limit with weight training, then ignore the fragile part that needed equal attention. “Okay, I’m done here, for today anyway. You can get yourself back in that wheelchair, and we’ll do your favorite part.”
She sat back on her heels and watched with admiration as he bent his own knees then put the other arm on the wheelchair seat and essentially did a one-arm press to push himself back in. Impressive. And for someone who’d avoided doing this regularly, he made it look damn easy, too.
As they worked through Mary’s planned program of weight exercises, Wesley was struck by how intent she was on balancing his training. She’d forced him to remember he had a lower half where circulation was just as important as the top. Where bad things could happen if he didn’t take care of all of himself. Like a child, he’d been playing a game—Maybe if I ignore it, it will go away. One thing was sure as the sun, paraplegia didn’t go away.
Halfway through the second set of butterfly presses with free weights, he focused away from himself, and watched Mary in all of her earnestness as she studied his technique like a perfectionist, adjusting his elbow here and his shoulder there. He liked the attention.
Later, when he shifted from his chair to the bench for some chest presses, Mary leaned over him, like a life coach, motivating him to keep pushing. He didn’t need motivation, being determined as he was to be in top-notch shape so he could go back to work again—the upper half of him anyway—but he appreciated her interest and help. Which surprised him. All the other PTs had seemed like pains in the butt and he’d treated them all accordingly. But Mary was different.
“Let’s up the weight,” he said, testing her ability to let him call some shots.
“Sure.” She put more weights on the bar and he went right back to work. Okay, so she was fine with him pushing himself.
In amusement, he watched her facial expressions mimic what he assumed were his as he lifted the heavier weight, and it made him lose concentration. He pressed the bar above his head, then laughed and lost ground. Spotting the weights, she had to move in quickly to catch the bar before it slammed onto his chest. Though he was perfectly capable of doing it himself, since he’d had to many times on his own, and had the bruises to prove it, he admitted he liked having her there, on point.
“You okay?”
“Fine. Just wondering when you turned into a slave driver.”
“You’re the one who wanted more weights.”
“And you’re the one who loaded them on.” He got a kick out of goading her, and she fell for it every time. Just like she used to. And unlike the other PTs she was willing to push him as much as he wanted to go, not slow him down.
“So are you saying you want to take a break?”
“Could use some water.”
She lunged for a bottle. “Five-minute break.”
He gulped a drink. “I take it back. You’re not a slave driver, more like a dominatrix.”
“What?”
It felt good to tease and smile, like a lost and forgotten part of himself had suddenly shown up again. “All you need is some little leather get-up and a whip.”
Her cheeks flushed and she stepped back. So he’d rattled her. Excellent.
“You’d look hot in skin-tight leather.”
“Okay, the break’s over. Finish your water, and let’s move onto the back exercises.”
Wesley caught her gaze. He’d definitely gotten to her. Good. “See what I mean?”
Her gaze shot up toward the ceiling, just like it used to do when she was a teenager and he’d frustrated and bothered her.
He pulled himself into a sitting position and she separated his legs on either side of the narrow bench with the weight bar just out of reach above his head. She straddled the bench in front of and facing him, and used her legs as support beside each of his knees, with her feet guarding his, keeping them in place.
“We’ll start with fifty pounds, and go from there.”
“What do you mean, ‘we’? Seems like I’m doing all the lifting here.”
“As you should be,” she said, with a serious as hell expression.
She squeezed his shoulder and it took every last bit of his attention away from the teasing. Her hand on his shoulder woke a bundle of nerve endings, and warmed the skin all the way up to his neck. He couldn’t deny he’d missed the touch of a woman these past nine months.
Her touch made him think of the last time he’d seen her. It had been at his sister’s wedding, where they’d played a dangerous game of getting high on bubbly champagne and acting like they didn’t know what they were doing. Then they’d kissed, teasing each other with their lips and tongues, crossing the line with their touches. He glanced at her chest then quickly looked away, needing something to get his mind off those thoughts.
“So I’ll do these exercises, but you’re going to have to entertain me by bringing me up to date on your life.” He didn’t need her help to hold him in place on the bench. He balanced himself every day and used sand bags to keep his feet from straying, but he liked having her this close so he kept it to himself. Now he needed distraction from her nearness. “The last time I saw you, you’d just gotten your Master’s degree. Oh, and your hair was a lot longer than it is now.” Though he definitely liked this more cosmopolitan yet sexy look. He pulled down the weighted bar and did repetitions. Fifty pounds was nothing, but she’d find out soon enough.
She watched his every move, ready to jump in and catch him if he lost his balance. Again, unnecessary, but he’d let her do it since it probably made her feel useful.
“Well, I went on to get my PhD, then passed the boards and became a physical therapist.”
“I get that part. I want the juicy bits. How many hearts did you break? Love affairs. The good stuff.”
She gave a short laugh. “That’ll take all of two minutes.”
He raised a brow in mid-pull, hands spaced wide on the bar working the neck, shoulder and trapezius muscles. As always, it felt great. But her personal assessment of what he thought was a damn important part of a person’s life—interactions with the opposite sex—felt all wrong. Two minutes? “I don’t believe that for a second.”
“I was totally focused on my career and it was hard to meet nice guys.”
“So tell me about the rotten ones, then. Come on, I’ve been living in a cave. There must have been someone.” He challenged her to dig deeper, just like she’d been doing to him. “I need some dirt.”
She sighed, hands on her hips, her legs in a hip-wide stance. For a sex-starved man, even that looked sexy. He gripped the weight bar tighter.
“I got engaged when I was twenty-nine. I think it was more out of panic for my upcoming birthday. The first big one after twenty-one, you know?”
“Do women still let that bother them?”
“You do live in a cave. Wes, some things
