“No.”
The pressure came back, the pain intense for the space of three breaths before it faded into a release of tingles like fairy dust, so profound he groaned in relief.
“There we go,” she murmured, hands sweeping to soothe before she moved to the other side.
For the next ten minutes, she worked his shoulders, alternately persecuting and appeasing before she moved into his lower back. She even nudged aside the sheet to get her elbows into the tops of his glutes. It was another pressure point, hurting like hell before the cords in his lower back relaxed and his muscles turned to pudding.
He had never considered himself kinky, but this was bordering on erotic. The whole time he was blinded by intense sensations, he was equally aware of the sensual brush of her breast against his hip and what might have been the tickle of her hair falling against his spine. When he lifted his hips slightly, trying to give himself room to grow, she straightened away and drew the sheet up over his tailbone.
“I’ll try going after that area with reflexology.” She uncovered his feet. “Tell me if this pressure is too much?”
Her thumbs dug against his instep. He nearly levitated, but the endorphin rush was worth it. By the time she’d gone up his calves and into his hamstrings, he was hers. He’d never been in such a state of sublime arousal. She could have tied him to the bed and shown him a riding crop and he’d have begged, “Yes, please.”
She worked his arms, and it took everything in him to keep them lax rather than flexing to drag her close. He ached to touch her as intimately as she was touching him, but he had to stay motionless and let her drive him mad.
This was torture. Genuine torture.
“Would you like to turn ov—”
“No,” he growled. He was fully hard. If she looked him in the eye, she would know how badly he wanted to drag her atop him and see how much abuse this table could take.
A surprised pause. “I’ll finish with your neck and scalp, then?”
“Yes.”
She moved to stand above his head. All he could see through the face cradle was her bare feet.
Each of her big toes wore a silhouette of a woman’s shoe against a background of pink. The plain one was peeling up. The other was bedecked with jewels and winked at him as she curled her toes and set gentle fingertips against the back of his neck.
“If I’ve been too rough—”
“You haven’t.” He closed his eyes in pleasure-pain. “This is the best massage of my life. I have to cut it short before it turns into something else.”
He thought he heard a small “Eep.” He definitely heard her swallow.
“Stay mean,” he growled.
Her laugh was garbled and semihysterical, but she obeyed. She did cruel things to his trapezius muscles, turning snarling pit bulls into docile golden retrievers.
The final act was a merciless grip of all four fingertips of both hands into the muscles at the base of his skull. She held him in a dull headache for what felt like ten minutes before the pain evaporated into a sensation of sunshine dawning after a long, harsh winter.
She speared her fingers into his hair and erased his memory of pain, leaving the tranquil buzz he’d only previously experienced postcoitally.
“Take your time rising and dressing.” Her voice sounded throaty and laden with desire, causing a fresh rush of heat into his groin. “Drink some water.”
He couldn’t move. Wait. He picked up his head, but the door was already closing behind her.
He felt drugged as he sat up, peeved that he hadn’t asked her name. Probably for the best. He looked down at his lap, as ready for sex as he’d ever been.
If she could put him through his paces with a massage, what would sex with her be like?
The strong tug between his thighs told him thoughts like that were unhelpful.
As he pulled on his robe, he resented the hell out of his position. Curse tradition and snobbery and an illness that had put the future on his doorstep. Ten years ago, he could have had an affair with a spa worker and no one would have known or cared.
Once he’d moved back into the palace, he’d had to become more circumspect in his choices, but he still could have managed a fling with someone whose connections were less prestigious than his own. There would have been blowback, but an affair wasn’t marriage.
That’s what Rhys had to court now, though. Any relationship he started would have to be taken to the finish line. Was he really going to go against the grain with a pool-girl masseuse? Refuse to do his duty to his brother and the crown in favor of appeasing his libido?
He cursed, annoyed. One dinner was all he was after, before he made the rounds through the more expected choices of potential brides. Was that so much to ask? One evening to get to know her before he was forced to settle?
It was a selfish rationalization he shouldn’t even contemplate.
He poured a cup of water from the cistern and threw it back like a shot of scotch. As he kicked into his sandals by the door, he almost mistook the speck on the tiles for a spider, but no.
He bent and touched his fingertip to it, picking up the silhouette of a woman’s shoe, just like the one that had been coming off her toe. Huh.
Pinching it between his finger and thumb, he tucked it deep into the pocket of his robe, considering.
Flushed and confused, Sopi hurried to get as far away from the prince as possible, all the way to the other end of the building, where the service entrance to the kitchen was located. She stood on the back stoop in the cold dusk, trying to bring herself back under control.
She had provided a lot of massages, usually to women, but many to men, and had never once felt so affected by the experience. It hadn’t been lascivious, either. It had been…elemental. She’d never become so entranced by a deep and genuine yearning to ease and soothe and heal. Yet touching him had been stimulating, too, keeping her in a state of alert readiness. Like petting a giant cat.
Or a man in peak condition who appealed to her on a primitive level.
She could have stroked her hands over him for hours, like a sculptor lovingly sanding her creation to a fine polish. In those last seconds before she’d asked him to roll over, she had felt a strong urge to splay herself atop him. Blanket him with her body while soaking in his essence.
Truthfully, she’d been lost in her world at that point and had been shocked back to reality when he declined to turn faceup.
I have to cut it short before it turns into something else.
She’d been stunned. Embarrassed that she’d aroused him, but shaken and inflamed by the idea. All the banked sexual energy she’d been suppressing as she administered the massage had suddenly engulfed her
