Page 4 of Wrong Idea

I took a step, my head yelling at me to get the fuck out of there, when she turned. Her dark eyes met my blue ones, and I froze. She smiled so sweetly, so innocently, my heart had nochoice but to crack wide open for her. I had no idea why the pull I felt towards her was so visceral, so strong, but I couldn’t deny it.

“I did it!” she whispered, her eyes glittering with joy like she’d just run a marathon. “Thank you.” She licked her lips, and I was a fucking goner. But as if that wasn’t enough, she kept talking, shaking not just my heart but my soul. “I don’t think I could have been brave enough to do all this without you.”

Her words tugged at my heart.

I hadn’t done anything, and she was giving me credit I didn’t deserve. I’d lied to her, letting her believe I was a trained masseuse when I wasn’t. Had even snuck a peek at the delicious curves that lay covered beneath the black sheet draped over her body.

I hadn’t touched her yet. I could get out and order someone else to take care of her. The thought alone made me see red. The idea of someone else’s hands on her, regardless of them being a man or woman, didn’t settle well with me.

No, you can’t, my realistic heart murmured.She’s yours. You can’t walk away.

She was mine.

All I knew about her was that her name was Max and this was her first massage, first time undressing in front of someone who wasn’t a medical professional, and more than likely a goddamn virgin. I had no idea how old she was or where she was from. Hell, she could be living on the other side of the planet for all I knew, here on vacation.

But she was mine.

And I’d just lied about who I was.

Fuck.

one

maxine ‘max’ munoz

I feltlike I could literally walk on a cloud. Who knew a massage from a seriously hot older guy could be life changing? Had I known, I would have splurged on one earlier. To say my rare day off had been a success would have been an understatement. But as I glanced at the ski resort’s laundry room, I sighed.

A day off for my coworker, Olive and I, meant no one else stepped in and took over. There was mountain after mountain of things to catch up on. Sheets, bedding, towels. But even seeing them, I still felt lighter on my feet. Almost like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders.

I’d never believed a massage could make a huge difference, but just thinking about Car and the way he’d touched me made me stop in my tracks, a towel in my hand.His touch…I shook the thought away, but even so, I knew my face had turned a couple shades of pink.

Not to mention getting home last night and after a night of tossing and turning despite my body feeling good and less achy, I’d lost the battle of trying not to play with myself while thinking about him. What the relaxing, tantalizing massage could haveturned into. Just thinking about my dirty fantasy had me sweating. And it had nothing to do with the giant sheet press.

It was over twenty-four hours since my massage, but I couldn’t help thinking about him.Car.Just his name made me smile. It made him so different than anyone I’d ever met. His blue eyes and dark hair. Those strong slightly calloused hands that had roamed up and down my body. My body still tingled just thinking about it. He hadn’t been chatty, but I could have sworn that my body had been hyperaware of every manly sound he’d made.

“Hey!” Olive Trejo, my coworker, called out as she walked straight to the small row of lockers against the far wall we had so we could store our things. “How was your day off?” she asked, not bothering to look at me.

“It was okay.” I shrugged, shaking off all thoughts of Car.Is that short for something? Carter? Carson? Carmine?

“How about yours?”I asked, knowing that Olive could be chatty.

She went on to tell me about her and her sisters. I half-listened while she spoke, making the appropriate noises and comments. Usually, I enjoyed her stories. She and her family were close, and if I was honest, I envied them. No matter what, the Trejos always had one another’s back.

I didn’t have anyone anymore.Not really.

My dad had never been a part of our family since I was born. My mom had done her best raising my older sister and me, until she passed away my junior year in high school. By then, Sam had been long gone. We hardly spoke. Mostly sending one another a rare message on holidays. And even then, the messages were dry and cookie cutter.

Working nights in the laundry room had given me a safe place to rest my head back then. Until the manager of the resort, Stan, had figured out I had been sleeping on the ground nextto the lockers. Thankfully, even though our boss had a grouchy guy exterior, he was nothing but a softie. Stan started to let me know what rooms were free so I could sleep in them as long as I cleaned up the room before I left. I’d done that until six months after I had graduated and saved enough for a small studio apartment in town close to the buses that ran to the resort.

Slowly, I’d watched as the economy took a toll in our beloved small mountain town of Moonlit Pines. Businesses had shut down and even the ski resort had been sold twice, all while it slowly depleted to a shadow of what it had once been. Employees had been let go down to a skeleton crew. Heck, even my beloved Stan, who was the closest thing I had to family, worried he would be next.

Then, two months ago, the resort had been sold to some rich hotelier family. The Storms. Everyone I knew from town and the resort had been all a buzz. They sounded intimidating and from what I had heard from everyone who had interacted with them, especially with the older brother and boss, they were.

So, I stopped asking questions.

I kept on going like I had since I’d started working there when I was sixteen. With my head down, doing the best of my ability, hoping and praying my job wouldn’t be replaced by being outsourced to a third-party laundry company.

The only thing that made me somewhat hopeful was the fact the new owners seemed dead set on bringing back The Crown to what it had once been. Construction crews had started the day after the sale and had been around since. Working at one end of the resort, slowly fixing it up. Not enough to make a difference just yet, but if they really kept it up, I could see The Crown being better than ever.

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