Tainted Touch

In the old English town of Foxfield, Caitlyn McCoe's doing a crap job of Not Being Touched. Her uni friends are too busy posing on Instagram to notice how a hug makes her cringe, but no matter--she's knee-deep in denial. Anyway, between combat classes, baking binges, digital marketing seminars and her job at the gym, there's no time to mull over the root of the problem: Dominic, the ex who puts the "oh God, please go away," in "dysfunctional."

Then he shows up at the gym: the boxer. Fist Candy. The Bonfire Boy. From afar, he's beautifully nameless, and Cait lets herself want him because he's safe...until it turns out he's Art Lyons, the gym's new sports massage therapist and her co-worker. A co-worker who makes her long to be touched.

Art likes Cait. She likes him. It should be simple, but it never is, not now Dominic's crawling out of the woodwork and stirring everything the wrong way. And Cait's sister, Mills, keeps bugging her to read a book about a lighthouse and dead seagulls that might just be harbouring its own twisted message--if she can get over the puns.

So when Art turns out to have secrets of his own--four of them etched on to his skin in a scratched tattoo--it all feels like a bit much. Maybe touch is overrated. Maybe Cait's not built for it. But God, she wants to be. She wants him and this slow, slow burn...