Page 23 of The VIP Doubles Down
He lifted his head and rolled onto his side, making his dark hair wave wildly around the sharp planes of his face while the heat packs thudded onto the floor. “I feel at a disadvantage negotiating without being able to see my opponent’s face.”
“Hey, I’m on your side.”
“That remains to be seen.” He pinned her with his gaze. “An hour and a half on physical therapy and an hour on Julian. I’ll pay you for the extra time.”
Her heart leaped. Another half an hour of pay. “I feel like I’d be cheating you to take extra money for talking about a ... a nonexistent person.”
“While I may not be using your professional skills, I would not dream of asking for your time for free.” He held out his open hand in a gesture of entreaty. “Humor me.”
Okay, she’d tried to turn him down. “Agreed. Now please lie down and try to relax.” Without thinking, she reached out to give his upper arm a little tug. When she touched him, he flinched and dropped his gaze to where her fingers were wrapped around the swelling ridges of his biceps. She jerked her hand away. “Did I hurt you?”
“No,” he rasped. “Quite the contrary. I just wasn’t prepared. Time for me to get back to relaxing.”
He flipped onto his stomach with a slight hitch in his movement, dragging the blanket back over his shoulders. Allie walked around to replace the rice packs on his shoulders. She stared at the back of his head as though she could see into his mind to decipher his odd reaction.
While the e-stim did its work, Allie perched on the nearby weight bench and debated how much of her made-up Julian Best stories to share with the writer. They were wildly romantic fantasies that she was sure would make Gavin snicker. She sighed. If she had to talk for an hour, she couldn’t afford to edit out any material.
The stim unit shut down, and Gavin began to stir. She rested her hand on his blanket-covered back. “Stay still. I’m going to detach the stim pads and start the massage. That way your muscles don’t have time to tense up again.”
“I’m beginning to like physical therapy.”
Allie smirked. “That’s because we haven’t gotten to the hard part yet.”
Chapter 7
As she removed the stim pads, every brush of the therapist’s fingertips sent flickering sparks racing across Gavin’s skin. How was he supposed to relax when the stampeding ants had nothing on Allie’s electrical charge?
He was a mature adult. He could control his responses.
Or he could until she removed the last of the sticky pads and began to stroke his shoulders with long, firm sweeps of her oil-slicked hands. Her palms felt like warm satin gliding over his skin. He nearly moaned as she kneaded a tight spot on the back of his neck, the pressure of her fingertips balanced right on the edge between pleasure and pain. His body soaked up her touch like a plant drawing in water after a drought. He felt lighter and more expansive. And aroused.
The crisp scent of wintergreen swirled past his nostrils again. “Are you wearing eau de mint?” he asked.
Her chuckle sounded from above him. “It’s the massage oil. I figured you’d prefer this to something floral.”
“Don’t you have something neutral? I’ll smell like Vicks VapoRub.”
“I’ll bring unscented oil tomorrow.”
He heard the stiffness in her voice and felt like an ass. Truth was, he liked the smell. It reminded him of hiking in the woods of New England. His testiness was an attempt to shake off some of the sensual cocoon she had woven around him.
He kept waiting for a pause in the assault on his self-control, but she never broke contact, always keeping a warm palm pressed against his bare skin as she shifted around him. He remembered from some distant piece of research that this was one mark of a skilled masseuse.
“Okay, the fun part is over,” she said, although the slide of her soft, warm hands over his skin belied her words. “Now you need to tell me if anything I do causes you discomfort.”
And then she showed her true colors as she dug her thumbs into a knot on the back of his neck, sending a bolt of agony through the muscle. He grunted.
“Too much?” she asked, easing the pressure.
“Yes, but don’t stop. You seduced me with your ants and your massage, and now I must pay for the pleasure.”
However, the pressure lessened as she worked over the worst spots in his neck and shoulders. He got fond of the little spurts of breath she let out when she pushed especially hard. It was just enough advance warning so the pain didn’t surprise a groan out of him.
And then she was stroking his back again, petting him like a dog who had done well. “Aren’t you going to say, ‘Good boy’?”
“What?” The rhythm of her movements never faltered despite the puzzlement in her voice.
“Isn’t this my reward for letting you pummel me?”
