by Jess Dee
“Well, I came for a reason. But I think I’d rather sit here and annoy you.”
“Congratulations. You’re doing a fine job.”
“Am I to assume you’re not going to tell me what happened?”
“Assume whatever you want.”
“Did you trip?”
“No.”
“Were you tackled?”
“Tackled?”
“You know, like when you play rugby and your opponent tackles you. Did you go down and twist your knee at the same time?”
“I don’t play rugby, and you ask a lot of questions.”
“I have to. You don’t give me much to work with.”
“For good reason.”
“Yeah, I know. You don’t want to talk about it.”
“Why did you come here?”
“Good diversionary tactic. Change the subject.”
“Amy…”
“I stopped off at the Sushi Train. Thought you might be in the mood for takeaway.”
“You got me California rolls?”
She pointed to the bag she’d set down earlier. “On the table.”
“With extra wasabi?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
A smile tugged the corners of his mouth. “Maybe you’re not as annoying tonight as I thought.”
“Is that a compliment?”
“It’s a reprieve.”
“So how did you hurt your leg?”
“Damn it, Morgan.” He lowered his foot gingerly to the floor and stood. “I’m going to get some water.”
As he inched his way to the kitchen, she called after him, “Careful you don’t slip.”
Daniel stopped dead and turned around with painstaking precision.
Oops.
“You took a chance coming here tonight.” Suspicion laced his tone. “How did you know I’d be home?”
“You told me yesterday?”
“I didn’t speak to you yesterday.”
“Instinct?”
“Lexi phoned you.”
Amy jumped up and hauled containers of food out of the bag. “I asked them to make you fresh rolls. I didn’t take any of the ready-made ones.”
“Your sole purpose in coming over here tonight was to make fun of me.”
“I came to comfort you. Lexi said you weren’t feeling well.”
“She did phone you. What else did she say?”
“Not much. Just that you’d had a, um…fall.” Her lips started to twitch, and she clamped a hand over her mouth.
“You know the whole story.”
“Not everything. I think Lexi gave me a watered-down version.”
He rolled his eyes. “Funny.”
“Okay, she may have slipped in a few extra details.”
“Yeah, yeah. Very cute.”
“Aw, what’s the matter? Is this conversation driving you batty?”
“Your humor gets worse every day.”
He disappeared into the kitchen, and by the time he returned with drinks, Amy was eating her second piece of sushi.
“Nice of you to wait.” Daniel hobbled to the couch.
“It was also nice of me to get the food in the first place. And visit an injured friend.”
He grinned. “It was nice. I’m sorry. I’m irritated with Lex. But you’re here, she’s not, and I took it out on you.”
“That’s okay.” She smiled. “I quite enjoyed your misery. How are you feeling now?”
“Not bad, I guess. My shoulder’s stiff.”
“Your shoulder? Lexi said she barely touched you when she took a swing at you.”
“She was just relieved she didn’t connect the bat with my head. D’ya want to see the bruise?”
Without waiting for an answer, Daniel whipped off his shirt and dropped onto the couch next to her. He twisted around so she could inspect his shoulder. And what a shoulder it was. Broad and smooth and muscular.
Amy’s mouth dried. Before she could help herself, she skimmed her hand over his shoulder, relishing its warm texture and contained strength.
She hadn’t touched him in a month. An electric fence between them couldn’t have stopped her from reaching out now.
“Can you see it?”
“Um…well, er…” She stared at his blemish-free shoulder. “No. I can’t see a thing.”
“Here, let me show you.” He reached his good arm around and grabbed her hand, pressing her palm down on the curve where his neck met his shoulder.
Amy almost groaned in pleasure.
“Yeah. Right there. Don’t push too hard. It’s tender.” He pulled his arm away, leaving her hand to cradle his neck.
She ran her palm over his hot flesh, sliding it along with a feather-soft touch. He felt wonderful. How would he taste? She leaned her head in and opened her mouth.
An inch before her tongue made contact, he asked, “See the bruise yet?”
She jerked away so fast she almost whacked her head on the back of the sofa. “Er…sorry, I still can’t see anything.”
“That’s odd. It’s throbbing.”
She throbbed, too. With awareness. She ached to touch him again, to run her hands over his body, face, lips. To kiss him. Dear Lord, she wanted to kiss him.
Crap.
All her well-laid plans to just be friends, and here she sat, quietly simmering with desire. “Tell you what.” Her voice was a breathless whisper. “Pass over those peas and let me put them on the tender area. The ice should help with the bruising.” The cold might also help bring her body temperature down below boiling point.
He had to foil her brilliant plan. “Actually, there’s anti-inflammatory cream next to the telly. Could you rub some into my neck?”
“Sure.”
She grabbed the small tube and squeezed a blob of cold gel onto her fingers. Quietly reluctant, she sat down behind him again, questioning her self-restraint. Could she work her hands over the muscles in his shoulders and stop there? Unlikely. There were plenty of other muscles packed into Daniel’s well-honed physique she wanted to get her hands on.
She warmed the gel before turning her attention to his invisible bruise. At least the medicinal smell reduced the temptation to take a bite of him. “Here?” She touched his neck lightly.
“A little lower.”
She gently massaged his neck and shoulder, trying her damnedest not to relish the feel of his skin. Velvet-covered steel. She kneaded the gel into knotted muscles, resisting the urge to follow the sinewy line down his back and onto his buttocks. The hard curve of his ass was just visible beneath his low-slung shorts. Visions raced through her mind of her massaging him there, rubbing and caressing before moving her hand around his hips until she found his cock.
She squeezed her hands into fists as she felt a tug of desire deep within. Shit, she shouldn’t feel this way. Not now, not when they’d come so far. They were really, truly, and honestly just friends again.
So why was she so arou—
“Ouch.” Daniel’s wince of pain brought her crashing back to reality. Her fist was clenched around his shoulder.
“Oh God. Sorry.” She willed her hand to relax. “I was, um…distracted.”
“That’s okay.” His voice sounded as strained as hers.
Christ, he felt it, too.
This massage was so over.
She gave a last gentle squeeze then stood and raced off to wash her hands and throw some cold water over her face.
“Would you like sushi?” she asked when she returned. “You must be starving.” She needed to keep busy or she’d head straight back to the couch and resume the massage. If she did that, there was no way she’d stick to his neck and shoulder.
“In a minute.” Daniel rolled his shoulders. Amy’s gaze was glued to the shift of muscles as they rippled beneath his skin. When he stretched, the sinuous movement pushed her restraint to the limit.
“You have very effective hands, Morgan. I don’t know what you did, but I’m not so…” He gave a wry smile. “My shoulder’s not
so stiff anymore.”
She used her effective hands to pile some sushi on a plate and passed it to him, hoping he didn’t notice the tremor in her grip. “Eat.”
Wordlessly, he accepted the dish, setting it down on the arm of the couch. Before she could pull her hand away, he caught it and turned it around, stroking it.
“Magic hands.” He ran his thumb over her palm, sending tingles up her spine.
The air between them zapped with electricity.
With all the force she could muster, which was almost none, she pulled her hand away.
“Eat,” she commanded in a whisper.
Daniel lifted a piece of sushi to his open mouth and closed his lips around the rice.
She’d eaten sushi with him a hundred times before. Why was the very action of his chewing and swallowing now the most erotic thing she’d ever seen?
Talk. Say something—anything. “You forgot the wasabi.”
“Morgan, I’m so hot right now, a little wasabi would not make one bit of difference.”
“Don’t, Danny,” she whispered. “You promised. We can’t go there. We can’t do this.”
“We’re adults. We can go wherever we want.”
“Not together. Not us.”
After an eternity, Daniel seemed to relax. A glint entered his eyes. “All right, Amy.” Her name rolled off his lips like a kiss. “We won’t go there.”
She breathed a sigh of relief. Or was it regret? “Thank you.”
“Can I ask one more favor?”
“What is it?”
His dimple played mischievously on his cheek. “My knee’s burning. I think it’s beginning to swell. The pressure’s radiating up my thigh.”
She glanced at his leg. He was so not talking about his knee.
“You did such a great job with my shoulder. Would it be too much to ask you to massage my leg as well?”
Chapter Eight
Amy would have given just about anything to massage his leg, but she knew if she did, things would degrade beyond the point of decency. Fast.
She flashed a devilish grin right back at him. “I have a better idea, so long as you don’t mind taking all your clothes off.”
Daniel’s dimple vanished with his smile. His eyes darkened, and the look he shot her was so hot, Amy about melted.
“Get your head out the gutter. I’m talking about running you a bath.” With that, she patted his arm and headed to the bathroom.
There was something incredibly intimate about drawing a bath for Daniel, imagining him lying there naked in the heated water. A moan escaped her throat and echoed throughout the bathroom at the vivid vision. Amy had to take a minute to compose herself before returning to him.
“My mother always claimed a bath’s the perfect place to soak away your aches and pains.” She offered him a hand. “The water’s hot, and I’ve turned down the lights. I guarantee by the time you get out, you’ll feel like a new man.”
The question was, how would she feel, knowing he lay meters away from her, submerged in steamy water, naked as the day he was born?
“That’s pretty decent of you.” Daniel limped toward the bathroom. “One question.”
“Yeah?”
His smile revealed that evil flash of dimple. “If I have trouble washing all those difficult-to-reach places, will you help me?”
Amy spent the next twenty minutes obsessing about which places would be difficult for him to reach, and how she’d use the soap to make sure she got them really clean.
Fortunately, Daniel’s phone rang, interfering with her increasing fascination. She answered when she saw Lexi’s name.
“Who was that?” Daniel asked as she hung up.
“Your sister.” She turned around. “She called to see how you’re—” Her tongue hit the floor, making intelligible speech pretty much impossible.
He wore nothing but a white towel wrapped low around his hips, the color accentuating his tanned skin. Below it, beads of water clung to the golden hairs curling on his long, muscular legs.
Water ran in tiny rivulets from his shoulders down his chest. Mesmerized, she watched a drop trickle over his nipple and slide down his hard, flat stomach, only to disappear into the towel. Warm heat hummed in her belly, and she repressed the urge to quench her sudden thirst by catching one of those droplets with her tongue.
She wanted to run her hands over his wet torso, rip the towel from around his waist, and devour him in all his naked, very male, glory.
“Like what you see?”
“Huh?” She jerked her gaze up to meet Daniel’s and saw amusement dancing in his eyes.
“Just asking.”
“I was looking to see if your, um…bruises were more visible than earlier.” To reinforce her point, she lowered her gaze to his knees. The only problem was her downward gaze snagged on the towel. Was it her imagination, or was there a bulge there?
“Are they?”
It certainly looked like an erection to her. “Are they what?”
“More visible now?”
“Huh?” It was most definitely an erection. A substantial one, at that, given the way the towel just moved.
“The bruises. Can you see them now?”
“What bruises?” He was hard. That meant he was aroused. And if she was aroused and he was aroused, then—
Daniel chuckled. “A little distracted, are we?”
Bruises.
Focus.
“Not distracted. Just trying to make a point. I can’t see any marks. Not on your shoulder or your knee. I’m sorry.” She shrugged. “They’re not there.”
He said nothing, raising his eyebrow instead.
Damn it, the man knew exactly what she was thinking. But how could he not? Her tongue was still plastered to the floor. “Are you going to stand there dripping all over the carpet? Or are you going to get dressed?”
“That depends. Do you want me to get dressed?”
“What kind of a question is that?”
“You don’t seem particularly eager for me to put my clothes on. In fact”—again with the infuriating dimple—“you seem to have developed a certain affinity for my towel.”
Wrong. If he could just lose the towel, she’d be happy.
No. She wouldn’t.
“What can I say, Dan? I’ve fallen for the towel. I’ve always been a sucker for a good towel.”
Daniel looked surprised. “Well, I tell you what. I’m a nice guy, and I’d hate to get in the way of you getting what you want. So I’m gonna go get dressed, and I’m gonna leave you with my towel so the two of you can have a few minutes alone to get acquainted.”
Ever so casually, he pulled the terry cloth from around his waist and handed it to a dumbfounded Amy.
“It’s a little wet.” He shrugged. “Sorry.”
Amy was sure she’d have responded appropriately if she hadn’t been so busy confirming her erection suspicions.
Forget the towel. The wettest thing in the room right now was her. She wished she had a pair of super-industrial-strength panties, because the longer she stared, the wetter she got.
Well, don’t stare, then.
Easy for you to say.
Lift your eyes upward, to his face.
I swear, I’m trying. It’s not working.
Daniel saved her from further internal debate. “I’ll be back in five, Morgan. Enjoy getting to know the towel.”
He turned around and sauntered off to his room, leaving the towel dangling uselessly in her hand.
…
It took longer than five minutes to get dressed. Daniel feared zipping up jeans in his current state would maim him for life. He pulled on his clothes slowly, his lips twitching. Yep. There was no doubt about it—just like he’d planned, his good pal was hot and horny and ready to jump him.
And he’d walked away.
Had he lost his mind? No reasonable man could walk away from a woman who looked at him like that.
But then Daniel wasn’t exactly of sound min
d. He hadn’t been since he went down on Amy. Got a taste of her sweet sex. One lick and his sanity was history. Fucking her was the only thing that would help him regain his common sense.
Unfortunately, he couldn’t fuck her yet. If he did, all his well-laid plans would be ruined.
When he did make love to Amy, he wanted her to wake up the next morning without one iota of regret. He wanted her to know it was the best step she could have taken. Yes, she might want to fuck him tonight, but by tomorrow morning, she’d be appalled. She’d wake up comparing him to Simon and her father, convinced he’d be the next man to walk out of her life.
There was no question about it. She wasn’t ready, although ever so slowly, she was getting there—and he couldn’t deny he was enjoying tormenting her a little in the process. His encounter with Lexi might have been unplanned, but it had turned into a perfect excuse to torment Amy a little more, stir up her awareness of him.
He bent his knee back and forth a couple of times. A little tender, perhaps, but nothing serious. Then he rolled his shoulders. After Amy’s massage and his bath, they should feel loose and relaxed. They didn’t. They were as tightly wound up as the rest of him. Lexi’s cricket bat might not have caused much damage, but the memory of Amy’s touch made him ache.
Damn. Lexi’d attacked him with a frigging lethal weapon. She’d hit out with such force he’d still be unconscious if the bat had met the back of his head.
To say he’d been pissed off with his sister was an understatement, but Lexi had redeemed herself. She’d done a great job with Amy. Her call must have been pretty convincing. Amy might have teased him, but she couldn’t hide the fear or the anxiety in her eyes. She’d been more than a little concerned about him.
He’d phone Lexi first thing in the morning to say thank you.
When at last he felt ready to zip his pants, he headed into the lounge and suppressed a smile when he saw the TV on and the towel neatly folded on a chair. He’d toyed with Amy enough for now. For the rest of the night, he’d keep their relationship platonic. He’d be so damn platonic, he’d make a priest look like a porn star.
“Whatcha watching?”
“Not much. Just seeing what’s on.”
Was it his imagination, or was she deliberately not looking at him? “Anything interesting?” He helped himself to some more food and sat next to her on the couch.
