by Nancy Warren
“It’s the most depressing thing I’ve ever seen,” she agreed. Then after a minute she said, “But the acting’s amazing.”
“You enjoying the movie at all?”
“No. I like uplifting stories with happy endings.”
“Me, too.” He thought for a second. “Or a lot of action.”
“Do you think that makes us shallow people?”
“Probably. But well-adjusted.”
For something to do he started turning over the items in the gift basket. He opened the mixed nuts and offered her some, then took a handful and while he was munching, pulled out the massage oil. “Chamomile and bergamot. Cool.” He tossed the bottle in the air and caught it. “I had a girlfriend who was totally into reflexology. I could give you a foot massage if you like.” He glanced at the screen. “It would be a lot less depressing than this movie.”
She glanced up at him. Her face was scrubbed free of cosmetics and her hair had had the style damped out of it. He thought she was one of the prettiest women he’d ever seen. “You can give a foot massage?”
“Yep. Pretty good one. You game? I feel like I owe you something for interrupting your bath.”
“I’d rather do that than watch any more of this movie,” she agreed.
He was more than happy to flip off the depressathon and crawl onto the bed beside her.
“Normally, I’d soak your feet in warm water and Epsom salts, but I guess you were soaking them in the tub, so we can skip that part.”
He jumped off the bed and went to the bathroom, returning with one of the thick, fluffy bath towels the hotel provided.
He settled the towel under her feet, then poured some of the massage oil into his hands. Lifting her left foot, he spread the oil carefully, then, starting at her ankle, ran his hands in long, smooth strokes to her toes. He did this over and over, as Melinda had taught him, until the oil was warm under his hands and he could feel the skin and muscles in her feet begin to warm and soften.
She even had beautiful feet, he noted. Shapely and long, but they were hard-working feet, too. He felt the gnarled spots and calluses where she stood on them all day. She’d left the toe ring at home and he sort of missed it.
Starting with the top of her foot, he worked between the tendons, then he moved to the sole of her foot, running his thumbs in slow, firm circles around the pressure points, one at a time.
She was a little stiff with him at first, but as the massage continued and he clearly wasn’t trying to touch anything but her feet, he felt her relax and give herself over to him.
“Oh, that’s wonderful,” she moaned at one point.
“People don’t realize how much stress they place on their feet, especially people like you who stand a lot.”
He found her most sensitive spots were on the balls of her feet, so he put extra effort there, rubbing and smoothing.
He was on the outer part of the ball of her left foot, rubbing, when he felt a constriction and she sighed. “That feels so good.”
“You know what part of the body that corresponds to according to the foot reflexology chart?”
“What?” Her voice was a sexy murmur.
“The heart.”
She opened her eyes and regarded him. “Are you saying my heart’s in pain?”
“No. Confused maybe.”
She chuckled. “Maybe.”
“Your foot could be telling you that Philippe’s not the man for you.”
“A foot can tell you so much?”
“You’d be surprised.”
And if he was as lucky as Philippe, he sure as hell wouldn’t be wasting his time in France while a woman like Chelsea was a continent away getting her feet rubbed by another man.
If Frenchie didn’t watch out, he was going to be ousted by some good old American grit and determination.
12
WHY ON EARTH HAD SHE let David come near her with a bottle of massage oil? Chelsea wondered in horror. It wasn’t like he was touching her sexually, because all the man was doing was rubbing her feet, but somehow there seemed to be a strange correlation between her toes and more intimate regions of her body.
Warmth was spreading where warmth had no business spreading. And it wasn’t in her foot.
Him and his damn foot-map. He probably had the clitoris spot memorized and he was working it for all he was worth.
Certainly, he seemed intent on his task. His black hair flopped forward on his forehead in a way that made her long to brush it back. His entire focus was on the bottom of her feet and she had to admit it felt good. Far too good.
She watched him, his hands slick with oil, his long fingers working with steady strength. She’d never known she carried so much tension in her feet or that it could feel so good to have that tension relieved. Except that it only seemed to move the tension to other parts of her body.
As though he were aware of her growing excitement, even as she tried to hide it, she felt his hands begin to move, slowly sweeping up and over her ankles, pushing the sweatpants up a little as he did so.
“You feel so good,” he said with a note of huskiness that told her he was as turned on as she was.
“You give a good massage.”
“If the insurance thing doesn’t pan out, it’s good to know I’ve got a backup career.” He pushed her sweats up even higher.
“What are you doing?” she whispered.
“Hell if I know, but I can’t seem to keep my hands off you. If you tell me to stop, I’ll go spend the night in the tub.”
His fingers were magical, making her crazy with desire, and this was only from stroking her feet and lower legs. She could barely think straight.
“What about the rules?” she managed to ask.
His lovely, slick hands paused and she wanted, like a cat, to rub herself against him until he stroked her once more. “I’ve got a new rule that says the rules only apply in Philly.”
“So, once we get home, we go back to our own rooms?”
“If you want to.”
Dimly, she suspected this was a terrible idea, but she was only human, and he was altogether too amazing. So for one magical night she’d have him. “Okay,” she said. “For this one night, the rules don’t apply. But when we get back…”
“Got it.”
He eased her out of the sweats as easily as if she wore nothing but a peignoir. Off came the top and he made a little growling sound at the back of his throat. “I am so glad you’re wearing that crazy sexy lingerie,” he whispered. He leaned forward, kissed her breasts through the filmy silk. Already aroused, she found herself almost embarrassingly excited as his mouth closed around her nipple.
She wrapped her arms around him, ran her hands down his back and into his hair, all the places she’d wanted to touch him were hers to explore for this one no-rules-apply night. Her body felt light, magical, sizzling with desires and needs she’d been tamping down for all of the days and nights she’d been sharing his life, his home, everything but his bed.
His hands tracked down her belly with barely controlled haste. She smiled to herself, glad his actions suggested he’d been wanting her as badly as she’d been wanting him.
He began kissing his way up her legs, when suddenly he reared up. “Hell. I didn’t pack condoms. I mean, I thought about it, but I didn’t want you thinking anything.” He stared up at her. “I guess we could just—”
“I think there are some in the romance gift basket,” she said. She’d found them earlier when she’d unpacked the champagne and tucked them deep into the basket.
He snorted with laughter, but she heard the relief, as well. “Damn, I love this hotel.”
He rose and she watched him rummage through the basket and retrieve a duo of condom packs, then he picked up the box of matches and began lighting some of the candles that had been placed around the bath, moving them to the bedside tables and leaving several around the bath, so the room flickered with the soft, romantic glow of candlelight.
He returned
to the bed, stripped off his clothes with impressive speed, and then settled himself beside her.
She had the impression of strong shoulders, a hairier chest than she’d imagined and an impressive erection, before he was so close that feeling took over for seeing.
He began touching her, stroking her, everywhere from her shoulders to her belly to her thighs.
His hands were still a little oily, and they left tiny patches of sparkle that lit with candlelight where he touched her.
Kissing her deeply, tormenting both of them, his touch grew more intimate. Slipping under the wisp of silk at her crotch, he began to play with her, taking her up, up, impossibly up. “You are so beautiful,” he breathed into her ear.
While he caressed her, she took her own tour of his body, loving the hard belly, the even harder erection that sprang into her hands as she stroked him softly.
When they couldn’t stand tormenting each other any longer, he stripped off her panties and she unsnapped her bra and then naked they rolled together. It wasn’t as though he entered her or she guided him inside, it was as though they simply fit together, as easily and naturally as though they’d been together for years.
Except that this was brand-new.
“Oh, you feel so good,” she said, as he began to move, stroking her inside, pushing her to the limit.
“You have no idea,” he muttered. They were side by side and he hooked her leg high over his hip so he could reach between them and play with her clit. Deciding to do a little playing of her own, she took his balls gently in hand, making him groan. They teased and played, and knowing they only had one night made them both want to take every second they could, she thought. They rocked back and forth, driving each other higher. Their breathing grew ragged, she felt the sweat build on his skin, and then suddenly he flipped her to her back, driving up and hard into her until her head fell back and she cried out as her climax swamped her.
Moments later he echoed her cry and then slowed his pace, stroking her through her aftershocks.
A little later, once their heart rates had returned to normal, he reached for the second condom package, flipping it up in the air and catching it like a coin. She almost expected him to call “Heads or tails?” Instead he glanced at her with the trace of a wicked smile. “Only one left.”
She reached up and snatched it out of his hand. “Then let’s make the most of it,” she said, and taking matters into her own hands, she did.
CHELSEA HAD NO IDEA what time she finally fell asleep, only knew she’d actually been asleep when she wakened and for a second couldn’t think where she was, or with whom.
Clearly she was in bed with a man, that much she could tell from the warm weight of a body pressed against her back and the amazing contentment of a woman who’s had a night of great sex. She felt sleep-deprived and gloriously well-used. His arm was around her with the casual intimacy of lovers, his long fingers cupping her naked breast. He was sleeping, his warm breath wafting against the nape of her neck.
She leaned back against him, enjoying the lazy warmth of his body, and noticing the morning erection prominent against her hip.
As the night came back to her in detail, she considered waking him with her mouth, but it was morning, their one night was over and if she had any hope of walking away from this guy, she had to get back to the very sensible rules she’d instituted.
Even if he felt amazing and she wanted him with every cell of her tired body.
One more moment she gave herself to enjoy the fantasy that he was hers, then carefully she began to disengage herself, sliding out from under his arm so she almost fell onto the floor.
She rose carefully, but he was still asleep, a slight smile on his face. How boyish he looked when he was unconscious. It was all she could do not to smooth back the hair flopped onto his forehead and kiss him softly. Instead, she crept to the bathroom, where she showered and prepared for the day.
DAVID SMELLED THE FRAGRANT scents of a woman on the pillow. He woke slowly, wondering where the woman who smelled so good had disappeared to, and as his faculties sharpened, he realized he was sleeping on Chelsea’s side of the bed. And that there was a very satisfied smile glued to his face.
He’d known from the moment they first kissed at the dinner where he’d introduced her as his fiancée that he and she would have chemistry. But he’d had no idea. The woman was hot; she gave and took pleasure with honest enjoyment.
Even after a night where they’d worked around the limited supply of condoms by pleasuring each other with mouths and hands, he still wanted her.
Her and her damn rules. When this thing was over and she no longer lived with him, then maybe they could forget about the rules and have some fun.
It was something to look forward to.
By the time she emerged from the bathroom, fully dressed, made up and hair done, he’d put coffee on and scanned the day’s agenda.
He wasn’t entirely sure how to greet her, a fiancée who wasn’t, a lover who was—at her insistence—a one-night stand. Did they go back to the casual way they’d acted together before? Was there need for one of those horrendous “talks”?
He glanced up, their gazes connected and heat and sizzle arced across the space between them, pulling him to her with no thought at all.
He kissed her. She tasted toothpasty and cool, but he felt the heat simmering beneath, waiting to bubble over.
She started to melt into him, and his cock rose immediately, nudging her to attention.
Even as he started to pull her back toward the bed, she resisted and pulled away. He saw that her color was heightened and that her lips were swollen and wet from their kiss.
She pressed them together as though trying to clamp down on her own passion. Then she showed him a bright, happy face. “That was great last night. I had a really good time.”
He couldn’t believe it. It was such a guy line. His line!
The subtext was clear as he knew from delivering some version of the same line countless times in the past. Thanks for a few laughs and some good sex, and don’t expect anything more.
Which left him stuck with mumbling, “Yeah, me, too.” Which somehow didn’t begin to express how great it had been.
But he could play the casual game, he’d been playing it for years. He handed her the schedule.
“Good news, honey,” he said with false heartiness. “You’ve got your choice of a photography session or flower arranging.”
“Well, it’s nice of them to invite spouses, it must cost the company a lot of money.”
“Haven’t you heard? Significant others are our support network. You’re part of the success of this company, too.”
She thought about it for a moment, pouring coffee for both of them as though she did it every day.
“I guess that makes sense in an odd way. I mean, if you’re married, you need someone you trust to bounce things off. Somebody who looks after you when you’re sick and helps you pick out tasteful ties.”
“Tasteful ties? Are you speaking metaphorically?”
She gave him a pitying glance, fashionista to fudster. “No.”
“What’s wrong with my ties?”
“Nothing that a woman of taste couldn’t fix.”
“Huh.”
“But I’m not that person in your life. Obviously.”
He was certain she’d brought up the tie thing to keep them from falling back into bed, but he had to ask. “Do you like any of my ties?”
“Not any that I’ve seen so far.”
“Maybe you don’t have any taste in menswear.”
“That could be it,” she said in a tone calculated to make him feel like a big zero in the fashion department.
“I try to look young.”
“Juvenile is young, I suppose.” She smiled brightly at him, but the humor was definitely of the laughing at him rather than with him kind.
He had to go or he’d drill down and figure out what exactly was wrong with his ties. Juvenile? He w
anted to be a VP, juvenile ties were not going to help. If it was his sister talking he’d ignore her, but Chelsea wasn’t the kind of person to shake a man’s confidence for no reason, and no one could look at her and doubt her fashion sense.
Over a business breakfast, he found himself glad this wasn’t a tie-wearing occasion or he’d have kept his suit jacket on and his shoulders hunched.
They worked steadily through the morning, and at the break he walked by the lobby gift shops. They were linked stores, sort of like an arcade where one merged into another. He’d noted the menswear shop before idly, the way he’d notice an umbrella stand. Now, though, he headed into the shop the way he’d bolt for the umbrella stand in a downpour. Only to look, he told himself. Did ties come with age ranges? He’d always been so afraid of looking like one of his father’s colleagues that he’d gone for bright colors, and avoided anything in maroon or with stripes on principle.
Had he gone too far? It wasn’t like all his ties featured Disney characters. Maybe Chelsea simply didn’t have a sense of humor.
He pored over the display case of men’s ties—paisleys and dots and stripes and ensigns in colors ranging from bright yellow to black.
“Is there anything I can help you with, sir?” a well-dressed clerk asked him.
“No, thanks, just looking.” He was paralyzed with indecision, his confidence so shaken that he knew he couldn’t purchase a scrap of silk to hang around his neck without Chelsea’s approval. And maybe a short training course so he’d know what to look for in future.
Wandering out of the men’s store led him into a boutique featuring high-end giftware, fancy china and jewelry. A display case of rings caught his eye and he found himself peering down into a forest of engagement rings.
There were diamond solitaires matched with wedding bands, rows on rows of them like a platoon of little sparkling soldiers. How could there be so many variations of something so simple? And how would a man who couldn’t even manage to pick out a decent tie ever figure out how to please a woman who was to be his wife?
He suspected that he wouldn’t be the kind of man to offer a ring on bended knee. If he ever got married, which wouldn’t be for a long time yet, he imagined his intended would pick herself out something and he’d put it on his credit card. That’s what Suzanne had done. Not the most romantic scenario perhaps, but he and his only actual fiancée had agreed that if a woman had to wear that ring for the rest of her married life, she should get something she liked.
