Texas Heroes_ Volume 1(40)

Half an hour later, Boone ascended the stairs, telling himself he was only going to take her a bottle of aspirin. The bathroom door stood ajar, the scent of Maddie’s soaps and lotions drifting through the moist air. He almost turned back at the thought of Maddie lying naked in the heated water.

“Maddie?” He’d just tell her where the aspirin was and then head for the front porch.

“I’m in here.” Her room, not the bathroom, thank God. “I—I think this liniment might work, but—”

He approached her room gingerly, not sure what to do. “Are you doing all right?”

“Kind of.” Her voice was tight and thready.

“Are you decent?”

“Yes.”

Boone peered through the opening and had to muffle a laugh. Maddie stood in her room in a bathrobe like none he’d ever seen, a mass of purple fabric that swallowed her up. Her back was to him, and it was covered with an explosion of color forming a peacock that extended from her shoulders down to her legs. It was the loudest damn robe he’d ever seen, but somehow it fit Maddie’s colorful personality to a tee.

But his laughter was quickly stifled by the urge to groan when he watched one long, silky leg emerge from beneath the fabric.

“Oh—” She turned and saw him, and the twisted agony on her face stopped him cold. “I—I can reach everything, but—”

“What’s wrong?”

“A cramp. I bent to rub some into the back of this leg and-” Her voice showed the strain. He’d had leg cramps before. There were few things more painful.

“Here—show me where it is.”

“You don’t have to—” But her voice was small and uncertain, her face white with pain.

“I’ll leave if you want, but it’s hard to rub out a cramp in your hamstring on your own.” After the other night, he didn’t want to put his hands on her—yet he wanted nothing more. But Maddie was in pain, and he could control his response to her. There was no one else to help.

He knelt beside her, and he could see the muscle bunched and knotting. With a hand that was more unsteady than he wanted to admit, he touched the skin that he thought of too often.

It was indeed satin. But Maddie was in pain and he couldn’t think about that now. “Lie down on your stomach.”

Her hands were clenched, her teeth digging into her lower lip. With a small, shaky breath, she nodded and complied.

Boone stood up and slid the robe up out of the way—until he saw the sweet curve of her bottom revealed. His gut knotted. She was naked beneath the robe.

But Maddie’s thoughts were on anything but lust right now, and he had to do the same. He dipped his fingers into the liniment and rubbed it between his hands. Drawing a deep breath, he steeled himself to touch her again.

It helped to stare across the room and knead her muscles by touch. Maddie sucked in a breath, and he responded as he would to any being in pain. “Sh-h-h, breathe slowly and try to relax,” he soothed, using the tone he took with the horses, the one that calmed and reassured. “Relief is coming…it’ll just take a minute. Breathe through the pain. Slow and steady now. That’s my girl.”

His back ached from bending over so far, so he settled on the bed beside her, concentrating everything he had on slow, careful motions, working the knot out, little by little.

The edges of it began to soften, and he heard Maddie sigh as the cramp finally let go. Knowing it could rebound, he continued the motions, moving from the one spot to cover the whole leg. As his fingers slid over the back of her knee, Maddie moaned a catchy little breath. Boone quickly shifted past the sensitive spot and down to her shapely calf, then down more to knead her long, slender foot.

Maddie sighed, and Boone smiled, glad to be easing her pain. He turned his attentions to the other foot, then up that right leg. With every stroke of his hands, Maddie melted and relaxed.

Until he reached her right thigh, and she moaned.

But it was not a moan of pain.

Boone froze, fingers wrapped around her thigh. He tried to swallow, but his throat had turned to sand. Carefully, he removed his hands from Maddie’s body, preparing to rise and leave.

“Thank you,” Maddie said dreamily, her husky voice even lower, its timbre reaching down to vibrate in his loins. She rolled over, brushing hair out of her face with a lazy feline grace. Her robe gapped at the neck, and he could see the shadowy curve of one breast.

She saw where he was looking. Color was high in her cheeks, but her eyes were dark and knowing. Slender fingers dropped the satin fall of hair and moved to close the robe, her every gesture tempting him to stay her hand and replace it with his own.