blushing.
When I turned back, his hands were folded on his stomach and he looked perfectly relaxed. I tried to remain cool and collected as well while I ran my hands over his injured leg.
I could easily feel the area with the metal pins, and where the muscles were damaged. His skin was tough but warm as I moved my fingers over the area, gently digging my thumbs in where the muscles needed to be loosened.
Then I felt him flinch slightly. “Sorry,” I said automatically. “That spot shouldn’t be so tender.”
“Well, the whole leg shouldn’t be so screwed up, but what are you going to do, right?” he muttered.
I was grateful when I could lower my hand from his thigh to work on the knee. Although we were both being completely professional, it felt strangely intimate. I was only touching him where I needed to, but the fact that I was enjoying the exploration of his body so much made it feel wrong, somehow.
Quickly finishing his knee, I started to help him stand.
“I’m fine,” he said. Slipping off the table, he tested his leg with a few bends and stretches. As he grabbed his cane from where he had stashed it in the corner, it seemed like he was walking a little straighter.
As I walked him to the main door, he turned to me with a smile. “Molly, I don’t know what you did, but I swear it feels a bit better.”
“If you do absolutely all of your exercises, I’ll put a gold star on your chart next week,” I grinned.
James surprised me by holding out his hand, shaking mine gently, and holding it longer than I expected. “Thank you, Molly,” he said, looking deeply into my eyes. “You’re very talented, and I appreciate you being a tiny bit of a bully.”
“It’s for your own good,” I smiled. “See you next week.”
I watched as he navigated the step, then turned back to see Allie giving me a thumbs up from the far doorway.
As soon as I rushed over to her, she said, “Linda walked right by when he was thanking you. It’s hard to tell with her, but I think she’s seriously impressed.”
“Thank goodness,” I said.
We went back to her desk and I exchanged his chart for my next patient. For the rest of the day, I couldn’t get that gruff voice out of my mind, and I wished that I was still touching him.
CHAPTER THREE
* James *
Lying on my living room floor the day after I met Molly, I ran through the entire round of exercises she had assigned to me. Strangely, I needed her to be proud of me. Or at least, not disappointed.
The brute force physical therapy in the hospital right after my surgery had been painful and rough, but I knew how to process that. If something hurts, you know it’s working. This new, gentler program with soft-spoken nurses and light stretches had made me feel like a helpless invalid.
Molly had done something that no one else had for months. She made me feel like a man.
She had not pitied me in the slightest. Only focused on the job at hand. That was something I always respected in the military, but never expected in a beautiful young lady who was a caregiver type.
Since the accident, I had been processing a flurry of tangled emotions. Relief that it hadn’t been much worse. Anger that I’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Self-pity. Horrific guilt. Confusion.
The one thing I hadn’t felt in ages was lust.
I’d felt a bit nervous today when she was working on my thigh, since my arousal was quickly becoming visible before she moved down to my knee.
I’d been trying to visualize nasty things to keep it in check, but her soft little fingers were almost too much to take.
By the third day, the second I finished the exercises, I rushed to my desk to open my laptop. I’d been swearing to myself that I would never do this, but I just couldn’t resist any longer. Calling up the clinic’s website, I scanned it, but Molly was not on their staff list.
But I hadn’t seen her there before. Hadn’t she talked about a “new” boss? Searching for other clinics in the area, I saw that one had just closed, but their website was still active.
My eyes almost burned from not blinking until I found her. Molly Stevenson.