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After the Ashes(23)

By:Cheryl Howe


He laid his head back down. “Give me your worst.”

She scooped out a large dollop of the ointment and smeared it on his shoulders. He jumped at her touch. “It’s cold,” he mumbled.

“Sorry.” She scraped the liniment off his back and rubbed it between her hands, warming it and making it more pliable. Her hands coated with the thick ointment, she placed her palms flat on his back. His skin was hot. Though he looked golden brown in the lamplight, he must have burned from working much of the time with his shirt off.

He took a deep breath and released it, as if calming himself. She’d done little more than rub her palms lightly across his back, smearing the ointment over his skin.

“Come on, now. I haven’t hurt you yet.”'

“Not yet,” he said into the table.

The way he bent over the chair bunched the muscles along his back. Lorelei started with his shoulders, working around the prominent blades. He didn’t moan or complain as she worked her fingers into his sore muscles. Her second oldest brother, Donnan, would have been jumping at her every touch, screaming abuse, while Corey would have let her do anything to him as long as he was the center of attention. Braddock wasn’t like either of them. If anything he was like Devine, her oldest brother—stoic while you did what needed to be done, but grateful you took the time.

She missed Donnan as much as she missed her parents, but sometimes she missed Devine the most. When he was alive, she’d always felt like the baby, the princess of the family. Even when he’d called her Her Highness Lorelei while pulling her hair, she’d felt like royalty visited upon the Sullivan clan. Oh, how the mighty had fallen.

She worked her hands back toward Braddock’s bunched shoulders and up his neck. Tears burned behind her eyes and she sniffed to keep them from falling. Braddock tried to lift his head, but she pushed him back down.

“The camphor’s burning my eyes.”

He didn’t question her.

She slid her hands around his rib cage, using her thumbs to work the muscles on either side of his spine. She could touch him forever. His skin radiated warmth all the way up her arms. The feel of him soothed her, letting her remember without the talons of pain that usually accompanied the images of her family.

She sighed. “Actually, I was thinking of my brothers. I used to rub out their kinks just like this. I miss them.”

His long, uncomfortable silence made Lorelei regret sharing her inner self. What did he know about such things as longings?

Finally he said, “My sister would never do anything like this for me.”

“Well, maybe if you let her call you by your first name and didn’t put snakes in her bed she would have.”

He chuckled low in his throat, and she felt his laughter through her fingertips. “She called me by my first name.”

Lorelei dug her thumb into a knot tucked in between his ribs. “Which is?”

“Ow!” He squirmed, trying to get away from her probing, but she was relentless. “Christopher. Christopher Ellis Braddock.”

She released the pressure of her thumb. “Christopher Ellis. Now that’s a fine name. Don’t know why you needed to make it such a big mystery.”

He lifted his head and glanced at her over his shoulder. “Some Indians believe if you tell a man your name it gives him power over you.”

She slipped her hands down to his waistband, working the tight muscles of his lower back. Occasionally her fingers would slip beneath his trousers, low enough for her to know he wore nothing else. She swallowed hard, keeping her voice light. “Well, I’m not a man, am I?”

He reached around with his right hand and grabbed her wrist, holding her in place while he turned to face her. “No, you’re worse.”

He nudged the chair aside. He sat on the edge of the table and brought her between his knees.

Lorelei followed his movements as willingly as a reflection in a mirror. She put her palms flat against his chest, spreading her fingers across the hard mounds of muscle. “I’m not finished yet.”

His arms circled her waist and he drew her against him. “Any lower, Lorelei, and you’d have been finished, all right. I don’t think you massaged your brothers like that.” He leaned down and kissed her quick and hard on the mouth as if he couldn’t help himself. “What were you thinking, girl?”

She let her head fall back, waiting for him to kiss her again. When he didn’t, she raised up on her tiptoes and touched her lips to his. His mouth eased open but he let her do the kissing while he gripped her more tightly against him. She darted her tongue into his mouth, relishing his heat, the feel of his skin under her hands and his mouth on hers.