Page 10 of Anatomy of Us

“I’m checking range of motion, then we evaluate your core,” she says, and she steps closer.

I only nod. I don’t trust my voice anymore.

Her fingertips slide along my ankle before she rotates the joint. Professional. Controlled. And my brain betrays me, stuffing itself with memories of those same fingers tracing lazy patterns down my bare back after we made love.

She moves to my knee. Each touch clean and clinical, and somehow that makes it worse, because I remember how it used to feel when it wasn’t.

And then I notice it.

Shit.

My nipples. Hard from the cold. Or from her hands on my skin. Or from her stupid comment. Or all of it at once. They show through my sports bra like a neon sign.

I cross my arms over my chest on instinct. Tessa rolls her eyes.

She still wears the same perfume. Citrus with a hint of wood. Nothing about it is soft. It’s sharp. It bites. It clings. I used to press my face into her neck just to breathe it in.

I shove the thought away while she keeps going. Under normal conditions I’d be asking questions. I’ve done this a hundred times. But I’m so wound up I just want it over. I want her to tell me I’m cleared to train with the team.

“Stand up,” she says, back to neutral. “Functional assessment. Plank. I want to see how long you hold.”

I get into a plank position on the mat. At least now my face points down.

Tessa kneels beside me, watching my form. Too close. I feel the heat of her body inches from mine, her gaze on the curve of my back.

“Your pelvis is dropping,” she says. “Tighten.”

I try. My arms start to shake at thirty seconds. By forty, I’m about to quit.

“Hold a little longer,” she whispers near my ear. “I know you can.”

My shoulders burn.

“Ten more seconds, Zoe.”

She puts her hand on my lower back, guiding me into position.

And fuck.

That touch shoots through me like a live wire.

I collapse onto the mat.

“Forty-seven seconds,” she announces, and she pulls her hand away too slow to feel casual. “You used to do three minutes like it was nothing.”

I don't answer. I stay facedown on the mat, grateful for a few seconds where she can't see my face, because I'm one breath away from crying.

Back then...

Back then, I didn't go a year without training.

Back then, I didn't have a baby.

And when our eyes meet, I know she sees it. Every mile of work still in front of me.

Chapter 4

Tessa