The Masseuse (10 page)

“You really want to stay here?” I asked.

He moved his hips, making a sigh slip from my throat. I still wanted him badly.

“What I really want is to find the nearest hotel room and fuck until we both pass out.”

“That could be a while,” I warned him. “I have excellent stamina.”

“So do I,” he said with a smile in his voice.

The mood had changed between us, from heated to playful. He was still ready, as was I, but the urgency had simmered. We could wait, at least for a little while.

“Best burgers, huh?” I asked.

His mouth found my collarbone and licked a straight line up behind my ear. I shivered.

“They’re all right,” he said, slipping the dress strap down over one shoulder. This time, I definitely heard the cheers.

“You better eat fast,” I whispered, nipping his ear lobe. “Because it’s going to be a long night.”

I opened the car door and crawled over him outside. He watched me curiously, brows raised.

“Oh shit,” I heard someone say in the dark. I could make out the shadows thirty feet away, but no faces. “Go.
Go
. Alec’s going to kick your ass.”

I tucked one foot behind me, and like I’d once seen in one of Paisley’s princess movies, made my very best curtsey.

The cheers filled the night.

I
t wasn’t a strip club, at least. It was a bar. The kind that played the music loud and didn’t boast a health rating on the tinted windows. We sat outside in plastic lawn chairs on a wooden deck decorated with neon beer signs that stretched into a dock over the water. The air smelled like grease and mosquito repellent, and the men inside playing pool swore like sailors.

It was sort of perfect.

“Is this okay?” Alec asked, returning from inside with two beers.

“It’s great,” I said. “It reminds me of the cop hangouts my dad used to take me to after work.”

He froze, and cleared his throat before fixing his attention on the bottle. “Your dad’s a cop, huh?”

I nodded. The urge to tell him more about the man I called my father was confusing; normally I didn’t volunteer information about my past.

“A detective,” I said. “Recently retired.”

“Does he live here?”

“Cincinnati.” I thought of the money I’d banked from my first appointment with Maxim Stein. With the extra cash I’d been making from home visits, I’d be able to check in on him soon.

Alec’s shoulders rose and fell with a deep breath.

“What?” I teased. “Were you afraid I’d bring you home to Sunday dinner or something?” It didn’t bother me that my father’s profession made him nervous. It made most people nervous.

“I’m not sure I’m the type you bring home to meet Mom and Dad,” he said.

I wasn’t sure what that meant—if he didn’t want to be more than fuck buddies, or if he thought they’d disapprove.

My dad probably would disapprove. When my date to the senior prom picked me up, my dad was actually sitting on the porch cleaning his gun.

“Are you close to your parents?” I asked.

He looked out over the water and nursed his beer. “Close enough.”

I settled back in my seat and put my bare feet up on the chair next to me. “Just out of curiosity, what isn’t off-limits?”

He scratched the back of his head. “What do you mean?”

“You won’t talk about your job, you won’t talk about your past. I’m just wondering if there’s something you can tell me about yourself?”

Clearly this guy had gotten under my skin. Normally I wouldn’t have cared if he didn’t want to talk about himself; I would have been happy to keep things light. But I was drawn to him in more ways than just the physical—a realization that scared me a little.

He frowned, peeling the label off the bottle. “I’m into you. Isn’t that good enough?”

I felt the warmth shimmer all the way down to my toes.

“For now,” I said.

Mac, a big man in his sixties with a stained white T-shirt and a Santa Claus belly, brought out the burgers himself. He had a handsome smile and kind eyes, and covered his gray hair with a worn Marines veteran ball cap. I braced myself for the embarrassment—the last time he’d seen me, I’d been attempting to ride Alec like a rodeo bull.

“This guy giving you trouble, Anna?” he asked me as he set the heaping plates down on the rickety table. The smell of French fries made my stomach growl.

Alec smirked.

“Some,” I admitted, grateful for the lack of awkwardness. “But if he gets fresh, I think I can take him.”

Mac chuckled. “You let me know if you need backup. I’ve got a twelve gauge behind the bar.”

“Noted,” I said.

When Alec and I were alone again on the deck, I picked up the burger with both hands and took a bite. It was so delicious. I practically groaned. I’d almost gotten through half when I realized he had yet to dig in.

“Problem?” I asked, wiping my hands with the paper napkin.

“No,” he said. “I’m impressed. I’ve never seen a woman eat like that.”

I glanced down at the fries and the huge dripping burger and realized attacking my food like a starved lion on a Nature Channel special didn’t make the best impression.

“Excuse me for not being one of your stick models,” I said.

He tilted his head. “What makes you think I like stick models?”

Was he kidding? I could see him paired with an actress, or any one of the girls from the Victoria’s Secret catalogue, and here he was with me—a solid hourglass figure topping out at five feet, four inches. I wasn’t normally insecure about the way I looked, but I’d never been out with a man so beautiful before.

I glanced up through my lashes. “Look at you.”

“What about me?”

I scoffed, and then realized he was serious.

“You’re decent to look at,” I said. “If you can get past the flabby gut and elephant ears.”

He grinned, a look that made my heart stutter.

“You’re not so bad either,” he told me. “Once you get past the chicken legs and flat chest.”

“And ridiculous hair.” The humidity and sexcapade in his car had made my hair double the normal volume. I reached up to tie it back in a knot at the base of my neck.

“I don’t mind the hair,” he said. “But that mouth is going to get you in trouble.”

I pursed my lips. “And why is that?”

He leaned across the table, pulling my knees between his. Slowly, his fingers skimmed behind my calves, teasing circles that moved up the backs of my thighs.

“It’s very distracting.” He came closer, until he was just a breath away.

“Then how come I had to kiss you first?” I asked, pulse flying.

His nose brushed against mine.

“You said you don’t kiss on the first date. I was trying to be respectful.”

I would have laughed if my heart wasn’t caught in my throat.

“I guess some rules are made to be broken,” I said.

He murmured his agreement.

It started slow, a feather-soft press of his lips on mine, but as they slanted and opened, the fire was rekindled. My eyelids drifted closed. Tendrils of heat curled in my belly as he sucked my lower lip into his mouth and traced it with his tongue. The kiss deepened as his fingers threaded through my hair, massaging my scalp. My hair tumbled free from the knot and cascaded down my back. I could feel myself drawing closer to him, melting into him as his tongue caressed mine.

“Get some, Alec!” someone called through the window.

Alec slowly pulled away, a look of annoyance on his face.

“Excuse me a second.” He started to rise, but I grabbed the collar of his shirt and pulled him back down.

“He’s trying to,” I shouted back. “Quit interrupting!”

Laughter came from inside, and Alec chuckled.

I planted one more searing kiss on him before leaning back.

“Finish eating,” he told me. “I can’t keep my hands off you much longer.”

I toyed with a fry while he went to work on his burger. I wasn’t sure I was hungry—at least not in that way—anymore. My legs were still between his knees, and I crossed them, slowly running my ankle up his calf. Even through his jeans I could feel the muscles beneath tense.

“What time do you work tomorrow?” he asked roughly.

“Tomorrow I have the day off,” I told him. “You?”

One of his perfect brows arched. “I think my schedule just cleared up.”

I took a sip from the bottle, running the top of the glass back and forth across my lower lip. His jaw twitched watching me, his desire completely obvious in the tight expression on his face. I loved knowing I could turn him on so easily.

“You sure Mr. Stein won’t need you?”
Or Charlotte won’t need you?

“The boss is in New York,” he reminded me.

“So you don’t have to work when he’s not in town?”

“You ask a lot of questions,” he said.

I shrugged. “I like to know who I’m getting into bed with.”

“Are you sure about that?” He tapped the table with his thumb. I was making him nervous.

I wondered if his implied warning had any truth behind it. He’d told me so little about who he was—he could have been the leader of the North American cocaine industry for all I knew. Maybe I should have been taking a step back to think about things before rushing into a relationship, however shallow, with him.

“Now I’ve scared you,” he noticed. His hands returned to my knees. “I didn’t mean to. How about this? For every one of your questions, I get one of mine.”

“Sounds fair.” I narrowed my eyes, trying to figure him out. “What do you do for Maxim Stein?”

He took another bite of his burger. Chewed, swallowed, chased it with beer while I waited. Now
he
was making
me
nervous.

“Whatever he needs,” Alec finally answered. “Security mostly. If he needs a proxy for business deals I do that, too. The managers of various divisions in Force Enterprises report to me, and if there’s a problem, I take care of it.”

“You take care of it,” I repeated. “Like a
body man
.” I’d heard the term in a mafia movie I’d seen with my dad once. Apparently it was a legit occupation; my dad had said that even the president had one. I’d gathered that Alec was highly trusted by Maxim Stein, but it seemed he was more important than I thought.

“Exactly like a body man,” he said.

“Kind of young to have all that responsibility, aren’t you?”

“Is that your next question?”

I crossed my arms over my chest. “No. It falls under the same topic: the occupation of Alec Flynn.”

He considered this a moment. “I’m twenty-nine. I’ve known the boss for fourteen years.”

It made sense now why Alec was so close to the business operations, he’d probably been groomed since he was a teenager. “Was he your parents’ friend or something?”

“Or something,” said Alec, raising the wall between us again. “My turn. Have you been tested?”

The change of direction was jarring, but I should have known by the bulge in his pants that his mind was still on sex.

“I have, and I’m clean.”

“I am as well. Are you on birth control?”

His straightforwardness was making me blush. “It’s not your turn.”

“My question falls under the same topic.”

“Which is?”

“If I can come inside you.”

My lips parted. No, I was definitely not hungry for French fries anymore. My legs parted slightly as his thumbs rose just beneath the hem of my skirt, like he could control me with just a touch.

“Because I want to,” he added. The bar behind him faded; for a moment it felt as if we were the only two people in the world.

“I’m on the pill.” I swallowed. “And we’ll see how it goes.”

He nodded, holding my gaze. The promise of what was to come crackled between us.

“Your turn,” he said.

“Have you been with many women?” I shouldn’t have asked; I knew the answer already. But part of me wanted to know I was different, not just a number to him. I wanted to be important. I wanted to be remembered when we went our separate ways. I already knew I wasn’t going to be able to forget him.

He mulled over my words, long enough for me to wish I could have shoved them back in my mouth. My gaze dropped to my lap.

“I haven’t been with anyone like you.” Slowly, his hand rose to my face, and one fingertip traced my lips. “I have never wanted anything as much as I want you, Anna.”

My heart hammered in my chest. Maybe it was a line, but it felt real. For tonight, I would believe him.

“Your turn,” I whispered, mouth dry. I reached for my glass of water.

“What were you doing in Max’s office the night we met?”

I felt my spine straighten at his direct tone. If not for the gentle way he’d begun to caress my legs again, I would have thought I was in trouble.

“Hiding,” I answered stiffly. “When Mr. Stein was late to our appointment I wandered around a little. You know that. I told you.”

He dismissed it with the wave of his hand. “You’re up.”

“What did you think I was doing in Mr. Stein’s office?” I pulled my legs back, disguising my shift in positions as a way to grab the ketchup for my fries. His question rubbed me the wrong way. How long had he wanted to ask me that? Why had he waited until this moment? It seemed suddenly like this wasn’t a date at all for him, but just an extension of work.

“I don’t know.” He took a deep breath. “We weren’t sure how you’d gotten there at first.”

“We?”

“Bobby and I. You may have seen him at the front gate.”

The creepy guy with buzzed hair came to mind. “Right. I had the pleasure of meeting him earlier when he was digging through my bags without permission.”

“Bobby’s a little more direct than I am.”

His words sunk in slowly, but carried the weight of a ten-pound brick. This was all some smooth ploy to assure I would keep my mouth shut about Maxim Stein’s affair—something I didn’t see anyone besides his wife being interested in knowing anyway. The sting annoyed me. I didn’t let other people hurt me—there were only a handful I let close enough who could. I pushed my plate back, feeling the night’s chill for the first time.

“I’m beginning to think I like Bobby’s way better. At least he didn’t try to cover up what he wanted with dinner and sex.” My voice had gone cold, just like the blood in my veins. I felt my nails dig into my palms. “I didn’t snoop around or steal anything, and I certainly didn’t intend on watching him and Charlotte play porno outside in broad daylight. He can go and fuck whoever he wants for all I care.” I stood. “And you can go and fuck yourself. Thanks for the burger, Alec. I think I’ll call a cab to take me home.”

The humiliation burned my cheeks. I hated feeling stupid. As I looked at Alec, I saw the surprise on his face turn to anger. I was going to call Ms. Rowe tomorrow and tell her to find a new masseuse. The entire venture had been a giant mess from the beginning. I’d find another way to earn the money to see my dad; it just might take a little longer than I’d planned.

“Sit down,” he said.

“Kiss my ass.”

“Sit. Down.” His tone was sharp, and before I could stop myself, I’d done just what he’d demanded. My body betrayed my convictions; my nipples had pebbled, and a new surge of moisture had dampened my inner thighs. I didn’t know what had come over me, how he could make me so hot when I should have been walking away, but the power coming off of him was staggering, and the urge to please him nearly brought me to my knees.

“Don’t doubt me,” he said quietly, and I could feel the heat spread throughout my body. He looked like a wildcat ready to pounce—muscular, sleek, and beautiful. “I told you I want you, and if you think I’m here for any other reason, you’re seriously mistaken.”