Read Online Lady and the Champ by Katherine Lace - Free Book Online

drifted up those stairs and is wondering where he sleeps, what he wears when he sleeps, if anything, and how often he invites women upstairs with him. Probably often. Once or twice a day, in fact.
    He opens a door, breaking into my thoughts, and gestures for me to precede him inside.
    “Lie down,” I tell him.
    He sets the crutches aside and begins the laborious process of stretching out on his stomach on the floor. “I like it when you order me around.”
    “Then you should love this whole recovery process.” My bag has a foam roller in it, too, and I get that out. My bag is magical, I’ve been told. A soccer player patient of mine once said she wouldn’t be a bit surprised if I pulled out a whirlpool tub and a running track.
    “How badly does it hurt?” I ask Austin, kneeling next to him.
    “It’s not that bad.”
    He’s lying. Well, maybe not lying, but I’m certain he’s hurting more than he wants to admit. Sure, he can power his way through it, but I don’t necessarily want him to. He still hasn’t taken his meds; I’ll be sure he gets them down before I leave.
    In the meantime, I’ll get his legs rolled out, and then I’ll have to address the tension I’m seeing building up in his shoulders and upper back. I don’t want him accidentally injuring something else because he’s getting tensed up trying to protect his strained leg.
    Even though I told him not to, he starts to move the coffee table. I’m distracted enough by the way his ass looks when he bends over that I forget for a second he’s not supposed to be doing that. Then I rush over and smack him on the arm. Whoa . It’s a big arm. His biceps are like concrete.
    Get it together, Chloe.
    “I told you not to do that.”
    To his credit and my surprise, he backs off. “Sorry.” Taking another step back, he lifts both hands in surrender. “Following your instructions. All of them. To the letter.”
    “Good.” I move the table. It’s not that heavy, and there’s plenty of space in the ginormous living room to give it a temporary home while we work. Once it’s out of the way, I roll out the mat from my bag. “I’m going to get you some water for your meds.”
    Once he’s got his meds into him, I make him lie on his stomach while I grab the foam roller.
    I can’t push him too hard yet, physical therapy-wise, so my focus right now is on keeping things loose so the rest of him doesn’t clench up. If he gets asymmetrical while he’s recovering, his performance on the field will suffer. And compensation injuries aren’t exactly fun, either.
    So I start rolling him out like he’s a man-sized lump of cookie dough. It was an appropriate comparison since I would, indeed, love to eat him with a spoon. Raw. Right out of the cookie dough tub. I press my lips tight together while I work, afraid if I don’t something will come out that I’ll regret. Like, “Oh, hey, your ass is magnificent. Mind if I bite it?”
    Just say no, Chloe.
    “Mmmm,” he says, and for a second I wonder if he’s been reading my mind. “You’re way better at this than the guy I had last year.”
    I’m not sure how to respond to that. “Oh?”
    “Yeah. Much better. How long have you been at this?”
    “A while.” I don’t want him to get to know me better, nor do I want to get to know him better. I just want to get this over with to the best of my ability, without getting fired.
    “I mean how many years?”
    “Four.”
    “Have you always worked with athletes?”
    Stop talking to me.
    “No.”
    I ease up on the pressure as I work on the back of the injured leg. His thighs are solid, rock-hard muscle. I think about what they look like inside his skin-tight football pants. As the roller goes up over the perfect mound of his ass, I fight an obscene urge to cup it. Squeeze.
    “I’m sorry. Did you say something?”
    I jolt back to what I’m doing, my face going flaming hot. Shit. Did I say any of that out loud?
    “No. I was just…thinking.”
    “I