Page 2 of Just One Night Together
“Hungry? I brought you some...”
“No, thank you.” She smiled and turned away from him, letting him untie the back of her gown. “I know you can help with the pain, though. You can do anything.”
“That’s what you always said,” he reminded her. “We can do anything.”
Her smile turned sad. “Not quite anything.”
Damon saw that she understood more of her situation than he’d realized. His throat was tight with the truth of it, but he couldn’t talk to her about it. He wasn’t good with confidences and intimacy. Instead, he forced a smile. “Let’s get started then and work out some of those kinks.”
It was dark outside the hospital windows and the sounds were muted by the heavy glass. He could see the skyline of Manhattan but the city could have been a thousand miles away—or just a backdrop painted on a curtain. Even the business of the hospital was background noise, very few footsteps or voices, and no alarms. He felt as if they were in a little private space of their own.
He turned his mom to her stomach with care, ensuring that no tubes or wires were pinched and that there was no weight on any joints. They said her wrist was healing slowly, the bone knitting together due to her rest, but the cancer wasn’t helping.
He’d learned everything he could about massage, just to give her some relief from her old dancing injuries. He remembered his dad giving his mom massages. Damon had never imagined she’d need so much more. He moved slowly, listening to her breathing, making sure that nothing hurt.
Once on her stomach with the pillow set properly, she sighed. “This is the best part of my week,” she whispered and Damon smiled as he poured massage oil into his palm.
“Mine, too, Mom.” He smoothed the lotion over her back, ignoring the way the bones protruded. “Mine, too.”
He felt satisfaction as the tension eased from her body beneath his touch.
At least he wasn’t completely powerless, although it was closer than he liked.
* * *
Haley had heard about him,of course. The mysterious man who showed up every Friday night to give Mrs. Natasha Perez a massage. The hunky and mysterious son, if she listened to the other nurses. There was a lot of speculation about him and whatever he did—and what kind of relationships he had.
Haley didn’t care much about his social life. What intrigued her was the difference in his mother’s charts. As a nurse interested in alternative therapies, Haley always wanted to know more about easing discomfort, no matter how it was done. There was no denying that Natasha slept better and more deeply every Friday night.
He came on other days and times, too, and the story was that he phoned her daily, but Friday night, after the wards quieted down, he showed up like clockwork.
Was it his presence, as Mrs. Perez’s only son, or his massages that made the difference? Haley had swapped shifts, just to see for herself.
On this Friday night, just past midnight, she stood in the doorway of his mother’s room and watched. She was on her break from the cardiac ward and had twenty minutes. The door was partly closed, which both kept Haley out of view and limited what she could see. From this vantage point, she could see only the edge of the heart monitor but could hear its output. Even without reading the display, she heard Mrs. Perez’s pulse slow to a nice steady resting rate.
She couldn’t see the son well from this angle, plus he had his back to the door. He was bigger than Haley had expected, buff like someone who worked out a lot. His hair was dark, almost black, and he looked tanned. His jacket was flung over a chair and he was wearing a T-shirt and jeans. She could see the muscles in his back and arms flexing as he gave his mom a massage. His broad shoulders strained the T-shirt and she could see the end of a tattoo on his upper arm, below the hem of the sleeve. His hands moved rhythmically over his mom’s limbs as he talked softly to her.
Haley wasn’t sure whether it was a worse choice to stand in the doorway and eavesdrop, or to declare herself and ruin the mood he’d created. She listened to the heart monitor and stayed put.
Just watching his hands was mesmerizing.
His jeans fit just a little too well for her own heart rate to be dropping, though.
How long had it been since she’d wrapped her legs around a man? Too long, judging by her body’s response to the sight of one deliciously fit male. She always bailed quickly on relationships, not wanting to get in too deep, not wanting to be tied down, not wanting to sacrifice her ambitions. For the past year or so, it had seemed like too much trouble to bother with men. She watched Mrs. Perez’s son, though, and realized she’d been ignoring her basic needs.
She swallowed, stared, and considered fixing that.
“There’s something I should tell you, Mom,” he said. He had a nice deep voice, both soothing and sexy. “Something I told you a long time ago that just isn’t true.”
“You never lied to me.”
“Well, I did once. I’ve been feeling guilty about it ever since.”
His mom sighed. “You could always have told me.”
“I know. But there never seemed to be time. These nights when I’m here with you, it feels as if we have nothing but time.”
That wasn’t strictly true. Haley bit her lip. She’d read Natasha’s charts. Time was not on the older woman’s side. She hoped the son knew the reality ahead of them.
