by Rachel Lyndhurst; Carmen Falcone; Ros Clarke; Annie Seaton; Christine Bell
More laughter until Bitsy said, “Okay, we can keep going.” They made their way through the bunch until Brandi spoke.
“That’s all of them. You think you got it?”
“I know I do,” Bitsy said with a smile in her voice.
“Okay, I’m going to lead you back the way we came and stop me when we get to your man.”
Footfalls sounded for a few paces and then ceased.
“Next up, Lindy O’Neil.”
Heat crept up her cheeks. She was going to get to touch Owen’s naked shoulders. There was no question she’d know him when she felt him. She’d scored that muscular back a thousand times in her dreams. The only question was, would she be able to stop touching him once she started?
“Number one,” Brandi said, laying Lindy’s hands on the shoulders of the first guy in the row.
With only a cursory swipe of her hands, she knew. Not him. Too short. She barely had to stretch to reach his shoulders.
“Okay, keep going.”
“Number Two.”
This guy was the right height, but he felt doughy. Nothing like the lean muscles Owen had. She dropped her arms to her side and shook her head. “Next.”
Two more quick no’s, and then Brandi announced number four. Lindy knew before she even touched him. The heat was pouring off him, the scent of his shampoo assailing her nostrils. She swayed toward him. Brandi didn’t have to lead her to touch him. Helpless to stop herself, she reached out and pressed her hands against Owen’s skin. A sigh of pleasure escaped her, and she allowed her fingers to roam freely, sliding under the thin cotton, testing the corded muscles along his upper back and shoulders. She got so sucked into the sensations, it took a tug on her dress from Brandi before she came to her senses.
“Next,” Brandi said, a smile in her voice.
Lindy went through the motions as quickly as possible, and then Brandi guided her to stand behind Owen.
As the rest of the ladies went, Lindy barely paid attention. She couldn’t get the feel of Owen’s body out of her mind. They had more than a week left of this farce, and she was already in so deep, she had no chance of emerging unscathed. Every time she thought she had a handle on things, something else happened to remind her of how good they could be together.
But that was the rub, wasn’t it? Owen didn’t want to be together. He wanted to be in her bed while they were in Colorado, and when they left, he wanted to be alone again. Sarabeth’s voice dragged her from her thoughts.
“All right! Everyone has made their choices. Guys, turn around and face your women. Ladies, take off the blindfolds!”
Lindy yanked the strip of cloth from her eyes and stared at a flush-faced Owen and the two other women who stood before him.
“Margie, Bitsy, Jordan and Lindy, you all picked your guys! Congratulations. Jana and Estelle, you both selected incorrectly. Estelle, tell us, what made you pick Owen?”
The silver-haired retiree eyeballed her husband, Lester, and said in a deadpan voice, “Wishful thinking?”
Lester frowned at first and took a long look at Owen. Then, with a grudging shrug, he nodded. “Yep. Guess I can’t blame you there, doll.”
Lindy didn’t blame her either.
…
“Are you sure this is going to help? I gotta tell you, it seems like a terrible idea,” Lindy said, eying the outdoor hot tub dubiously.
“Don’t knock it until you try it. It’s only bad for as long as it takes to get from here to there and slip into the water. Less than a minute, unless you’re being a poke about it.”
She took a deep breath, swung open the patio door and scuttled across the porch. A second later, she’d stripped off the fluffy white robe. He took in the white bikini and his brain short-circuited. Two triangles of fabric cupped her breasts, whose tips had firmed to tight little points in the below-freezing temperature. Before he could explore further, she turned and stuck a foot in the tub. He winced, catching sight of her back. As deliciously distracting as her curvy ass was, the giant bruise mottling the outside of her hip and around one side of her lower back took center stage.
He closed the patio door behind him and crossed the porch to stand beside her. “That looks so painful, Lindy. Christ, I didn’t realize it was that bad.”
She chuckled self-consciously, and craned her neck over her shoulder to get a look. “I saw it in the mirror earlier. Believe me, it looks way worse than it feels. It’s ugly, but it only hurts if I bump it or press on it. Standing out here in the freezing cold is more excruciating. Last one in is a rotten egg!”
With that, she went around to the other side of the tub, kicked off her slippers, and stepped in. “Yes,” she groaned, her eyes drifting closed, her face lighting with pleasure. She took the steps one at a time, making a new, decadent noise with each, until she was submerged to her shoulders. Her breath came in frosty puffs, and she sent him a wide grin. “This is amazing. It’s freezing cold out, but the air feels invigorating because the rest of me is encased in all this delicious heat.”
He looked away, willing himself to remember why they were there. The hot water would do wonders for her stiff muscles. Any sensual moans or remarks about being encased in delicious heat were entirely coincidental and meant nothing. He sent his cock a mental “Down boy!” He’d been cranked up to eleven since she’d taken her sweet time fondling him in the great room earlier during the Find Your Spouse game. He wondered what it said about him that, even if they hadn’t announced who was touching him, he would’ve known instantly. He’d sensed her before she ever laid a hand on him, their chemistry all but tangible.
“I told you you’d enjoy it. It’s on really hot, so we can’t stay in too long. Fifteen minutes or so. Longer and we’ll start to feel woozy.”
“I don’t see myself leaving this spot voluntarily, sorry. Hey, before you get in, can you turn the porch light off? I want to see the stars in the dark.”
He did as she asked and returned to the hot tub. For a long moment, he just watched her. The tiny lights embedded around the tub were still lit, and they bathed her in a silvery light. She sat on one of the seats with her head tipped all the way back so she could stargaze. What struck him most was how damned happy she looked. He loved that about her. She looked for pleasure in everything. He’d wondered at first if it was the novelty of her surroundings, but realized very quickly that wasn’t the case. The simplest things, from a fine, flaky pastry to the smell of a great cup of coffee or an especially bright sunset would transfix her. The best part was that she let it. There was no feigned disinterest or attempts to restrain her reactions. If something was funny, she laughed. Hard. In his current circles, people tended to school their reactions, and enthusiasm was often deemed unsophisticated. Those people had it all wrong.
“You getting in or what?” She’d shifted her gaze from the stars to him. “You’re going to catch pneumonia out there.”
He slipped off his shoes and robe and climbed down into the frothy water, gasping at the contrast of heat seeping into his chilled flesh, warming him through. Moving to the opposite side of the tub, he sat facing Lindy.
“When the real estate market comes back, I’m getting myself one of these bad boys,” she proclaimed, patting the side of the tub with an open hand.
“Good investment,” he said with a nod.
Her face grew serious. She moved from the stool to the center of the tub, and slipped deeper under the water, until only her head was sticking out. “So you ready for tomorrow?” she whispered, glancing around furtively.
“I am. I signed up this morning. Did you come up with a good reason for my change of heart on the yoga thing yet? Because I’ve got squat. Maybe I could say after your fall I wanted to do something I thought would cheer you up?”
“I was thinking, what if you said you only like doing things you’re good at? From what I’ve seen, that’s mostly true and if you say it in that cocky way you have, it’ll be totally plausible.” Before he could grill her about his “cocky” way
s, she rushed on. “Explain that I was already really good at it when we first met and you didn’t want to make a fool of yourself in front of me. Now, since I’m not in the class, you figured you’d give it a go to see if you could do it, and if you have the knack, you’ll be coming more often.”
He bristled at the idea of exposing yet another phony character flaw, but shelved his reticence. Her explanation was good enough that most people wouldn’t think twice about it. A lot of men didn’t want to be shown up by their wives, although he wasn’t one of them. Lindy had his number on the other count, though. He didn’t like to do things he wasn’t good at. In fact, he avoided them at all cost. If they couldn’t be avoided? Well, he got good at them. That wasn’t arrogance. That was a fact.
“Okay, but don’t be surprised if, by the time you’re able to come back to class, I’m in your intermediate session with Nico.” That would throw the smiling bastard for a loop.
She shook her head. “Nope. You have to be bad at it. My sessions with Nico are going great. I’ve been finessing him for over a week now and I think I’m getting close. He’s about to make some sort of move, I can feel it. I’m not about to let you come in and get all ham-handed with him and wreck it. I know you don’t relish the idea of humiliating yourself, but you’re going to have to get your ego in check here, Owen.”
Her matter-of-fact tone and facial expression irked him to no end. “It’s not about my ego. At least, not this time,” he said, shoving off the bench to stand in front of her. “This time it’s about you. I know you don’t want to hear this, but the thought of him making a move on you, any kind of move at all, makes me want throttle the son of a bitch.” He took a step closer and she didn’t retreat. “I don’t like that feeling one bit, if I’m being honest. But there it is. Not that it changes anything.”
He towered over her, the icy air raising goose bumps on his skin. She tipped her head back to look up at him. “Not that it changes anything,” she agreed softly. “I appreciate your honesty. We still need to do what’s right for Cara, though. After you sleep on it, I know you’ll agree, so let’s not argue about it now.”
“All right.”
A heavy silence fell, too many unspoken words crowding the space between them. He reached out and brushed his thumb over her lips, the need to touch her skin overpowering every rational thought. Her lashes fluttered for a moment and she sighed. The warmth of her breath bathed his hand, and she pinned him with her gaze. She didn’t look away, instead dipping her face toward him and closing her teeth over the tip of his thumb. The move electrified him, every nerve receptor in his body lighting up. His balls pulled tight against his body, his length thickening to rise between them.
At that moment, he needed her so badly he could’ve howled with the disappointment of knowing he had to walk away. She was so selfless, so good. She’d asked only one thing of him, and damn it, he was going to come through for her.
He cleared the thickness from his throat and stepped back. “Make sure you get out in the next five minutes or so. I’ll see you upstairs.”
Chapter Sixteen
Lindy stared after Owen, a thousand conflicting thoughts tripping through her mind. She opened her mouth to call him back, but closed it with a snap. What was there to say? She’d asked him to have the strength for them both, and he’d come through for her. So why did she feel anything but relieved?
She slunk lower into the pool, dunking herself completely, letting the water swirl over her face and hair. Never, in all her twenty-eight years, had she ever felt so…much. So happy, so sad, so angry, so afraid. The torrent of emotions was making her crazy. It was like—
A wave of dizziness came over her and she pitched forward, clutching the side of the tub. Holy mother of God, she was in love. With Owen Phipps. How could that be? Her brain frantically tried to disprove the theory that her heart had already accepted without question.
He didn’t want a relationship.
He was way out of her league.
They’d only know each other a few weeks.
He didn’t want a relationship. At least, not the kind she wanted. She refused to entertain the idea that she could change his mind on that front. He promised he would never lie to her and he hadn’t. She needed to come to terms with the fact that it wasn’t going to happen.
But did that mean they couldn’t be together, here and now? That much, he did want. And when their three weeks were up, she’d go home broken-hearted. Was that so different than what would happen if they didn’t make love?
She waded over to the steps and climbed up, letting the shock of the frigid air clear her head. Water, instantly cold once exposed to the air, sluiced down her body. She scooped up her robe and pulled it on with trembling hands. A moment later, she scurried up the steps to their room. They’d only brought one set of keys to the hot tub, so Owen had left the door unlocked for her. She slipped in and set her slippers on the floor by the door. The patter of water against glass carried down the short hallway and she took a tentative step in that direction. Owen was in the shower already.
Did she dare?
She ran through her options and determined that, if she was going to do this, now was the time. Before she lost her nerve and ended up going home without ever knowing what it would be like to make love with him. That would be a tragedy. She marched the rest of the way to the bathroom and lifted a hand to rap on the door but paused. That wasn’t sexy at all. If you wanted to seduce a man, you didn’t knock and ask if you could come in, you went in and took what you wanted.
She turned the knob and opened the door with a muttered, “Everything’s fine.”
Only his silhouette was visible behind the frosted glass of the shower stall. He had both hands braced against one wall and his head under the spray. This time there was no hesitation. She untied the robe and shook it off her shoulders, then kicked it into the corner. Reaching behind her neck, she pulled the strings of her bikini top. Steam rose and swirled around the room as she slipped it off and tossed it onto the vanity.
Her bikini bottoms would have to wait. If he refused her, she didn’t know if she had the nerve to walk away bottomless. Like that little patch of fabric somehow contained a bit of dignity.
She took the last few steps toward the shower, trying to control her breathing. With a firm tug, she opened the stall. She stared, agape, at Owen’s magnificent naked form. If there were any lingering doubts, they disintegrated into ash.
The cooler air she’d allowed into the steamy room must have registered because he stepped away from the showerhead and swiped the water from his eyes. He turned, and his stunned gaze met hers. She blurted the four words he clearly never expected to hear.
“I’ve changed my mind.”
…
Lindy’s blue eyes were so captivating in their desire, so enchanting in their honesty, that he nearly missed the fact that she was half-naked. The long line of her neck, emphasized by the pixie cut, drew his gaze lower. The gentle curve of her breast, lower still. His throat tightened until he could barely squeeze the words out.
“What are you saying?”
“I want to be with you. For however long you’ll have me.”
The need to touch her was so overwhelming he had to close his eyes to block out the maddening sight of her. “Lindy, as much as I want you—and Lord knows, I do—it’s not a good idea. You said—”
“I know what I said,” she whispered, the squeak of bare feet on the wet tile floor of the shower compelling him to open his eyes. “But I take it back.” She pulled in a shuddering breath and stepped between his knees, closing the stall door behind her. “I take it back.”
The nude front of her body pressed to his, and blood pulsed to his groin. He let out a tortured groan. Scrambling for some sense of control before he was too far gone, he said, “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“It’s too late for that. It was too late almost from the first.” She covered his chest with her palms and smoothed them down over his abdomen
, stopping at the juncture where his hips met his thighs. “But I’m a grown woman, and if I’m going to go home with the pain, I want to take some pleasure to remember, too. I won’t ask for more.”
Every move, every word hacked away at his resolve until he was left in tatters. With a muttered curse, he took her by the shoulders and pulled her to him, mindful of her bruise. “That I can guarantee.”
Her breath hitched and he took her mouth in a heated kiss, fueled by three weeks of unfulfilled, constant need. She twined her arms around his neck, her body quivering. He let out a growl and half-dragged, half-lifted her into the spray. The hot water sluiced over her, and she gasped against his lips. The sound sent his blood pulsing downward, filling his length to bursting. He broke away, desperate to taste more of her, to lick and suck every inch. He bent to her breast, flicking his tongue out to nudge the stiffened nipple and she bowed her back, straining closer.
Her pelvis fluttered against his, as if her body was seeking relief and knew where to find it. The move made him wild, the need to plow into her tight heat growing out of control.
Space. He needed a little space to get back some semblance of control. He had a promise to keep. He pulled back and Lindy whimpered, wriggling to get close again. He held her off, sliding a wet hand between them, down her smooth stomach, pausing at the bikini bottoms plastered to her. He grasped the soaked material in his hand, every instinct goading him to tear them off. Some tiny, rational part of him remembered her bruised hip at the last second, and he managed to rein it in. Gently, he hooked his thumbs under the straps. He shifted the fabric slowly over her hips, down her thighs and lower. It wasn’t his intention to stay down there, not yet. He’d take it slow, caress her back, kiss her neck. They had all night. But as he bared her sweet pussy, his best intentions came undone. He could no more back away without a taste than he could cut off his own hand.
He took to his knees, body quaking. He pushed open her silky thighs and the sight of her swollen with need nearly brought him low. Laying her hands on his shoulders, she attempted to draw him up and back into her arms, but he resisted.
