Tara Quinn - Full Contact

Probably not. She had no intention of coming back. And she wasn’t duplicitous.

“Shawna says you work at Big Spirits.”

“That’s right.” She stayed a step behind him as they passed mostly closed doors that housed Shawna’s office, a weight-loss clinic and an eye doctor.

“I’ve got an appointment with a client there in the morning.”

Why didn’t Ellen know about that? Those were her people. Every one of them.

Not that she had a thing to do with their medical needs. She was their social-emotional captain.

No one needed her permission to call a massage therapist. Nor did anyone have to inform her when someone was having a medically prescribed procedure unless it related to something Ellen had planned. Or limited a resident’s participation in activities.

But they usually did let her know.

The man in front of her slowed.

A vision of Josh’s face as he’d turned around to wave goodbye to her at the airport flashed before her eyes. In the last minutes she’d been with her son, she’d pulled his arms away from her.

She had to get well.

For him, if nothing else.

Black Leather opened the door second from the end. The one Shawna had taken her to earlier that day.

Ellen knew exactly what waited inside. A padded table with a headrest extending from one end. There was a small table, too, with a box of tissues and an MP3 docking station. Next to that was a cloth-draped cart with drawers and a couple of shelves filled with white sheets and towels. The top of the cart was covered with various bottles filled with liquids.

She couldn’t go in there. Not even for Josh. Well, to save his life, she would. She’d die for him.

But Josh’s life wasn’t in danger.

Black Leather, who wore black denim jeans and a white lab coat with black leather boots that made no noise when he walked, turned in the doorway to see her standing several feet away.

“Wait here,” he said, when she’d already formed her lips to blurt out her unequivocal refusal to go any farther down the hall toward that door—or with any treatment he might have in mind.

Ellen stood there, the refusal to enter any room with him still hovering. She felt caged, staring at the ponytail hanging down his back as he strode away from her.

This was her chance to leave. She could have Shawna make her apologies. Shawna was the one who had put her in this spot so she could be the one to get Ellen out of it.

Not entirely fair. Ellen had asked Shawna for help. And Shawna thought Black Leather could help. He had training. History. Previous successes.

He liked old people.

So did Ellen.

He exited Shawna’s office carrying a chair. Was he intending to use it? Or to have Ellen use it? Didn’t much matter to her. She was not going in that little room alone with this man.

Not today anyway.

Not while she was in the middle of a panic attack.

She recognized the symptoms. The tightness in her chest. Butterflies in her stomach. Foggy thoughts that wouldn’t land.

“Try this.” Black Leather set the chair at the end of the hall and pointed.

“You want me to sit there?”

“Sure.”

“Out here?”

“Yes.”

Okay. Well, her knees were a little shaky. Maybe her symptoms were more obvious than she’d thought. And it wasn’t as though he could do anything in the middle of the hall.

Granted the area was in a corner of the medical center. And not one soul had come or gone in the minutes she’d been there. But still, someone could. At any moment one of the other doors could open and someone could walk out.

Ellen sat.

“Shawna tells me you’re suffering from PTSD.”

Ellen had negotiated with Shawna and they had finally settled on her releasing only that information to him. It was all he needed to know to be able to treat her.

Stiff and ready to bolt, Ellen stared at him—as if he were a train wreck. She had to survey the damage. To see the suffering.

“You look too young to have been in the service.”

“I’m twenty-six.” Not young at all.

“Were you in the service?”

“No.”

His gaze made her uncomfortable. Could the man see the quaking inside her? Better that than having him see the dark shadows in her mind.

“The idea here is to teach your body that physical touch is nonthreatening. And to teach your mind that physical touch will bring you pleasure. To get you to the point where your automatic reaction is to welcome touch because you associate it with pleasure. To retrain you to expect it. Does that make sense?”

She wasn’t a moron.

And he wasn’t going to get her in that room.

“I’m going to start out with one hand. I’ll place it lightly where your right shoulder and neck meet. You naturally hold tension there and we want to relieve that tension.”

He was not getting her in that room.

“You ready?”

Ellen glared up at him. “What? Out here?”

“Yes.” He met her gaze head-on.

And the honesty, the understanding she saw there reached through her haze of panic.

“Just one hand?”

“Yes.”

“You promise?”

“Yes.”

“Only in the one spot?”

“Yes.”

He didn’t move.

She tried to prepare. To imagine his hand on her neck. To brace herself for how that would feel.

“Are you just going to lay your hand there, or what?”

“I’m going to start with three fingers. I’ll take them away then touch again. I’ll repeat that until your body accepts the contact.”

“How will you know that?”

“You’ll let me know.”

She had to do something? The butterflies were swarming fiercely.

“What if I don’t?” Did that mean he’d keep touching her? And claim that she hadn’t told him not to? Because she’d—

“You will. Your muscles will tense up—their way of responding to unwanted contact.”

Oh. Right. As a massage therapist, he knew all about muscles. Was probably trained to “listen” to them in ways Ellen didn’t even know about.

What else would he be able to understand about her if he touched her?

“That’s it then? You touch with three fingers—lightly—and that’s all?”

“Once your body accepts it, if we get to that point, I’ll apply light pressure—something meant to feel really good. I’ll give you plenty of warning before I change a process. That’s how this works. No surprises. And nothing without your explicit agreement. Okay?”

She wanted to date.

She didn’t want to sleep alone for the rest of her life.

She was not going to spend her life—even one aspect of it—hostage to what that bastard had done to her.

Josh needed her to be healthy.

Ellen nodded.

“Look at me please.”

She did.

“Okay?”

She nodded again.

“I need to hear you say it. This is totally your call.”

“Okay.” She tensed.

Black Leather waited then moved slowly to her side.

“Three fingers,” he said, holding them about a foot in front of her so she could see them. “I’m going to touch. On top of your hair. Ready?”

“Yes.”

She sensed more than heard his movement. “Touching now…”

Emotion exploded inside of Ellen, a volcano that rose from her stomach and took her breath away. Sight blinded by tears, she turned the corner of the hall before she even realized she was out of the chair.

And she didn’t stop. Not when people called her name. Not until she was in her car with the door locked. Not until she was driving down the road, heading toward…she had no idea where.

That hadn’t gone well.

JAY HAD NEVER BEEN ONE to leave well enough alone. He had this cursed inability to turn his back and walk away. Even after the trait had landed him eighteen months in prison, he continued to let it drive his actions. And now he couldn’t leave Ellen Moore to handle the fallout of their afternoon session alone.