In the background the Celtic tune wove its mysterious pattern. Outside Celie could hear the muffled calls of the exercise girl leading a group in calesthenics.
"Yeah," Jace said, his voice sounding as rusty as hers. "I did."
"But I thought—" She stopped and rethought, going over once more what she'd believed all these years. Then she shook her head. "I thought … you couldn't stand me," she told him.
Jace looked perplexed. "What? Why?"
"When Matt … when Matt brought you over that day, when he was going down the road with you … you barely even looked at me. You wanted nothing to do with me."
Jace looked away now. "Couldn't." He jammed his hands in his pockets and stared out the window at the sea.
"Couldn't?" Celie echoed. "Couldn't what?"
"Look at you! Want anything to do with you!"
She stared at him, mystified. "Why not?"
Jace rocked on his boot heels. A muscle ticked in his jaw. She thought for a long moment that he wasn't going to answer her. But then the words burst from him as he turned and glared at her. "Because, damn it, you were Matt's girl!"
"What!"
Jace hunched his shoulders, took a couple of steps away, but there was nowhere to go in the small room, so he turned and scowled straight at her. "You heard me."
She was Matt's girl.
"It mattered?" Celie asked, trying to work this out. It didn't fit with anything she had thought and was wholly new and surprising to her.
"A guy isn't supposed to want his buddy's girl." Jace growled.
Her mouth opened and closed silently as the implications hit. He'd wanted her? All those years ago Jace Tucker had wanted her? The notion was absurd. And yet…
He was still glaring at her as if it were somehow her fault.
Finally she managed one tiny sound. "Oh."
Jace's mouth twisted. "Yeah. Oh." He raked a hand through his hair. "It seemed better not to have anything to do with you," he said.
She didn't know what to say. Her mind was whirling as she tried to put an entirely new interpretation on so many different events.
"You and Matt…" she began, trying to sort that out. "Did you…"
Jace ground his teeth. "I did not deliberately lead him astray." He bit out the words harshly. "Is that what you want to know?"
Numbly Celie nodded.
He shook his head. "I didn't," he swore. "Maybe I was a bad example—all right, I was a bad example. I did a lot of racketin' around in those days. But what he did, he did on his own."
"He wanted to be like you."
"The more fool he." Jace paced a couple more steps, did a little hop which, Celie suspected, had to do with nervous energy, then turned and confronted her again. "Look, I'm sorry it turned out the way it did—for you. You got hurt. He should've told you he wasn't ready. But really, Cel', you're better off without him."
"I know that," Celie said quietly.
Her agreement seemed to surprise him. "You do?"
She nodded. "In retrospect I could see he had been trying to tell me by leaving. Running off to the rodeo is not the sign of a man who wants to settle down." She smiled faintly. "I just didn't want to see it. I had my dreams."
The fault, she realized, had been at least half hers. She'd been more in love with her dreams than she had been with Matt. He'd merely been the means to accomplishing them.
"It was just as well it happened," she said softly now.
"Yeah." Jace raked his fingers through his hair. "Well, you didn't exactly think so at the time." He took a deep breath. "You hated my guts."
"Yes."
"For a long time you hated my guts," he persisted.
Celie nodded. He was shaking his head, not understanding, and she knew she had to explain. "You knew I was a failure."
He stared at her. "Huh?"
"Matt dumped me!"
"Matt was an idiot. I thought we'd established that."
"No. He had his … oats … to sow," Celie said. "But I thought … I thought that—" her mouth seemed suddenly dry. She swallowed desperately. "Another woman might have been enough for him. Just … not me." She turned away, wouldn't look at Jace then. Couldn't believe she was having this conversation with him. She burned—her face, her neck, all of her.
"No," Jace sounded shocked. "Oh, no."
He took a step and reached out to catch her hand and draw her into his arms. Celie, for a moment, held back. But he persisted. He held her close, whispered her name against her lips. And then he kissed her.
This kiss was as deep and hungry and intense as the one he'd given her in his room two days ago. It spoke of longing and need and desire. And Celie was no proof against it. She stopped resisting and began to respond, to say with her kiss all the things she didn't think she would ever be able to put into words—things about pain and loss and anguish, about years of loneliness and emptiness, about hopes and dreams born anew.
It was Jace who finally broke it off, who stepped back, shaken and flushed and breathing hard. "Whoa," he muttered, "unless you want to scandalize that dragon of a boss of yours."
Celie giggled. "She would be shocked!"
"Well, we wouldn't want to do that," Jace said with a lopsided grin. "Come on. Let's go finish this where we won't be disturbed."
"I can't."
He stared at her. "What? Why the hell not?"
"I can't leave. Not now. Not until six. She'll be checking."
Jace looked poleaxed. "Who cares?"
"It's my job!"
He started to say something, then closed his mouth again and nodded. "Okay. Fine. Let's get on with it then."
Celie blinked. "Get on with what?"
The lopsided grin was back. "My massage."
"You want a massage?" Celie said with a smile after looking momentarily startled.
"Unless you're chicken?" Jace teased recklessly.
She smiled. "We'll see who's chicken."
Jace had a feeling it was going to be him.
"Strip down to your shorts," Celie said briskly. "I'll give you a few minutes."
"You don't have to leave—" he began to protest, but she was already out the door.
Grinning, anticipating, he stripped down to his shorts, then boosted himself up onto the massage table, relishing the thought of her hands on him for an hour.
When she came back, she turned on a CD of some sort of soft lilting Celtic tune that reminded him of a movie he'd seen.
Jace's mouth quirked into a grin. "Music to sink a ship by?"
Celie ignored him. "Lie on your stomach and put your face in the face cradle. Let your arms go loose."
Jace did as she instructed, settling on the sheet she had warmed with a heating pad. She folded another sheet over him, baring only his back and shoulders. He heard her rub her hands together and felt his anticipation grow. That wasn't the only thing that was growing.
Cool it, buddy, he advised himself. If he was going to last the hour, he was going to have to think pure thoughts and multiplication tables. Indeed the first touch of her hands sent a jolt right through him. She'd only touched his back, between his shoulders, but his mind sent impulses zinging from his back to his brain to his groin like lightning strikes.
Celie paused, her hands resting lightly on his back. "You're very tense."
"I'm very horny," Jace corrected.
"We'll take care of that," she promised.
That startled him. "Here?" he said, aghast.
"Oh, yes," Celie said, stunning him.
But it wasn't long before he realized that she didn't mean what he thought she'd meant.
He'd expected to lie there and allow Celie to work her magic on him, seducing him with her hands. Instead she found every injury he'd ever had and ferreted out every single protesting muscle and bit of scar tissue.
He was lulled at first by the strong smooth strokes on his back and shoulders, and he gave himself up to it until her fingers slowed and she traced old scars and sore spots and probed lightly.<
br />
"Does this hurt?"
"No," he lied, wanting her to move on. But she kneaded some more, deepening the massage. "How about this?"
"What are you, a sadist?"
"No. But it's tight. I can feel it knotted up there. Let me see if we can't work it out. I do a terrific neuro-muscular massage."
So much for seduction.
"It will feel better when I'm done," she promised.
"Like it feels so much better to stop banging your head against the wall?"
Celie laughed. "You could say that."
She worked over each and every tender spot he'd ever had in his life—in his neck, on his back, on the shoulder of his riding arm. She found the spots where he'd broken ribs, the vertebrae he'd cracked in his back. With her thumbs and fingers she rubbed them gently, then more deeply, and finally began digging her fingers down to lift and roll the muscle.
"Jeez!" The word whistled through Jace's teeth, arousal fading fast.
"Too much?" Celie asked, her voice concerned. "If it is, say so. I tend to get a little carried away trying to work out these spasms."
"It's okay," Jace said gruffly.
Her thumbs kneaded the cords of his neck, pressing up into his scalp, sending goose bumps down across his shoulders and back. Then she worked over his neck and shoulders and down his back, her fingers and thumbs walking up and down his spine, stopping to find the bunched muscles, kneading them, working the spasms out.
It wasn't seductive—not the way Jace had imagined it. But like the time they'd spent together in bed last night, it felt good. It felt … right.
She moved on to his legs.
"Ah," she said softly as he tensed when she touched the one he'd broken at the finals last December. "That still hurts, does it?"
"It's … a little tender."
"I'll take care of it."
She did his other leg first, rubbing and kneading, warming it and stretching it, before she left it tingling and moved on to the one he had broken.
She bent his knee, testing his range of motion first. Then starting from his heel, she began working her way up the muscles in his calf. At first it hurt a lot. His leg always hurt a lot. He'd got used to it, had tried to learn to live with it. Had never really considered that it wouldn't. But now, as Celie worked on him, gradually the hard tight spots seemed to soften and relax.
"Ah." He couldn't help the sound escaping. He leg felt so much better, looser, less tense.
"Better?" Celie asked.
He nodded. "Yeah. Oh, yeah."
"Good." She moved up above his knee and began working on the hamstring, easing the tension there, as well. And it worked.
"Great," he murmured. "Thanks."
"Still horny?" she asked lightly.
Jace grimaced, realizing he was not. "I could be again in a few minutes," he said hopefully.
Silently Celie ran her hands up the backs of his legs. Her fingers felt very different all of a sudden. Intimate. Personal. Very personal.
Jace's body went on alert as the fingers moved up over his butt and traced the waistband of his shorts. It didn't take him a few minutes to get horny again. A few seconds, more like.
He turned his head to look back over his shoulder at her. "Celie?"
She gave him a smile, then consulted her watch. "Oh, gee," she said with a grin now wholly unrepentant. Her eyes danced. "Time's up."
* * *
Seven
« ^ »
It wasn't the devil who made her do it, but there was definitely an impish rogue hidden somewhere inside Celie's head who dared her to dare Jace.
Because that's what it was—those fingers, there at the end of a perfectly legitimate massage, dancing up the back of his thighs—a dare. They'd gone from skilled professionalism to tempting teasing in seconds. They wanted what Celie had wanted all along.
She'd wanted it at the very beginning. She could have turned the massage into a seduction at any point. She hadn't because she was at work. She had standards to uphold, and she intended to uphold them.
Even with Jace.
Besides, it had been quickly apparent that Jace needed something she had it in her power to give. He was a rodeo cowboy. Rodeo cowboys, by definition, hurt. It was the name of the game. And old rodeo cowboys went on hurting even after they'd given up the game.
They were walking masses of scar tissue, muscle spasms and various and sundry contusions and adhesions. Jace was no exception.
Last night in bed she'd seen old scars. She'd touched them lightly as he slept. She'd wondered how he'd got each one and thought someday, perhaps, he'd tell her.
In the meantime, though, today for an hour, she'd done her best to ease those pains.
If Simone had got wind of his deal with Mrs. Campanella and come to see exactly what was going on, she'd have seen exactly what she was supposed to see—Celie acting like what she was: a professional massage therapist.
Until the last few seconds, when she'd turned into the woman who wanted to make love with Jace.
"You," he told her, rolling over so fast she thought he might flip right off the table, "are asking for it, Celie O'Meara."
She fluttered her eyelashes at him. "I am?" He leaped off the table like a man who had no aches and pains at all, grabbing her around the waist and hauling her into his arms. It took no imagination at all to figure out how aroused he was. "Jace!"
"Don't start something you don't intend to finish," he muttered against her lips.
"I intend to finish it," Celie said. "I want to finish it. But not here."
"Then let's get out of here. I presume you're finished now? Do you have to sign out with the dragon?"
Celie shook her head. "No. I just have a few things to take care of. Quick things," she promised when he glared at her.
"Damn quick," Jace insisted.
"Yes. You get dressed. I'll finish up." She stripped the bed linens off the massage table and started toward the door.
Jace caught her by the hand and tugged her around. "You're not going to disappear."
Celie smiled. "I'm not going to disappear."
He felt like a teenager. Gauche and awkward. Eager, yet desperate.
For a guy who'd relished—and deserved—his reputation as a ladies' man, Jace felt like a dumb kid now.
He'd practically dragged her to his stateroom. But the minute he got her there and shut the door, everything changed. He leaned against the door, his palms sweating, his breathing shallow. And not from arousal. From nerves.
He was going to make love with Celie O'Meara.
And his stomach was clenching and his body was quivering, and if he didn't get his act together, he was going to make a complete mess of it. If it hadn't mattered so much, he'd have laughed at himself.
Jace Tucker, panic-stricken at the thought of taking a woman to bed?
No, not a woman. She wasn't just any woman.
She was the only woman who'd really ever mattered—and that made all the difference.
Every other time Jace had gone to bed with a woman, it had been to have a good time then and there. He'd always been a generous bed partner, always happy to make sure his companion enjoyed it as much as he did. But the act itself had never had a deeper meaning, had never gone beyond the physical. It had been fun. It had provided a release. And always he'd been able to walk away without looking back.
No more.
He couldn't walk away from Celie. And it wasn't just his body, his mind, his heart and his soul that were involved. It was Celie's, too. He had to make it right for her. Had to make it beautiful for her. Had to show her how much he loved her.
For a guy who wrote the book on lack of commitment, this was pretty scary stuff. In fact, it was damn near paralyzing.
"Is something wrong?" Celie asked. She was looking at him curiously as she stood by his bed, apparently without a qualm in the world, already unbuttoning her shirt. She smiled and peeled it off her shoulders, baring a tanned midriff and full breasts covered by the peach-color
ed lace of her bra. Her hands went to unfasten the front-clasped bra.
Cripes, she was going to be naked before he got his boots unnailed from the floor. "Stop!"
At his exclamation, Celie stopped. She stared, her fingers stilled on the clasp of her bra. "What?"
"I want…" He swallowed. His mouth felt like the Sahara. He cleared his throat desperately and tried again. "I want to do that."
Celie's hands dropped to her sides. She nodded—and stood waiting for him.
He almost tripped over his boots, crossing the few feet of carpet between them, until he was standing right in front of her, looking down on the rise and fall of her breasts beneath the lace. He took a breath and put his fingers to work on the clasp. They were like thumbs—a tenth-grader's thumbs! He was mortified watching them tremble.
He flicked his eyelids up to see if she was laughing at him. He wouldn't have been surprised. But she wasn't laughing at all. Her lower lip was caught in her teeth and she was trembling, too.
It made him feel better. He got her bra undone. Opened it. Feasted his gaze on full, creamy breasts. He smiled. "Ah."
He caressed them with his thumbs and fingers, his palms brushing her nipples. He saw her suck in her breath and felt her shudder. She didn't move, though, just clenched her fists at her sides and remained absolutely still as his hands stroked her. Beneath his fingers he could feel her shallow, unsteady breathing. He could hear the faint gasp of her breath as he explored her further, letting his hands mould the shape of her rib cage, then settle at her waist, then slide a finger inside the waistband of her jeans.
Her stomach muscles clenched. "Jace!"
"Mmm?" He bent his head, dropped kisses along one shoulder, then across her jaw and neck and across the other shoulder. With his tongue he touched her heated flesh. He nipped and tasted, and she shuddered, and suddenly her arms wrapped hard around his waist.
She pulled his shirt out of his jeans and slid her hands up underneath it to caress his back. There was nothing professional about her touch now. Her caresses were as heated and hungry as his. She grasped the hem of his shirt and drew it up and over his head, then tossed it aside and pressed her palms against his chest.
A COWBOY'S PURSUIT Page 10
