Page 45 of Top Shelf
Ferris
This felt like a date.Logically, I knew it wasn’t one. Quinn was my physical therapist, and he was the source of the searing pain making my ankle and shin throb like someone had taken a bat to it. Not to mention, he’d been very clear about setting boundaries about keeping things patient-therapist.
But he was feeding me.
And smiling at me.
And finding a bunch of little excuses to touch me beyond what a PT would do.
Of course, I wasn’t innocent. He was too easy to sway into. Too easy to lean against and take his hand and…yeah. Keeping it professional was going to be harder than I expected.
Normally, I could compartmentalize. I was used to putting people in boxes and keeping them there. That had been one of the easiest things for me. It wasn’t the first time I’d had an inappropriate crush, but the moment I realized the person was not for me, I set them aside and rarely thought about them again.
It had happened a few times with professors, and once it was done, I could sit in their lectures and not be bothered.
So why was Quinn so damn different? Why was he so easy to want and so difficult to let go of?
Being in his office wasn’t nearly as comfortable as I would have been almost anywhere else, but he let me take his desk chair, which was padded, and brought another one up so I could put my leg up. It was thoughtlessly sweet.
He sat on the floor with his back against the wall, his injured leg out straight, the other tucked close to his body. He wasn’t flexible the way a goalie was, but he hadn’t lost much of his hockey training. I could picture him on the ice, falling down into splits, stretching over his legs, bending himself into pretzel shapes.
And I’d felt how strong he was with the way he’d held me and rocked me up and down on his…
Okay, no. Nope. I couldn’t let myself go down that road.
“Ferris? Are you okay?”
I didn’t realize I was choking on my swallow of water until he said something. Then I became profoundly aware I was lacking oxygen. I managed a deep breath after I swallowed it all down and shook my head.
“You’re not fine.”
“I am. I’m sorry.”
With a small sigh, he reached over and squeezed my ankle. “Again with the apologizing.”
“I’m not normally so messy. Being with you makes me nervous.”
He frowned. “I make you nervous?”
“You’ve had your penis inside me,” I said, then realized, after the look on his face, that was one of the things we’d agreed not to speak about here. “I’m being awkward.”
His mouth turned up in the corners. “You’re being honest. But your honesty is kind of making me blush.”
I could see the tips of his ears going red. “I don’t mean to embarrass you.”
“Ferris,” he said, my name a sigh on his lips. But he didn’t sound annoyed the way most people did. “I’m not embarrassed. I like that you say things the way they are. But it makes it hard when all I want to do is put you on my desk and kiss you until your toes curl.”
“That might hurt—oh.”Oh. He didn’t mean literally. I bowed my head and shrugged. “I want that too. I don’t like being professional.”
“Fuck.” He ran a hand down his face, then did a complicated shift from side to side until he managed to get up onto his feet. He tossed his burrito wrapper in the little bin by his desk, then came to a stop in front of me. His hand hovered a few inches from my jaw, and I knew then what he wanted to do. “Ferris.”
“You say my name a lot.”
He smiled fully this time. “I like your name.” He licked his lips. “Come home with me.”
I blinked at him. “But?—”
“I know. I know I set rules and asked you to follow them, and I’m a massive asshole for asking this. But…fuck it. I want you. I can’t have you the way I’m craving here in my office, but outside the doors, it’s different.”
