St. Cyr, my boss who’d inspired me and irritated me in equal measure, who was way out of my league and didn’t see me as anything more than someone he could casually flirt with, and perhaps casually sleep with, and casually forget, was naked beneath my hands. And I feared if I showed a moment of weakness, he might roll over and devour me. I pictured a lion devouring a gazelle in a documentary, the flashing jaws digging into the meat and sinew.
If he felt my hands shaking... All he had to do was turn around on the table and pull me down hard against him in a savage kiss.
Don’t think about it, I told myself fiercely. Flexing my fingers, I poured oil in one palm then rubbed my hands together to warm them. Slowly, I lowered them to his back.
Edward’s skin was warm, like satin. I heard the soft whir of the nearby space heater as I ran my hands down the length of his spine, feeling the smoothness of his skin over hard muscle.
I wondered what his naked body would feel like, pressed against my own.
Muscles. I tried not to think of him as a dangerous man I was longing to kiss, but focus instead on the individual parts of his body, muscles, the tendons, the ligaments. I tried to see him only as a patient.
Yes. A patient. Just a body, like a machine. Tissues connected to ligaments connected to muscles. Cells.
Not an amazing masculine body, rippled with muscles and power, attached to the soul of the man who’d teased and challenged me for the past seven-and-a-half weeks as I lived in his castle. The man I thought of before I slept, aware of his bedroom down the hall from mine.
As I ran my hands down the trapezius muscles of his upper back, I tried to calm the rapid beat of my heart. I looked across the room, past all the shiny, modern exercise equipment and weights and yoga mats. Outside the windows, the noonday sun was peeking through the clouds, a soft pink through the bare black trees, leaving patterns and shadows across the winter-bare garden.
But as I stroked and rubbed Edward beneath my palms, I felt hot as summer. I closed my eyes, trying not to imagine what it would be like if he were my lover. How it would feel to sink into the pleasure I imagined he’d give me. Afterward my soul might be ash, but I’d finally know the exhilaration of the fire.
For all these years, I’d guarded both my body and my heart, afraid of ever again feeling the pain of losing someone or something I cared about. But it turned out I hadn’t really managed to shield myself from pain. Could anyone?
Sadness and ash came into life anyway. People died. People broke your heart.
Edward sighed. “That feels great.”
“I’m glad,” I said hoarsely. Dripping more richly scented oil onto his skin, I rubbed the length of his back in silence, the long muscles of his legs, one at a time, to the soles of his feet. Then I lifted the towel a few inches above his body. “Roll over.”
He didn’t move. “It’s, um, not necessary.”
“Of course it is.” It was difficult to stand there holding the towel away from his naked backside and not look. My tone was waspish. “I have to do your other side. Do you want your muscles to be lopsided? Your back relaxed, your front all stiff?”
“Um...”
“For heaven’s sake, just turn over!”
So he did. Exhaling with relief, I gingerly tossed the towel over his front for modesty.
And I saw that his front side was, indeed, stiff. My eyes went wide.
Oh my God, was that—him?
I’d never seen any man naked before. I wasn’t seeing him naked now, just the shape of him jutting from his body, almost pornographically explicit beneath the white terry cloth towel, cylindrical and huge. Were all men that large? My cheeks burned, but I stared down at him, fascinated, unable to look away.
Then I felt Edward’s gaze. “I took you for a virgin, but you truly don’t have any experience at all, do you?”
“I’ve had lots,” I lied. Our eyes met, and my shoulders sagged. “If you mean work. With men—none.”
“Not even with Jason?” he said incredulously. “No experience with sex, of any kind?”
The burn of my cheeks had turned radioactive now, and I couldn’t meet his gaze. “I’ve been kissed once or twice.”
“You’re twenty-eight!”
“I know,” I snapped. To hide my embarrassment, I turned away to grab the oil. He’d had a purely physical reaction, I told myself, the automatic response of his hungry male body to the touch of any female. It wasn’t that he wanted me. Not in particular. It couldn’t be.
Could it?
I did a quick comparison between his perfectly chiseled body, his power and wealth and his incredible masculine good looks—and what I had on offer.
Nope.
If you lose an inch of moral high ground, rush back to it as quick as you can, Mrs. Warreldy-Gribbley advised. Clearing my throat, I said reproachfully. “Keep this professional, please.”
“You first,” he said, sounding amused. Leaning his head back against his palms, he closed his eyes, and I remembered how he’d caught me staring.
Feeling foolish, I tentatively massaged the muscles of his chest, his arms, his shoulders. I was gentle with the injuries that still hadn’t completely healed, but even those were starting to disappear. He was no longer wearing bandages of any kind. There was nothing to keep my hands off his skin as I traced over the twisted muscles, the jagged scars. He was powerful, virile, sexy. He’d nearly vanquished the accident that had devastated his body. Heaven only knew what gaping wound still remained in his heart.
I looked down at him on the massage table. His eyes were still closed, but there was a twist to his lips I couldn’t read.
“What are you thinking?” I blurted out. I bit my lip, but there was no taking it back.
His dark blue eyes slit open infinitesimally.
“A dangerous question,” he murmured. “Better perhaps for you not to know.”
Was he thinking about the accident? The woman? Or something else entirely? “That’s silly.” I gave a stilted laugh. “Knowledge is never bad.”
“In that case...” His lips curved sardonically. “I am thinking, Miss Maywood, that it would be amusing to seduce you.”
A shiver ripped through my body. Wide-eyed, I stepped back from the massage table. “I work for you.”
“So?”
“I’m—in love with someone else,” I said weakly.
He abruptly sat up. “Not that it matters, but...” He lifted a dark eyebrow. “Are you sure?”
I stared at him. “Of course I’m sure.”
“You saw their picture, two movie stars gleaming
