Total pages in book: 75
Estimated words: 77120 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77120 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
I smile. “Sounds like my sister’s a lucky woman.”
He shakes his head. “I’m the one who’s lucky. It was a mess at first, of course. I mean, she was my student. And she’s so much younger than I am. But it seems to work.”
“Good.” I punch him gently on the shoulder. “So I guess I don’t have to kick your ass.”
“Nope. I promise you I’ll be good to her.”
“You’d better be.”
We begin walking again.
“So,” Jason says, “how serious are you about finding your birth mother?”
Nineteen
Tabitha
“Wow,” Stephen says quietly, his hands pausing just below my shoulder blades. “You’re really tense.”
I let out a breath. Tense? Me? Just because I fucked my friend’s brother in a barn two days before I have to stand up for her at her wedding tomorrow? “Yeah. That’s kind of my thing.”
He presses into the knots along my spine. “It feels like you’ve been carrying a backpack full of bricks.”
“I’m a med student. And…there’s just a lot going on.”
He chuckles under his breath. “You ever let anyone help you carry it?”
I sigh into the table’s face cradle. “Not really. I’m more of a smile-and-power-through kind of girl.”
“Mmm.” He moves his hands lower. “Your body’s not buying it.”
“Well, my body can file a complaint with management.”
“It already did,” he murmurs. “You just weren’t listening.”
I go quiet, caught off guard by how true that feels.
“I’m listening now,” I say.
“Good,” he replies, voice low, calm. “Then let’s start here.”
He moves his hands in slow, steady circles over my back, and for the first time in weeks, maybe longer, I feel myself start to let go.
Not completely. Not all at once. But a little.
He finds the knot just under my right shoulder blade—one I didn’t even know was there until he pressed into it—and it sends a sharp jolt through me. It’s not painful exactly, just achy. Like my body’s been clenched so tight for so long it forgot what it’s like to be touched with care instead of urgency.
His hands are warm. Confident. I try not to overthink it. It’s just a massage. Just bodywork. But still, there’s something in the way he touches me that makes my chest ache a little, not with desire, but with something quieter. Something like relief.
I focus on the rhythm. The pressure. The way he finds every hidden place I’ve stored stress and gently works it loose, like he knows exactly where the damage lives.
And for now, I don’t have to do anything but breathe.
Just breathe and let him take some of it away.
I’m lost in a warm pink haze.
“All right, love. We’re all done.”
My eyes flip open.
Done? Did I doze off?
“I didn’t flip over,” I say.
“Sorry. You were in the zone, and your back needed so much work. So I just kept going.” He runs his hands up my spine. “Next time, let’s try some cupping. It might help draw out some of that deeper tension—get to the stuff my hands can’t quite reach. The kind of stress that settles in and pretends it belongs there.”
Next time?
I lift my head and look over my shoulder. “There won’t be a next time. I’m just visiting.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, my friend is getting married this weekend. I’m in the bridal party.”
“Oh. Yeah, I heard about that. The Steel wedding.”
“Simpson, actually. Are you going?”
He shakes his head. “I’m afraid not. I only moved here a few weeks ago. I don’t know anyone that well yet.”
“Oh. Yeah. Invitations went out over a month ago.”
“I’m sure I’ll get to know everyone soon.” He shrugs. “Maybe I’ll be at the next wedding.”
A thought occurs to me. Angie told me I could bring a guest. Even at the last minute if I chose to. I told her I didn’t have anyone in mind, but what if…?
“Would you like to go, Stephen?”
“I hardly know the family.”
“You know me.”
“Not really.” He lifts an eyebrow. “I know your body, though.”
“Come as my guest. It’s all on the up-and-up. You can come with me to the rehearsal dinner tonight too.”
He frowns. “I wouldn’t want to impose.”
“It’s no imposition. Everyone else in the wedding party has a date, so this way I won’t be the odd woman out.”
He laughs. “As beautiful as you are, love, I’ll bet you’re never the odd woman out.”
“So is it a date, then?”
He shrugs again. “Sure. I’d be honored.”
“Great. The rehearsal is tonight at seven p.m. at Bryce and Marjorie Simpson’s house. I can text you the address if you give me your number.”
“You sure it’s okay if I come?”
“Absolutely. These people love company. The more the merrier.”
“All right. I’m going to step out now so you can get dressed.”
“Okay.”
Stephen steps out of the room, and I pull the sheet back over my naked body and rise. Already I feel less tense about everything.
I didn’t want to tell Stephen that my body was most likely a mess from having sex against a barn wall.