Tempting Faith (Indigo Love Spectrum) (13 page)

“How’s it going?” Brent asked, coming up behind Zander. “Is she warming up to you?”

“Oh, yeah,” Zander said lightly. “She’s steaming.”

“Should we call it a day then?”

“No,” Zander said, his resolve hardening. “This is going to be settled one way or the other, right now.”

* * *

A smile and a
Baxter Management
business card was all it took to distract the countergirl manning the desk at the entrance to the Bodyworks Center. While the young woman ogled the card, Brent peered at the twin menus mounted above her head, detailing the massage and yoga services offered beyond the bluish-white walls behind the check-in counter.

Brent selected an item from the massage menu. “Tell me more about the, uh, Gua Sha. What exactly is that?”

The woman turned to look, and the moment her back was to him, Brent waved Zander into the center.

“Oh, you’ll love it,” the receptionist gushed. “Our Gua Sha master will apply olive oil and herbs to your skin to promote blood flow, open your pores and cleanse your skin. She’ll use a flat tool to scrape your skin, which will facilitate the pain-relieving properties of the treatment. Now, where are you having pain?”

“I’m pretty good right now, actually,” Brent said smoothly, one eye on the countergirl, the other on Zander, who moved deeper into Bodyworks. “Do you have anything that involves four or six-hand massage? I’ve really got a lot to handle.”

The girl giggled, and Zander rolled his eyes. He grudgingly admired Brent’s skill at altering his charm from smarmy to winning, depending on his goal. The young receptionist gobbled up every oily compliment oozing from Brent’s mouth, allowing Zander the time to stroll the corridor, peeking through the porthole windows in each door.

The high ceilings and oversized doors gave Zander the feeling that he had entered an alien environment, one in which people paid obscene sums of money to have their orifices probed.

That very thing was underway behind a door labeled Colon Hydrotherapy. The opaque glass of the porthole, thankfully, didn’t permit a clear look at the figure lying on his or her side on a table, but the movements of the white-smocked technician standing at the figure’s backside were unmistakable.

Zander passed the Balinese Massage room, from which wafted the scent of coconut oil. The door to the Sound Therapy room opened as Zander stepped in front of it, and he collided with a technician bearing an armful of equipment. Tuning forks, rattles, a skin-covered drum and a bronze bowl hit the carpeted floor.

“Sorry about that,” Zander said, stooping to help pick up the articles.

“All is forgiven,” the young man said cheerily, pressing his palms together in a friendly bow. He had a pronounced Indian accent, and a bright smile appeared between his reddish-brown cheeks. “It’ll take more than a little bump to harm a Tibetan singing bowl. Are you my six o’clock? I’m just finishing up with my previous client, but—”

“No, I’m actually looking for someone,” Zander said. “She’s, um, having a…”
A facial? A massage? A tooter routing?
Zander struggled to recall something from the menus he’d only glanced at earlier.

“She’s having a treatment,” he finally finished. “With some oil, and—”

“The Raindrop Massage?” the sound therapist suggested.

Zander snapped his fingers. “That’s it! Right. Raindrop. Could you point me to the Raindrop room?”

“Straight down the corridor, make a right, and it’s the fourth door on your left, sir,” the therapist answered.

“Thanks,” Zander said, starting off.

“Be blessed,” the therapist called before going in the other direction.

Once he rounded the corner, Zander picked up speed. The Bodyworks Center was much bigger than he had imagined. If the Raindrop room wasn’t the right one, he had at least two dozen more portholes to peep through.

The fourth door on the left was closed, but pressing his ear to it, Zander made out muffled voices.

“…will do that to you, although it’s usually a bacterial or viral cause behind this sort of problem with the spine,” a pleasant female voice was saying. “This is only your first treatment, but I guarantee it’s a good way to start undoing all the damage your ballet and cheerleading did to your back. Would you mind terribly if I popped out for a bit to replenish my thyme oil?”

“Please, go right ahead,” Faith responded.

“You just lie here and relax, and I’ll be right back, okay?”

Zander darted away from the door, falling into step behind a man in a terrycloth bathrobe who had just exited the neighboring Chi Nei Tsang room. The fellow’s eyes were glazed, as though his experience had been pure bliss.

Hurrying to retrieve her oil, the Raindrop room attendant outpaced Zander and the man in the bathrobe. Zander took a couple of steps backward before turning completely and slipping into the Raindrop room.

Faith was lying on her stomach atop a table draped with gauzy white cloth, her eyes closed, her head resting upon her crossed arms. The table was slightly inclined, giving Zander a view of her body, which was nude but for a whisper-sheer white cloth covering her backside. His body responded with such intensity and immediacy, he almost groaned in pain.

The track lighting edging the ceiling had been dimmed, and the skylight admitted only the purple-pink shadows of the approaching sunset. White candles of varying thickness and height lent warmth and illumination to the room, the shadows of their flickering tips bringing the stone walls to life.

A wheeled silver cart at Faith’s hip contained several glass bottles with different levels of colored fluid. The carpeting muffling his footsteps, Zander stepped up to the table, took up a squat, rounded bottle, and quietly slipped out the stopper. He identified the contents with one sniff: peppermint.

Smiling impishly, he went to the door and turned the simple thumb lock. Returning to Faith’s side, he opened each of the bottles on the cart. He recognized several scents—oregano, basil, lavender, peppermint, lemon, orange and rose—but most he didn’t. He separated the unfamiliar scents from those he knew before unstopping all of the citrus and spice oils. Raising a bottle in each hand, he took his cue from the room’s title and sprinkled droplets of oil along Faith’s spine.

She inhaled softly, her bottom reflexively popping an inch or two upward. “That feels really nice,” she sighed.

“It gets better,” Zander said.

Faith spun around and sat up so fast, she nearly rolled off the table. Grabbing the fabric covering her hips, she pulled it up to her chest, concealing her nudity without concealing it at all.

Too surprised and angry to speak, she sat there, her chest and shoulders heaving. “You—Are—I—” she stammered before finding her voice. “If I wasn’t naked, I’d beat your brains out!” she hollered.

“Shh!” Zander urged, setting down the bottles. “Do you want that lady to catch us?”

“That lady is the one who’s
supposed
to be here, not you!”

A bump on the door interrupted them. “Mistress Faith, the door is locked,” came a woman’s voice from the corridor.

“It’s okay,” Zander said confidently, preemptively drowning out anything Faith would have said. “I’ll take care of this one.”

“No, you won’t!” Faith hissed.

“Mistress Faith, what’s going on in there?” the woman persisted.

“I just want to talk to you,” Zander whispered. “Please.”

The technician tried to force open the door, but with each passing second, Faith knew that she would give in to him. Looking into his eyes, she could deny him nothing.

“It’s okay,” she called. “Someone else has already started my treatment.”

“I’ve got the thyme oil right here,” the woman insisted weakly. “I could just slip it right in there.”

“We’re good, thanks,” Zander firmly, effectively dismissed the woman.

“All right, then, as you wish,” the woman said sadly, her voice fading as she moved from the door.

“What do you want?” Faith asked. She gripped the cloth at her bosom tighter, hoping that would still the tremor in her hand.

She wasn’t ashamed of her body or shy about Zander looking at her. In a city full of women who strived to see their clavicles and hip bones jutting through their skin as a mark of beauty, Faith took pride in what Magda described as her “fleshiness”—her full breasts and hips, the plushness of her thighs, and the supple rounds of her bottom.

The set of Zander’s jaw, the bright heat in his eyes and the prominence at the front of his sweatpants told Faith that he, too, appreciated her fleshiness.

“Well?” she prompted when he kept staring instead of answering her question.

“What’s the matter with your back?” he asked.

“At the moment, it’s got orange and lemon oil running down it,” she said.

“Seriously,” he said.

“If you must know, I have a bit of lower back pain from time to time. From dancing.”

“And cheerleading.”

“Eavesdropper.”

“Why come here? Shouldn’t you go to a doctor?”

“My doctor recommended regular massages,” she said.

“Roll over.”

“No,” she said peevishly, the left side of her upper lip hooked in a tiny moue of distaste. “Get outta here.”

“Would you just roll over?” he prodded gently, covering the hand at her bosom with his own. “I’m pretty good at backrubs. I injured my back filming
Burn
, and I learned a few things when I was in physical therapy.”

“Humphf,” she snorted doubtfully.

Zander grabbed the edge of the cloth she lay on and gave it a sharp tug, flipping Faith onto her stomach. His hands went to her lower back, his thumbs gliding along either side of her spine.

“You—
ummm
!” Her protest morphed into a primitive purr of pleasure as Zander leaned into the motion, ironing out the knots in her back muscles.

“Is this too hard?” he asked.

“You tell me,” Faith giggled.

Zander self-consciously took a small step back. “Not funny. You have no idea what you do to me.”

“You brought this on yourself. I didn’t invite you in here.”

“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”

“Yep.”

Zander’s jaw hardened, almost as much as another part of him had. His hands tensed as he manipulated the muscles of her back, rubbing oil into a glossy sheen on her skin. He licked his lips, the softness of her skin whetting his appetite as thoroughly as the heady scent of the oil. Faith remained motionless, eyes closed. To his chagrin, Zander thought he heard soft snoring.

The injustice of the situation he’d created was irksome. While she lay there, seemingly indifferent to his touch, he was on the verge of begging her to coat her palm with oil and use it to bring a happy ending to the pressure building low in his loins.

He had sought her out with ulterior motives: gain her silence by winning her affection. But the truth of the matter had worked its way into his consciousness just as he worked the oil into Faith’s flesh. He wanted her, plain and simple, secret or no secret. Even more, he wanted her to want him just as much.

“We need to talk about what happened at the Wilshire,” he told her. “Because of the deal we made over that kiss.”

“What kiss?”

Annoyed, he ran his hands over her buttocks, his thumbs lightly delving into the separation between them on their way to her right upper thigh.

Faith pressed her mouth into her left bicep to stifle a moan.

“Do you expect me to believe that you forgot about it?” he asked.

She made a conscious attempt to steady her breathing before replying. “You’re just a guy who owes me a story. You’re a career milestone, and just another fraud actor with a prefabricated past.”

“Is that so?”

“That’s so.”

“What if I refuse to give you your interview?” He dripped oil onto her left buttock and watched it trickle east and disappear.

Goosebumps rose along Faith’s skin, following the work of Zander’s hands and thumbs as they oiled her. He left her incapable of speech after widening her thighs and dripping more oil onto her, making sure it traveled into the valley hidden against the table.

“Coming from Zander Baron, that wouldn’t surprise me,” Faith managed, her voice thick, husky. “Alex Brannon would stick to his word. Alex Brannon would—”

He showed her what Alex Brannon would do. Bending forward, he took her earlobe between his lips. He suckled it, drawing on it sharply and nipping it until Faith started to turn onto her back. His well-oiled hands glided over her skin, shaping her breasts to give him prime access to her nipples. Her back arched and she helped him climb onto the table. Straddling her, his hands full of her, he clapped his mouth to hers, kissing her deeply as she clutched handfuls of his T-shirt.

Kneeling over her, her legs between his, he took his time studying her. So many nights he’d lain awake in his leaky corner of the Brannon trailer with nothing but fantasies of Faith giving him the courage and will to face the next morning. He had imagined what she would look like naked, but his brain had never fashioned anything as lovely as what he was now seeing.

Her skin…

It was her loveliest feature, the thing that had first captivated him. The candlelight painted chocolate shadows that defined the roasted honey curves and planes of her body. The cinnamon peaks of her breasts reacted to his gaze, prettily puckering tight and leaving his mouth dry. His eyes traced her midline from her sternum, over her defined abdominal muscles, and down to the narrow ribbon of neatly trimmed floss between her legs.

Faith was still very much the girl he’d known back home, but her “bacon strip” was distinctly Californian. He absently took his lower lip in his mouth, mutely conveying his desire to lick her, to discover if her skin and floss were as delicious as they looked, to feel her melting in his mouth.

“Who are you?” she murmured, sitting up just enough to take his face in her hands.

In the subdued light, his hair looked darker, much closer to the shade it had been the last time she’d seen him in Dorothy. In some ways, he looked younger now than he had then, most likely because he no longer dealt with the daily stress of just surviving in Booger Hollow. He was well fed and had a warm bed to sleep in at night. That hard, edgy look of hunger and despair was gone.