obvious unwillingness to be honest with him, Fliss came round the desk so that she could look at him. She seemed genuinely concerned about him, but Matt wasn’t in the mood for her sympathy—for anybody’s sympathy, actually—and the look he cast her way should have shrivelled a hardier soul than hers.
‘And if I’m not? What are you going to do about it?’ he snarled, wishing she would just go. He had to deal with this alone—and with the fact that anything he’d said to her up to this point could find its way into the local rag. Christ, what were the odds against him choosing the daughter of the local hack to be his housekeeper?
‘I could help,’ she said quietly, and with an effort he swung himself round again to rest against the desk.
‘Oh, right. You’re a masseuse, too, I take it? Is there no end to your ingenuity, Ms Taylor?’
She held up her head. ‘I do have some experience,’ she said stiffly. ‘I was training to be a physiotherapist when my mother died and I had to give up my work to look after my father and Amy.’
Matt was stunned. ‘A physiotherapist?’ he echoed half disbelievingly. ‘But Diane said—’
He broke off, but she evidently knew what he had been about to say. ‘What?’ she asked drily. ‘That I was a school drop-out? I was. Until I’d had Amy, that is.’
He shook his head. ‘I’m impressed.’
‘Don’t patronise me.’ Her lips tightened. ‘Now, do you want me to help you or not?’
Matt shifted against the desk. ‘I’m just stiff, that’s all.’
‘I’d say you’ve overdone the lifting and bending.’ She contradicted him. She hesitated. ‘Can you stretch out on the desk?’
Matt gave her an open-mouthed look. ‘What?’
‘I mean it. I’ll just wash my hands.’
She headed for the door and was gone before he could stop her, and Matt made another attempt to straighten up. But the pain made him wince in agony and he wondered if he’d done something stupid like slipping a disc or trapping a nerve.
Yeah, that would figure, he thought grimly, regarding the prospect of prostrating himself on the desk with mild incredulity. But, on the other hand, he had to get mobile again.
She was back before he knew it. She came into the room smelling faintly of lemon and he guessed she’d washed her hands in the kitchen.
‘Will you be warm enough if you take off your shirt?’ she asked briskly, and he wondered if she had any idea what she was letting herself in for. ‘But what the hell?’ he muttered under his breath. She was bound to see his back sooner or later. With an effort, he managed to haul the shirt over his head, wincing only when her soft hands brushed the back of his neck.
She was trying to help him, he realised. Her nails scraped across his nape and for a moment any pain he felt melted in the raw heat of his reaction. It was as if an electrical charge had invaded his system and, for a moment, he couldn’t get his breath.
Then, with a jerky movement, he swung away from her, mumbling something about not needing her assistance to take off his shirt. If she was hurt, if her cheeks turned a little pink, that wasn’t his problem. He had enough to do handling the minor explosions that were arcing down into his gut.
He couldn’t help but hear the way she sucked in her breath when he turned his back on her. It even made levering himself across the desk that much easier to do. He sensed she was dying to say something, but she held her tongue, and somehow he laid his shirt over the wood and spread-eagled himself upon it. He stifled a groan as he did so. Dammit, he was weaker than he’d thought.
‘Right,’ she said when he was lying on top of the desk, his muscles trembling from the exertion. ‘If I hurt you, let me know. Just try and relax, hmm?’
Yeah, right.
Matt gritted his teeth. That was easier said than done. He reminded himself that during his first few weeks with the guerrillas, he’d been forced to march barefoot over what had felt like the roughest terrain possible, until every nerve in his body had felt as if it was on fire. His limbs had screamed for relief, but none had been forthcoming. He’d learned not to complain. That had only brought him a beating. He’d actually felt grateful when they’d thrown him into a prison cell.
So he could do this, he thought, even if the first touch of her hands on his scarred skin had him grabbing the corners of the desk, digging his palms into the sharp edges of the wood. He had to steel himself against whatever pain she inflicted; create a barrier between his conscious and subconscious self.
He soon discovered no barrier was necessary. The rhythmic kneading that began between his shoulder blades had a mesmeric effect on his brain. Her strong fingers curled into his flesh, finding and releasing the taut tendons in his neck and shoulders, splaying over his torso, moving smoothly down his spine.
He felt himself loosening, adjusting, relaxing, as that almost liquid friction probed each vertebra in turn before gliding on. His muscles still burned, but the heat spread smoothly over him. He felt a sinuous feeling of inertia, and a mindless relief from the stiffness that had almost paralysed him minutes before.
Then, just when he was wondering what he could do to thank her, he felt her fingers slip beneath his waist and fumble for the buckle on his belt. ‘Can we loosen this?’ she asked, not seeming to realise he had stiffened up again. ‘If you could just push your pants down around your hips, I could—’
‘No!’ With an effort, Matt managed to grab her hand and shove it away from him. He blew out a breath. ‘What the hell do you think I am?’
‘A prude?’ she suggested, loosening her fingers from his and tucking them beneath her arms. She stepped back from the desk and although he sensed she was far from relaxed with him she added bravely, ‘You weren’t half so modest when I woke you up.’
Matt’s jaw clamped, but with a supreme effort he managed to roll onto his side. ‘Yeah, well…’ He regarded her dourly. ‘That was different.’
‘Because you were calling the shots?’ She didn’t back off. ‘I’m not about to jump your bones, Mr Quinn.’
As if she could, thought Matt grimly, pushing that thought aside to acknowledge that it was going to be bloody difficult to get down from the desk without her help. ‘Look, you’ve done a good job,’ he began, only to have her spread her hands in frustration.
‘I haven’t finished,’ she protested. ‘I haven’t even touched your lumbar region, and in my opinion that’s where the root of the problem lies.’
‘I don’t have a problem,’ muttered Matt, edging uneasily across the desk and somehow swinging his legs to the floor. He winced as his body denied that statement, but he wouldn’t let her see how stiff he still was. ‘Thanks, anyway. I appreciate it.’
‘My pleasure,’ she said, though he doubted it was. She paused. ‘I’ll be going now. Shall I come back tomorrow?’
Matt eased himself onto his feet. ‘If that’s OK with you,’ he said.
‘OK.’ She nodded. Then, with a reluctant gesture, she added, ‘You’d better put your shirt on. You’re sweating
