Free Lady and the Champ by Katherine Lace

where it is, I don’t dare touch him under that towel.
    Stop it, Chloe. Get it under control.
    While my breath has quickened, Austin’s has slowed, and I wonder if he’s drifting off to sleep. Sleeping while I think about molesting him. Could this get any more fucked up?
    Austin makes a small noise in the back of his throat, and I get an immediate answer to my question— yes , it could get more fucked up. Because that soft sound sounds like a sex noise, and I don’t need that added to the mix.
    “You’re really good at this,” he says, his voice fuzzy and quiet.
    “Thanks,” I manage, just barely. I work back up his spine, settling again on his shoulders, and he reaches up and pats my hand there where I’m digging my thumbs into his trapezius.
    I freeze. That touch is like a live electric current running up the back of my hand through my arm, through my whole system, until it hits my pussy and leaves me sitting there so wet and needy I can barely breathe.
    The doorbell rings. The sound jars through my mind, and I jerk my hands back as though burned. Have I lost my mind? He’s a client .
    Austin swears, not quite under his breath. “Who the fuck…”
    He swings out from under the blanket, almost flashing me the full monty, then grabs a terrycloth robe from a hook on the wall and throws it on. He yanks the waist tie so tight it almost looks like it hurts him. It’s not hard to see why; he’s trying—and mostly failing—to keep from tenting it.
    He spares me about half a glance, as if he doesn’t want to make direct eye contact.
    “You were expecting someone?” I say dryly, annoyed. He looks at me sidelong.
    “No. Pretty definitely no.”
    I watch him stalk toward the door, not sure what I should do. It’s not like I should just traipse out to greet whoever has just invaded our privacy. It’s not my house, after all.
    “I’m not in the habit of inviting people over during my physical therapy appointments,” Austin throws back over his shoulder. He leaves the door partially open. I wipe the oil off my hands onto a towel and look out into the hallway.
    He jerks the door open and a woman barrels her way in. She looks like she’s in her mid-twenties, and she’s carrying a baby.
    A baby? What the fuck?
    Quietly, like I’m eavesdropping on something that isn’t my business—because I’m totally eavesdropping on something that isn’t my business—I slip a little farther down the hall so I can hear.
    “What the fuck?” Austin echoes my unspoken sentiment, and for a second I think he’s as much in the dark as I am about the identity of the woman and her offspring. Then he continues, “What are you doing here, Megan?”
    “I need you to take Emma,” she answers.
    “I can’t take Emma.”
    However, as he says it, Megan shoves Emma into Austin’s chest, and Austin takes her automatically. She’s probably no more than six or eight months old, and she holds her hands up to him, smiling. There are a couple of teeth on her lower gums, and I barely hold back an “awwwww.” Which is good, because if I “awww” over baby Emma, I’ll get caught eavesdropping, and we can’t have that.
    I’ve got to know what’s going on. It looks like Austin Sherwood is somebody’s baby daddy, and if that isn’t the biggest gossip scoop I’ve ever seen in my entire life, then I don’t know gossip. This Megan woman is petite but curvy, with long black hair and eyes that flash up at Austin as she speaks.
    “Don’t you walk out of here, Megan!” Austin snaps, because Megan has turned and has a hand on the door. “You can’t just dump her off here any time you want.”
    “You always tell me you’d like to see her,” Megan says dismissively. “I don’t see why it’s a problem.”
    “It’s not my scheduled day,” he shoots back. He’s still cradling Emma against his shoulder, and she’s playing with the curls of hair at the back of his neck.
    I envy her a little as he strokes her back with his big