The Therapist’s Touch: 6. The Dreaming Body

He guided her hand upward until it rested against her own throat. “You hold the boundary,” he told her. “Not me.”

Her fingers trembled over her skin, learning the shape of her breath.

“Do you trust yourself?”

She hesitated, then nodded. “I think so.”

“Good. Then trust me.”

He stepped close enough that she could sense the heat from his body. Their breaths tangled in the air, rising and falling together. It wasn’t a kiss, not yet, but it carried the same charge—the promise of collision held in restraint.

“Breathe,” he said again, quieter now, as if the command was also a plea.

She obeyed. The rhythm built between them, fragile and steady. With each breath she felt a thread tighten from her heart to his, invisible and irrevocable.

The edges of the world blurred. There was only warmth, breath, and the faint scent of cedar. When he finally withdrew his hands, she swayed, as if the room itself had moved.

“Open your eyes.”

She