by Jo Leigh
His lips touched hers and she closed her eyes, abandoning herself to sensation. His arm went around her back, and he brought her closer, branding her with his kiss. Hot, moist, thrilling. She found herself kissing him back, wanting more and more. Snaking her hand around his neck to hold him good and steady while she teased and was teased in return.
Giddy and trembling, she felt him explore her more deeply. Tasting him so intimately, his scent all around her, and the feel of his hand on her back was perfect. The kiss was something entirely different, entirely wonderful. Steven had kissed her with his mouth so wide open she felt as though she would fall in. But Jack, he knew the exact amount of pressure, when to ease up, when to nip her lower lip. This wasn’t like any kissing she’d known before. This was heaven. And all she wanted was more.
He shifted again, moving closer, so his body and hers touched from lips to knees. And then he moved his hand down her back, his touch making her quiver.
He pulled his head back, breaking the kiss, forcing her to gaze into his eyes. To see the desire there. The need. And when she couldn’t stand it another second, he leaned forward to kiss her again, only something went wrong. He stumbled forward, knocking into her, grabbing the back of her sweatshirt with his free hand. She tried to hold him steady, but her foot got caught on the exercise mat, and she almost fell. In the nick of time he moved his cane and got his balance.
She started to laugh until she saw his face. He looked utterly humiliated. His cheeks and forehead red with shame, his gaze casting about for a safe place to look. His whole body rigid with mortification.
“Jack?”
He gripped the head of his cane with both hands, and turned away from her.
“It’s okay. It was just a little slip, that’s all.”
He didn’t answer her, and she knew she’d better shut up, even though she wasn’t at all clear why such a little thing should bother him so much. It was enough to know it did.
She watched him walk away, his limp more pronounced than ever with his posture so stiff and un-yielding. All the electricity that had swirled inside her just a moment ago drained away. The perfect kiss had turned into the perfect tragedy, and she wasn’t sure why or what she could do about it. Her instinct was to help him, but in this case, in his case, she knew that leaving him alone was the best thing she could do.
Such a shame. Such a damn shame. He’d touched something very deep inside her with that kiss. Something she’d never felt before. As if he’d lit a pilot light, destined to burn for a long time. Waiting to be stoked into a blaze. A blaze that would never come.
He wasn’t going to kiss her again. She felt sure of that. And she didn’t know if she had the guts to initiate it herself. Probably not. She’d never been brazen like that. It had shocked her to pieces that she’d hidden his beer. That she’d stood up to his anger. There was no way she could stand up to his shame.
Sighing, she went into the kitchen, dragging a chair behind her. She climbed on the chair so she could reach the cupboard above the refrigerator and get his beer. All of it. And then she slowly climbed down. The game was over before it had really begun. Just her luck.
She put the bottles in the fridge, wishing she was smarter. Some women knew instinctively how to handle situations like this, she was sure of it.
As she returned the chair to the dining-room table, she saw Jack come back to the living room. He didn’t look at her. Not even a glance. Instead, he went over to the exercise mat.
For a moment she thought he was going to kick it. To send it flying against the far wall. But that was not what happened.
He leaned to his right, very heavily on his cane. It took her a minute to realize he was sitting down. She had to close her eyes, though. The simple act of kneeling was something monumental. A struggle of balance and fortitude.
She never should have pushed him. She had no business sticking her nose where it didn’t belong. When she heard his stifled groan, she cringed.
Finally she opened her eyes again. Jack had made it down all the way. He sat, looking uncomfortable and awkward, on the mat, legs straight out in front of him.
He bent forward. He didn’t get very far. His hands hovered over his legs, just below his knees, for a count of two and then he straightened for another count of two. Repeating the motion, he got a tiny bit farther. But he was doing it too quickly. Each move should have lasted for the count of ten.
She wondered if she should go to him. Would offering her assistance make things worse? Would he give up entirely?
Oh, what the hell. Things couldn’t get much worse. The least she could do was help him make the exercises count.
He looked up at her as she slowly approached him, but it was just a quick glare. Clearly she wasn’t very high on his hit parade at the moment. She pasted a smile on and went to kneel next to him on the floor.
Jack just kept bending forward and straightening. One-two, one-two. Hailey put her hand gently on his back.
“I don’t need your help,” he said, his voice as cold as the ice in the fridge.
“Well, yeah, you do,” she said as gently as possible. “You’re going too fast. You need to count to five each time.”
He didn’t move for a long while. Way past five. She didn’t remove her hand. She simply waited. Then he inhaled and stretched forward, and she counted to herself. One, two, three, four, five. He sat straight again, exhaling, and rested for another count of five.
“Okay,” she said, “that’s good. But this time, exhale as you make the stretch.”
She listened to his breath, felt his back expand and contract as he bent again. “Good, that’s good,” she whispered. Ten more times, he did the same exercise, and each time he did it perfectly. She counted with him, exhaled when he did, coaxed him past his comfort zone. Then she moved down to the base of the mat, where his feet were. He had his boots on, the only footwear he’d taken with him. She pulled them off one at a time. “Lay back,” she said.
He did. Without complaint and without any conversation, either. It wasn’t right. But she didn’t know how to change things.
Lifting his right foot, she brought it up, close to her chest. “Exhale,” she said, and then she pushed forward, bending his leg and pushing it back toward his chest.
He grimaced with the pain of the movement and stopped breathing altogether. She held his leg in the farthest extension for five, then slowly, to the count of ten, straightened it. “Remember, breath out on the effort.”
Again she moved his leg, stretching damaged and weak muscles where they didn’t want to go. Each time, he got better at breathing and it appeared to hurt him less. Until she moved to the other leg, when the pain cycle repeated itself. By the time they were through, he had a sheen of sweat on his brow, and his arms and legs were more mush than muscle.
“Roll over,” she said.
He quirked his head. “I don’t have any exercises on my stomach.”
“I know. Just do it.”
He did, his body so uncooperative that he rolled off the mat completely, then had to inch his way back. She stood up and went into her bedroom. Her parents’ bedroom, actually, but where she was sleeping. She got one of the feather pillows and a bottle of lotion and then returned to him. Before she sat again, she peeked at Megan. She expected to find her asleep, she’d been so quiet. But she wasn’t. Her eyelids drooped and her thumb-sucking lacked enthusiasm, but her gaze was focused on Animaniacs. Hailey went over and gave her a little kiss on the top of the head. Megan looked up briefly, but the TV called her immediately back.
When Hailey turned to Jack, she watched his back rise and fall rapidly. He was winded. Struggling to calm down. The workout had been just that. The guy needed a break and she intended to give it to him.
She got down again, only this time, she straddled his butt, making sure not to rest her weight on him. “Take off your shirt,” she said.
“I don’t want a massage,” he said.
“Sure you do.”
�
�Hailey, I—”
She put her hand on his back again, stilling his protest. “It’ll help, big guy. Trust me.”
He grabbed the bottom of his polo shirt and tugged it up. She put the pillow under his head and then she pulled the shirt off the rest of the way.
“Now, concentrate on breathing,” she said softly, using her massage voice. The one that put most of her clients to sleep. “Go deep with each breath, and picture healing light going to your hips and legs.”
She squirted some lotion into her hands and rubbed them together to make them warm. Then she leaned forward and began the massage.
Of course, he tensed immediately. She’d been expecting that. Especially after the kiss. But she didn’t ease up, not an iota. All her techniques came back to her, even though she hadn’t used this particular skill in years. Long slow strokes up and down the length of his back, warming his smooth skin. He felt so good under her hands, so firm, so muscular. Her goal was to ease the knots in his muscles, relax the tension centered in his shoulder blades. Get his circulation pumping so his body could heal itself.
Ten minutes into it, he finally relaxed. She had the feeling if he hadn’t been so tired, he would have fought her until the cows came home, but she had the advantage. He simply didn’t have the energy to keep from feeling good.
She moved her hands down, to the small of his back, and used her knuckles to knead his flesh. Deeper and deeper, using her body weight as a lever. He moaned, but it was a good moan. She could tell the difference. Then she went back up to his shoulders, and she rubbed and stroked and used every trick in her arsenal to give him pleasure and relief.
She became mesmerized by her own movements, by the sheen of his skin beneath her. Her breathing slowed as she rode him, touching his bottom lightly with each forward push, then rising with the backward pull. It became a dance, a sensuous tango of bare skin and lotion.
Her thoughts took a turn, first to the memory of his lips on hers and then way beyond. If he was on his back. Naked. And she was naked, riding him like this, rubbing him like this. Feeling him inside her as she moved her hips up and down.
She closed her eyes, swept away on a tide of eroticism. Heat swirled at the junction of her thighs as the urge to find a relief of her own built and built.
He moaned again and she smiled, knowing she had still another trick up her sleeve. If Megan wasn’t there, if they were alone…
“Hailey.” His hand on hers. Stilling her. “Hailey.”
“What’s wrong?” she asked, afraid she’d hurt him without realizing it.
“Stop now. Stop.”
“But—”
“For God’s sake, woman, you’re killing me.”
She pulled her hands away, not understanding how she could be hurting him. And then it dawned on her that she wasn’t hurting him physically. At least not his old wounds. But somehow the tide that had carried her away had swept him up, too.
She stood up and walked into the kitchen, embarrassed that she’d been so transparent, so blatant. That her thoughts had become so X-rated. It had never happened to her before, not even when she’d massaged that gorgeous Rocket guard.
Jack still lay on his stomach, his head cradled in his arms now, instead of the pillow. She got one of his beers from the fridge and opened it. He didn’t move at all as she came back to stand next to him. “Hey,” she said.
He grunted.
“I have something for you.”
He opened one eye and peeked up at her. When he saw the beer, he gave her a grudging grin. “I didn’t do it for the beer.”
“Now, Jack. Once I’ve put lotion on a person’s back, it means we have to tell the truth to each other.”
“I am,” he said, pushing himself up to a sitting position and taking the beer from her. He took a big swig, then made a face. “This isn’t cold.”
“You want me to get you some ice?”
“Ice? In beer?”
“Sorry,” she said, “I didn’t realize I was suggesting blasphemy.”
“Ice in beer,” he said again, shaking his head as if she’d just suggested they walk on the moon.
“So why’d you do it, big guy? If not for the beer?”
His face grew serious as he looked up at her. “You know.”
She thought she might, but she wasn’t sure. Was it the kiss? The promise of more?
“I did it because you asked me to.”
The fluttery sensation came back to her stomach, and she felt her cheeks heat with embarrassed pleasure. “That’s nice. We’ll do it again tomorrow. Only this time, I won’t hide your beer.”
He took in a deep breath, and she could see he was thinking how much he didn’t want to agree. But he nodded. Then he did a surprising thing—he held out his free hand. “Give a cripple a boost?” he joked.
“That’s not funny,” she said, taking his hand and pulling him to his feet.
“Right,” he said. “I forgot. I’m differently-abled. Or has it changed to something more politically correct since I last looked?”
“I don’t see you as a label, Jack. Not even when I’m teasing.”
“No? How do you see me?”
He was so close to her she could see the tiny flecks of gold in his dark brown eyes. She could smell the scent of the lotion on his back and shoulders. Her gaze dropped to his chest, not so much to check him out as to break away from his intense questioning gaze. It proved to be an extraordinary distraction. He was a beautifully built man. Just the perfect amount of muscle and dark hair. Next time she must remember to start her massage before he rolled over.
“Is it that bad?”
She looked up, realizing she hadn’t answered his question. “How do I see you?” she repeated, thinking about her answer. “Enigmatic. Strong. Smart. And wounded.”
“That last thing was kind of obvious, no?”
She shook her head. “I’m not talking about the bullet.”
His hand still rested on her arm. He moved it to her face, a gentle caress with his warm palm across her cheek. “Don’t do that,” he said softly. “I know you want to fix the world, but some things are so broken they can’t ever be fixed.”
“You’d be surprised,” she whispered, held fast by his gaze, by the world of hurt she saw there.
“No, I wouldn’t. I know a few things, Hailey. Not many, but a few. And I know that if and when I can walk normally again, I won’t ever be the man you think I can be.”
“How do you know what I think?”
His lips curled into a smile. “It’s all right there, kiddo. Right on that pretty face. All the fairy tales are in your eyes, and there’s not a thing you can do to hide it.”
She turned away, but his hand captured her chin. Forcing her once more to look at him.
“Someday you’ll find the right guy,” he said. “The lucky bastard.”
She took his hand away. “Now who’s being naive?”
He pointed to his cane and she got it for him. After another swig from his warm beer, he leaned away so he wasn’t touching her anymore. A swirl of disappointment hit, surprising her in its acuteness. She’d liked being there for him to lean on. She’d liked it very much.
“Look who’s come up from the land of Merry Melodies,” Jack said, pointing with his chin.
She looked over to see Megan and Tottie, standing up on the leather chair, peeking over the top. “Hi there.”
“Tottie’s hungry,” Megan said.
“Hmm. How about you? Are you hungry, too?”
Megan nodded.
“Any requests?”
Megan nodded again.
“What?”
“I want a hot dog.”
“Now that sounds delicious,” Hailey said, crossing to the chair. She kissed Megan on the forehead. “One hot dog, coming right up.”
“Can Tottie have a beer?”
Hailey laughed. “A beer? She’s too young to drink a beer.”
Megan sighed, accepting defeat graciously. But she didn’t laug
h. She hadn’t laughed at all during her cartoon marathon. Or when Hailey had teased her this morning. The little girl and the big strong man had more in common than they knew. Both of them had lost something precious. Both of them needed so much to believe in something again. To see a future that wasn’t all shadows and fog.
She didn’t think she could help the man, but there was no way she was going to give up on the little girl. “Would you like to help me make lunch?”
Megan nodded, then turned to climb down from the chair. She walked over to Jack and looked up at him. “Are you going to help, too?”
He appeared puzzled and not just a little panicked. “Uh, sure.”
She held out her hand. Her tiny hand. He set his beer bottle on the end table, then took that little hand in his, swallowing it whole. Megan led him to the kitchen.
Hailey had to blink awfully fast to stop the tears that threatened. She was such a sentimental fool.
Chapter Eleven
Hailey glanced at Jack, who was on the phone. He had a soda instead of a beer and that was a good sign. She turned back to Megan and the same game they always played. Actually, in the past few months, Megan had been more interested in other things, but since her father’s death, all she wanted was Tottie and the quilt.
The game was more of a story than anything else, with Hailey asking questions about the pictures. Who was Mrs. Bee? Where did the little girl walk? What was this letter, that number? It was a very clever approach to teaching, and it seemed such a comfort to Megan that Hailey didn’t mind repeating the stories time and time again. Although it occurred to Hailey that it was a rather sad story. The little girl was alone, with no one to help her. Maybe that was why Megan was so attached to it. Because she was alone, too.
It was hard to concentrate on the little one when she wanted to hear Jack’s conversation. It was his friend, Bob Dorran, and she felt sure he’d uncovered something about Roy. She shouldn’t call him that. His name was Barry. Barry Strangis. Which brought up the question of why he’d changed his name. Lots of people had troubled pasts without going to such extreme measures. Why had he gotten himself into so much trouble that he’d left his only daughter an orphan?
