Outlaw's Promise(38)

“T—Turn around,” I stammered. “Sit backwards on a chair.”

He stared at me a second longer then silently turned around, grabbed a kitchen chair and straddled it. I stood there staring at his back, at the Hell’s Princes tattoo and the network of thin, raised knife scars he’d picked up over the years. My mind was whirling. How did I tell him he’d gotten the wrong idea? I looked down at the bottle of oil in my hand. Shit, what am I doing?! But it was too late to back out now.

“You really know how to do this?” he muttered.

I swallowed. “Sure.” And I meant it. I’d never massaged anyone before, but bodies are just complicated machines. I looked at his back and I could see where the muscles ran, where the tissue was stretched tight with worry and stress. It was just mechanics and pressure. I uncapped the bottle and squirted a stream of the amber liquid over his shoulders, watching it trickle down his back. Just mechanics and pressure. That’s all this is.#p#分页标题#e#

Except...suddenly, I was second-guessing myself. Was he right?! Was I trying to seduce him? I wasn’t like that! I didn’t have any goddamn feminine wiles!

A little voice inside me laughed.

I watched the oil trickle further and further down his back. If I didn’t act fast, it was going to stain his jeans. I took a shuddering breath, stepped forward and put my hands on him, my thumbs either side of the tiny shamrock tattoo.

I wasn’t ready for how he felt. I’d pressed up against him on the bike enough times but palms and fingertips are a lot more sensitive. I could feel the softness of his skin and the hardness of the muscle beneath. He was so solid, so unshakably, unquestionably there, larger than life and hotly alive, all my fantasies made flesh. I slid my hands slowly up his back, the oil collecting and pooling along the tops of my fingers and thumbs. Behind my hands, I left him shining and glistening, the room’s lone, weak bulb turning his muscles into a study of light and shadow.

He drew in his breath and I could feel his lungs fill beneath my palms. I gulped. I’d never been so in touch with another person. I swore I could feel each beat of his heart….

I glanced away to try to get myself together but as soon as I saw the couch, an image flashed into my head: me on my back, jeans balled around my ankles, him between my thighs….

Then my hands reached his shoulders and I could feel the pain and the tension. I dragged my mind back to what I was supposed to be doing. I’d started this with good intentions; I had to finish it. I pressed my thumbs into the muscles: God, he really was knotted up there. He felt like a hunk of rubber that’s been twisted and twisted until it’s as hard and unyielding as iron. I pressed hard and he groaned.

“Does that hurt?” I asked, worried.

“Yeah,” he spat. Then, after a second, “Keep going.”

Encouraged, I worked my thumbs outward, stretching him like dough. He groaned again. I dug in circles, kneading and pulling. At first, there was no change except for him occasionally wincing and tensing. But gradually, I felt things ease, almost imperceptibly at first but then faster and faster. The frozen rubber started to thaw, becoming pliant. It turned to taffy and then melted taffy.

“You’re good at this,” he muttered.

I smiled. “Thank you.”

As I kept working at his muscles, something started to happen. As he unknotted and unwound, everything he’d been pushing down deep started to rise towards the surface. The silence in the room grew and grew. I could feel him getting ready to tell me. And I needed to hear it because I knew we were never going to get any closer until that happened. But I’d learned my lesson: I wasn’t going to push him this time. I’d massage all night if I had to.

He’d saved me. Now I had to save him.

I dug my thumbs in and drew them slowly outward in circles and he suddenly took a deep lungful of air and said, “Feck!”

I froze. It was the most Irish I’d ever heard his voice, hard and dark and beautiful. Not quite the same as fuck. Softened for my benefit.

He closed his eyes. “When the club has a problem,” he said, “I solve it.” He opened his eyes and they met mine in the mirror. Clear blue, just like they’d been a decade before. Wanting so much to be that man again, without all this weighing on him. “Sometimes, it’s just scaring people. Sometimes, it’s a beating. And sometimes, I have to end someone.”

For several seconds, the room was so quiet I barely dared to breathe.

“How many?” I whispered.

His eyes were still locked on mine. “Too many.”#p#分页标题#e#