I just keep thinking about touching him, about him touching me in return, about his hand on my hand and the spark that passed between us. I know he felt it, like an electric current thrumming in my core.
God, Mirella, get it together, you’re a professional.
“Thank you,” I say, turning away to give me a moment to gather myself. “Please head over to the mats. We’ll do some basic stretching, a few simple leg lift exercises, and call it a day.”
“How will stretching help me?” he asks as he shuffles over. “I thought you were going to teach me how to walk.”
“Sit, please. I’ll try to explain everything the best I can, but you might just have to trust that I know more than you do.”
“That won’t be easy.” I can tell he doesn’t like being told what to do, but he listens and lowers himself down with the help of the cane. “If we’re going to work together, I need you to tell me why we’re doing whatever we’re doing. Everything, even the small things.”
“Like I said, I’ll try, but remember that you’re the patient,” I say, shaking my head and crossing my arms.
Even though I stand above him, it’s like he’s looming large. “I don’t know how you imagined this would go, but you were wrong. This is not a debate. This is not a discussion. I will do as you ask, so long as you obey what I tell you. Do you understand?”
I clench my jaw. My teachers all told me that we need to be assertive and in charge, even when patients get difficult. But this man is beyond difficult, and the way he’s watching me like a predator makes my spine tingle. I can’t imagine my professors pictured Fynn Bruno when they talked about unruly patients. I can’t imagine anyone in the medical industry ever had to work with a beast like this.
“If you want to get better, you need to do what I ask you. The more you fight, the longer it’ll take.”
“And if you want to leave this place in one piece then you need to obey. What will it be, princess?”
I grind my teeth together. Princess. I hate that stupid nickname. He’s called me that twice now and both times it’s like a nail directly into my spine. I’m not a princess, nowhere near it, and I wasn’t spoiled in the least. He knows I hate it and yet he keeps doing it.
Because he likes to fuck with me.
But his stare and his threat linger in the air and finally I nod.
“Whatever you want,” I say quietly and hate myself for it. I’m giving up power already when I should be the one in charge.
This isn’t going to be easy.
“Good girl,” he says, nodding once. “Now, come stretch me and explain exactly what you’re doing and why.”
I’m trembling as I kneel down beside him, get him to lie on his back, and gently go through some leg stretches. My hands are all over him and it drives me wild, the way he looks at me, his grunts of pain when I push him just a bit too far, the way his fingertips brush against mine. This man wants to ruin me, and it takes all my willpower to keep it professional. I have to disassociate almost and pretend like Fynn is someone else, just an old man that suffered a stroke and who needs my help, nothing more, not a handsome mafia bastard.
When we finish the stretches, we do some simple leg lift exercises. They’re childish things, the sort of stuff that a mobile person would find ridiculously easy, and I can tell it frustrates him to no end that he finds them somewhat challenging. I’m patient though, despite his quiet rage. After a few reps, I call the session. He’s sweating slightly, his forehead glistening, and we sit side by side on the mat as he leans back on his hands.
“Can I ask you how all this happened?” I glance at him in the mirror across the room. He’s looking boldly back at me, not pretending like he doesn’t see me staring. His eyes sweep to my lips, my chest, back up.
“I was shot several times,” he says simply.
I feel a tremor run down my spine. “Your kind of mobility problem usually results from a brain issue or a spinal injury.”
“One of the bullets grazed my lower spine. That, combined with the long coma, left me like this. The doctors did surgery to repair the damage and I’m mostly healed, but I still need to recover.”
“Spinal injury,” I say softly, nodding to myself, professional brain taking over again. “That makes a lot of sense. And you said it’s been a few months? Have you improved at all in that time?”
“Somewhat, yes. I had a harder time walking at all when I first woke up.”