Remember the Dreams (10 page)

❧

Even the most well thought-out plans develop a few snags.

If Kyle noticed that Toni was using every imaginable excuse to touch him, he was doing a remarkable job of hiding it. She placed her hand on his shoulder to lean from behind him and set his plate on the table. Twice, she curled her fingers around his forearm while they were talking. She let her hand rest on his hip when he pulled his shirt back to show her the darkening bruise and touched it gently.

The only reaction she got was the slight stiffening of his muscles—and a comment that her hands were cold.

She told herself not to be discouraged. Though he was doing nothing to take advantage of her lead, he wasn't doing anything to dissuade her either. As they sat in the living room watching television from opposite ends of the sofa, she was achingly aware of the way his eyes would fall to her mouth when she spoke, and especially with the fascination he had with her hair as she absently sifted the long strands through her fingers. Was he remembering how it had felt in his own fingers? The darkness in his eyes told her that he was.

Toni was quietly pleased with what she appeared to be accomplishing. He couldn't seem to keep his eyes off of her, and that was enough for now. He really wasn't in any condition to succumb to more flagrant inducements anyway. He wasn't moving with his usual ease, and the pinched line of his mouth told her that any moaning he'd be doing would hardly be groans of ecstasy. His side was hurting, even though he kept insisting that it didn't.

Tonight, she'd just have to settle for an evening with him in front of the TV. That wasn't so bad. Loving someone meant sharing the quiet times, too. In many ways, she found that very satisfying.

It would have been a lot more satisfying if his arm had been around her, though.

Sunday afternoon held no promise of further accomplishments.

Toni was curled up in the chair by the window reading one of Madeline's books from behind a copy of Forbes while Kyle sat on the sofa watching a football game. No doubt he was silently identifying with the linebacker whose progress had just been abruptly halted by the massive shoulder that connected with his stomach. Though Kyle hadn't been complaining about it, Toni could tell from the way he kept rubbing the back of his neck that he'd hurt more than his side when he'd been tackled.

Every time he flinched, Toni's heart gave a funny little jerk, and she longed to do something —anything—to ease his discomfort. He'd been growling like a wounded bear all day, and she was sure that he was irritated with the inconvenience of his injury as much as anything else.

Closing her book on the provocative massage sequence she'd been reading—she decided that the massage was in order, even if the more boldly explicit moves portrayed in the chapter were not. Right now anyway.

"Your neck hurt?" she asked, climbing onto the sofa beside him.

His eyes were on the television, and his hand still gripped the back of his neck. "It's fine."

Ignoring his terse disclaimer with a rueful shake of her head, she scooted back on the sofa and tucked her legs beneath her. He was just being obstinate, and having been blessed with her fair share of that same trait, she pushed his hand away and settled hers in its place.

His muscles turned to stone, and he jerked around sideways to face her, immediately clamping his hand over the strained muscles again. "Aw, damn." He grimaced at the pain slicing down his shoulder. He shouldn't have moved so quickly. "What are you trying to do?"

Calm blue eyes blinked at his narrow-eyed expression. "I'm returning a favor. Now move back here."

"What favor?"

"Do you remember the morning you massaged my legs because they were so sore? Well," she continued, letting the shadow of wariness in his eyes answer her question, "you look like you could use a little of that same medicine. And stop looking at me like that. It's not like I'm trying to seduce you or something."

Her last words were directed to the pulse beating at the base of his neck. There was no way she could have said that if she'd been looking him straight in the eye—even though there was a certain amount of truth to her statement at the moment.

"It only hurts a little," he qualified, allowing Toni to position herself behind him.

Toni raised her eyes to the ceiling, begging the deities above to enlighten her as to why he hated to admit that he wasn't invincible. But she didn't need Zeus to hit her with a lightning bolt to know that Kyle was just being Kyle.

She reached for his shoulders.

Her knees were wedged around his hips and as her fingers worked slowly over the pale green fabric of his shirt, she didn't know who this exercise was affecting more. A massage was supposed to relax a person. But the muscles where her hands deftly pressed along his spine were positively rigid; and the one spanning her stomach felt like it had just balled up into a quivering knot.

"Toni?" Kyle began, his head lolling forward when her fingers sank into the crisp hairs at his nape again, "you didn't stay home from work today because of me, did you?"

Her hands splayed over his back, her palms making deep circles. If she pushed hard, he wouldn't be able to feel the betraying tremors in her fingers. "I stayed home because it's Sunday," she replied, negating what she'd said yesterday about going into the office today. She'd have to stay late every night this week to play catch-up. "I've been thinking about what you said about taking time off to relax, and decided that now's as good as any time to start." She really hadn't thought about it until now. She wasn't about to let her job suffer, but she wanted to spend as much time as she could with Kyle. Soon enough, she'd have to start looking for a place of her own. In the meantime, she wanted to let him know that she cared—subtly, of course. "Even if it hadn't been the weekend," she continued, trailing her fingertips down his back, "I would have stayed home if you needed me."

Kyle said nothing, his only sound a tiny moan as she reversed her motion and dipped her fingers beneath his collar. The muscles there were considerably more supple, and she felt him shudder.

"I guess I owe you a turn at KP," he mumbled, evading her remarks. "Thanks for cooking dinner last night."

Her tone was light and mildly teasing. Every time she lightened the pressure of her hands, she could feel him tense a little more, and she had the feeling that he was trying not to think about what she was doing. "Oh, I plan on getting even with you. You can take me out to some fabulously expensive restaurant and I'll have ..."

"You can have anything you want," he interrupted with a sigh.

"Anything?"

"You name it. Whatever . . . mmm . . . that feels good."

Repeating the motion that had elicited his sigh, she tried to keep her tone as conversational as she could. No mean feat, considering what she was doing now. "We'll discuss what I want when you feel better," she said, pulling his shirttail free from his jeans.

Sliding her hands up under his shirt, she swallowed hard and fought the desire simply to close her eyes and relish the feel of his smooth skin. If she closed her eyes, she would be able to see all too clearly the scene she had just finished reading a while ago. Though there was no warm, scented oil easing the friction between her hands and Kyle's back, and his fingers weren't tracing tantalizing paths over her arms and across her breasts, she could . . .

Knock it off, Toni! she chastised herself, and shoved his shirt up to the middle of his back with more abruptness than was necessary. It was taking a supreme amount of effort to remind herself that this was not part of the Great Seduction. At least, it hadn't started out that way.

Tucking her bottom lip between her teeth, she hastily reevaluated the situation. Kyle's neck didn't seem to be bothering him anywhere near as much as it had been. His breathing did seem a little irregular though. And he kept leaning against her hands to deepen their pressure when she massaged the small of his back.

It looked like it was time to abandon the more altruistic aspects of this massage.

Hoping that he couldn't hear the deeper huski-ness in her voice, she slowly lowered his shirt. "This would be a lot easier to do if you'd take this off, Kyle."

The moan that escaped from his throat was barely audible. The thick sound was definitely not one of pain, and she felt a curious sense of feminine power encouraging more daring behavior.

Raising herself up on her knees, she pressed herself against his back and reached around his neck to unbutton his shirt herself. Her face brushed the roughness of his cheek, and she could smell the spicy clean scent of his aftershave. Though she was the only one moving, she couldn't tell who was being seduced by whom at the moment.

A strangled gasp was compressed between Kyle's lips as Toni loosened the buttons from their holes and drew his shirt away to continue her agonizing massage. He was convinced that she didn't know what she was doing to him, how sensual her caresses were. She was simply returning a favor. To a friend, he reminded himself forcefully, nearly dying when her hands slid over his shoulders and sank into the dark hairs on his chest. The woman was a witch. An absolute sorceress. Her hands could turn cold stone into warm clay. And he felt about as malleable as that now.

Telling himself that he was only imagining the erotic undertones in Toni's touch because he wanted her so badly, he groped for something to talk about. Anything to get his mind off of what she was doing. Anything except her boyfriends. He couldn't quite stomach those conversations. He decided to ask about her mother.

Toni had told him long ago that her father had died when she was six, leaving her mother quite well off. Caroline Collins's global jaunts seemed like a safe topic.

For a second, it felt like Toni's hands went limp at the subject he had just proposed. But Kyle thought that it was just because he had moved a little too suggestively when her fingers had touched the sensitive nerve at the base of his spine. He willed himself to be perfectly still when her palms planted themselves firmly in the middle of his back.

Her breath feathered the hairs on the back of his head while she told him about her mother's recent trip to France. Kyle tried to pay attention, but no mortal male could concentrate on the quaint little villages in Bordeaux's wine district when a husky-voiced woman who smelled like powder and gardenias was practically breathing in his ear.

Toni's face was actually a good foot away from his ear, but Kyle wasn't terribly aware of major details at the moment. Her hands had just wandered down and were pressing into the skin just above the waistband of his jeans again. She was courting disaster by rubbing him there.

He knew that the seams of his pants came with a life-time guarantee against stress. Wryly he wondered if that same guarantee applied to the zipper.

Barely glancing behind him, he grasped her wrist and pushed her hand upward. "Rub my neck a little more," he said, hating the thickness in his voice.

That wasn't really where he wanted her hand. But he could only imagine what she would do if he put it where he did want it. One set of bruised ribs was enough.

The slight tightening of her thighs around his hips when she moved forward resulted in his slowly exhaled breath. Images he knew he was better off not thinking about flashed vividly in his mind.

Don't you think you'd be more comfortable if you lay down?" Practicality had prompted Toni's suggestion. She didn't want to stop—it was heaven to be able to touch him—but her legs were getting cramped and she needed to switch positions. He didn't look too comfortable perched like a statue on the edge of the sofa anyway.

Lying down was the last thing Kyle wanted to do. It was taking every bit of control he had not to turn around and press her into the cushions, taste the sweet warmth of her mouth that he remembered so well. A man could only push himself so far. And Kyle had just reached his limit.

"Your hands are probably getting tired," he hedged, picking his shirt up from the floor and pulling himself to his feet.

A million tiny needles jabbed into her legs as she untangled them and glanced up at Kyle's slightly flushed features. She had the feeling that her color was heightened, too. The feel of his body still burned on her hands.

Kyle refused to look at her and skirted the sofa to start down the hall. "Thanks for the back rub," he added flatly. "I think I'll go take a hot shower to finish what you started. That should get the rest of the kinks out."

The shower he was going to take definitely wasn't going to be a hot one. Once safely inside his room, he scattered socks, jeans and jockey shorts in a winding path to his bathroom. "If cleanliness is next to godliness," he muttered, bracing himself against the icy spray, "then I'm destined for sainthood."

Toni leaned against the back of the sofa and stared at the glass figurine on the coffee table. As a seductress, she was an absolute flop. Kyle was physically attracted to her. Feminine instinct told her that much. But why was he holding back?

Flipping her hair over her shoulder, she rubbed her numb legs. There was more than a physical attraction between them. His affection was far too apparent for her to think otherwise. Did he realize that they knew each other so well, it would be impossible to separate feelings from any physical display of caring? Had he been hurt so badly by his ex-wife that he simply couldn't handle an emotional relationship?