oOo
Though his name hadn’t rung a particular bell, she recognized the guy as soon as she opened the door. He was lying on his belly, the sheet over his bottom half, his face in the donut-shaped headrest. He had a huge angel tat on his right upper arm, from his shoulder almost to his elbow, and a big, three dimensional barbed wire arm band around his left bicep.
Ink, she never forgot.
This was the asshole with the Hummer. From that wedding the band had done about a month or so ago. She should have remembered. She’d met Heather at that wedding, which was why she was living and working in Quiet Cove now.
Great. She hated this guy. Driving a Viagra-mobile, acting all cocky and like God’s gift, standing there in the sand with all his muscles hanging out, waiting for her to be impressed. Douchebag.
She’d told him he probably had a tiny dick.
And now her mouth broke free of its tether again.
“Oh, fuck me.”
He lifted his head and looked at her. She could tell he didn’t recognize her right away. Made sense—she looked a lot different doing her day job than she did when she was working with Fierce Ferret. Which wasn’t a job so much as a hobby. Or charity work, more like. Not a lot of money happening there.
When they’d met, she’d been wearing the clothes she felt most comfortable in. She couldn’t remember exactly how she’d gotten herself up, but she figured black mini, fishnets, Docs, whatever. Lots of black eye makeup and red lips. Leather, rubber, and silver jewelry. Her black hair loose and straight. That was pretty typical.
For her day job, she wore a ponytail, no makeup or jewelry at all, and black yoga pants with a light-colored knit shirt. At the Seagazer, she wore a pastel blue tee with the spa logo across the chest.
Moreover, for her day job, she was known as ‘Emma.’
His forehead creased. She’d probably pissed him off. Not exactly kosher to walk in with a massage client and start dropping f-bombs.
“There a problem, girl, or was that an invitation?”
Oh, he really was an ass. “No. Just…maybe you want to reschedule with Heather. I know you were expecting her.”
He shifted to lean on his elbows, and she saw him wince a little. “Yeah, I was surprised. But I’m having some trouble in my right shoulder, so it’s on the urgent side. I don’t mind if you don’t.”
“You don’t recognize me.”
He put on a sheepish grin then, and she knew he thought he’d banged her and had forgotten. She wasn’t great reading people, but that was coming through loud and clear, and she got pissed—for no good reason, actually, since he hadn’t pulled a fuck-n-chuck on her.
“No, sugar, sorry—” He cut himself off and squinted at her. “Wait. You’re the little punk dwarf from Carlo and Sabina’s—but you had some dude’s name. Like Mikey or Frankie or…”
“Manny. My name’s Manny.”
“Which isn’t Emma.”
“My name confuses clients who want a massage from someone of a particular gender. It’s just easier to give them a girl’s name.”
“Why Emma?”
“My full name is Emmanuelle.” The words were out of her mouth before she knew it. She never told anybody that if she could help it at all.
“Pretty.” Then he got a stupid smirk on his face and chuckled, and she knew exactly what he was thinking. This guy she could read really well, for some reason. Probably because he didn’t seem to have any more filter than she did. “That was the first porno I ever saw.”
Yep. She sighed. “Which is why I’m Manny. Do you want your fucking massage or not?”
Jesus. She was going to get fired.
She tried to work up an apology, but before she could, he laughed—and not just a chuckle, but a thorough laugh of heartfelt enjoyment. “You’re something else, girl. Yeah. Don’t see how those tiny little hands and that tiny little body’s gonna accomplish much, but I’m desperate, and they tell me you’re good. So come on up and get to it.”
oOo
If he wasn’t the most muscular man she’d ever worked on, he was way up there. She often needed to use a little stepstool to work on bigger clients, but she found herself practically lying on him a couple of times to get the right leverage into his cords of muscle. But her small hands were actually pretty useful, especially for deep tissue. She could get at pressure points quite effectively. And his shoulder was seriously fucked.
They hadn’t talked much. She liked that. Small talk was not a thing she was good at, and it distracted her from her work when she had clients who needed to converse during a massage. She didn’t mind people like Mr. Carbone, who did a monologue the whole time and only needed the occasional encouraging grunt to keep going. But her favorite clients were the ones who just gave themselves over to the experience and were quiet. Luca Pagano surprised her by being such a client. She was doing more talking than him, asking about locations of pain and things like that. His answers were brief.