Chapter 9
Jake’s eyes popped open as if they’d been spring-loaded. “What?”
Amanda just smiled and lifted the bottle of liniment she’d carried in. “The remedy.”
Jake looked over and scowled. “A back rub?”
“The best,” she assured him, moving around to the front of the couch. “Sure to cure all ills.”
“But I just got this shirt on,” he protested, still not moving.
“You do the buttons and I’ll do the rest.”
Jake groaned and closed his eyes again. “I don’t suppose I could talk you out of this.”
“Do you know how sore you’re going to be tomorrow if you don’t get those muscles relaxed a little?” she demanded.
She almost lost her train of thought when she looked down on him to see the firelight wash his forehead. Shadows collected in the hollows of his cheeks and flickered through the fan of dark lashes. They pooled into the hollow of his throat like dark water, and Amanda couldn’t think past wanting to dip her tongue in it and drink.
“I am relaxing them,” Jake protested, still not moving. “I’m laying them down on this couch.”
“Not good enough. Come on, be a big boy and get it over with so I can get some sleep.”
“I don’t suppose there are any alternatives that let me stay right here,” he countered, his voice gravelly with weariness.
Amanda couldn’t help the smile. The only alternative she could think of wouldn’t have been found in any book of medicine, folklore or otherwise. But, oh, as she looked down at the whipcord body stretched out on that couch, at the soft, beaten denim jeans that fit so snugly, she wouldn’t have minded trying.
Jake caught her in that smile. When she let her gaze stray back up to his face, it was to find those icy blue eyes focused on her. Those icy eyes that suddenly looked so curiously like flame. They stole Amanda’s breath and shattered her sense. She could feel the scarlet flush of exposure creep up her cheeks.
“Amanda,” Jake grated, his jaw tight again.
She came very close to giving in to the instincts that chorused in her, instincts older than time, instincts that fed on the sight of fire-warmed skin, the sound of a rasping breath, the smell of leather and hard work and fresh wind.
At the last minute she reeled her control back in and turned her attention to uncapping the liniment. “No negotiations,” she insisted, nudging his leg with her own. “Get the damn back rub or I just pour the liniment over your head and leave you here to freeze.”
In the end, she sat behind him on the couch pouring liniment into her hands. Jake waited, his head down, his elbows on his thighs, the firelight flickering in his hair and along the sleek lines of his bare arms. Amanda set the bottle back down and turned to her work.
She did her best to remain objective. Jake was as tight as a guidewire, his muscles knotted beneath her fingers. She kneaded and rubbed, working from his neck down, over his shoulders, his back, each vertebrae of his spine, her fingers digging into sore spots and unraveling tension.
He groaned once, and the sound thrummed right through her. Amanda hadn’t meant for this to be anything but therapeutic, but it was hard to keep it that way. Jake’s back was so solid, so sinuous against her hands. His skin was warm, his body every fantasy she’d ever entertained about the male species. She could smell the twin tangs of soap and liniment on him, could hear the soft fall of his breathing, could feel the sleek muscles and tendons beneath her hands. She imagined what he’d feel like against her, around her, in her, and it threatened to overwhelm her.
“Boy, that fire’s hot,” she murmured, wiping a slippery hand along her forehead.
Jake didn’t answer. He didn’t move.
“Jake?” she whispered, leaning a little to the left to see the angles of his face limned in fire. “You okay? Are you too hot?”
Amanda almost groaned at the question. She was the one who was too hot. Her hands ached to wander farther afield. Her breasts burned for another taste of Jake’s hands.
But Jake still didn’t answer.
“Jake?”
That was when she realized that her treatment had worked. He wasn’t relaxed. He was asleep. Between the hot food, pain medicine and massage, he’d finally given in to the battering abuse his body had suffered over the last few days. His eyes were closed and his head down, that tumble of dark golden hair falling forward over his forehead.
Amanda wasn’t sure what to do. She was afraid that if she tried to get him into his own room, he’d wake up enough to demand a walk out to the barn. There was an afghan on Lee’s bed. After carefully easing Jake back, she ran in to get it. Then, covering him, she slid down on the floor next to the couch to make sure Jake would be all right there with that medicine on board.
Amanda reached up to brush the hair back that fell in his eyes and ran an exploratory finger along the line of stitches that had crusted over. She could see the bruises Sidewinder had left behind, both on Jake’s face and his chest. She could tell how much Jake had been hurting. Well, she’d just stay here to make sure he didn’t hurt himself any more.
