“I promise you will.” It was impossible to learn a woman the way he needed to know her without revealing at least something of himself. And though he was a man living a lie he knew he wanted her to know him. He needed that kind of sexual honesty between them now and, he suspected, for the future.
“Okay. I’m going to lie here and let you be my personal masseur.”
“Perfect,” he said. He put more lotion on his hands and finished moving slowly down her leg. He took a minute to massage her calf knowing that being on her feet all day would make those muscles ache. It wasn’t guesswork; he’d had the same aching legs at the end of a long day cooking.
“That feels good,” she said. “Last year for Christmas, Alysse and I went to the Spa at the Hotel Coronado and had massages...”
“How do I measure up?” he asked, letting his hands slide between her legs and sweep up to the apex of her thighs.
“You are a bit more...intimate,” she said.
“I should hope so,” he said, not liking the thought of another man’s hands on her. He knew that jealous wasn’t noble and tried to shove it aside but he wanted Staci to be his. And his alone.
There was something about Staci that made him possessive. Maybe it was that he was away from Gastrophile, which consumed every second of his life when he was home. Or maybe it was just Staci. It was too early in knowing her to make that determination. He only knew that there was something about her that had captured him.
He poured more lotion in his other hand, starting at the top of her right thigh and slowly moving his way down to herfeet. She had tiny feet. And delicately painted toe-nails, he lifted her leg and rubbed the lotion into each foot before caressing his way back up the inside of her legs. He admitted to himself that caress was for himself, but noticed that she shifted slightly, parting her legs, and he guessed she liked his touch, too.
“I’ll do your back and then you roll over and I’ll do your front,” he said.
“Hmm...mmm....”
He couldn’t tell if it was sleepiness that made her mutter that sound or just the simple enjoyment of being touched. He poured more lotion on his hands and starting at the waistband of her bikini bottoms placed his hands on her back. He spread his fingers wide and moved them in slow circles upward. He noticed that one of his hands could span her waist as he rubbed his hands over her.
There was a small mark in the middle of her back just above her waist and he leaned closer to check out the strawberry colored mark, brushing hands over and over it. Some sort of birthmark, he thought.
“The only part of my back that has color,” she said. “I can’t wear low cut dresses.”
“Why not?”
“Everyone always thinks I have something on my back,” she said.
“Everyone or men?” he asked, knowing that if he saw her in a slinky dress and noticed a mark on her back he’d be desperate to touch it and her.
She thought about it and then shrugged. “Mostly men.”
“Yeah, they want to touch you,ma chère.”
“I don’t let them,” she said. There was something very private about her. He imagined that was because she didn’t let people in very easily. He wanted to be let in, he thought.
“I’m glad,” he said and meant it.
He caressed the centerline of her spine, careful not to rub too hard. Finally he reached the back fastening of her bikini top and he deftly undid it as he continued to massage her back. He really liked touching her. He couldn’t believe they’d made love and this was the first time he was seeing her beautiful back and really taking the time to enjoy touching her.
“Um...what are you doing?”
Turning himself on, he thought, shifting his legs as his erection grew. “Making sure you don’t burn,” he said. “Your top could shift while you are lying here and I did give you my word that I wouldn’t let you burn.”
“Yes, you did,” she said. “Your word means that much to you.”
He shifted around so he could see her eyes because there would be a time when she might doubt it, yet his word meant everything to him. “It does.”
She looked at him intently and then reached over to touch his lips with her forefinger, tracing the lines of his mouth. “I want to believe everything you say but it’s hard, Remy. It’s not that I can’t trust you...I can’t trust myself.”
FOR SOME REASONSHEDID trust Remy. Maybe it was the way he seemed to take everything in stride or maybe it was the fact that so far he hadn’t been anything but honest with her. Or maybe it was those stupid feelings in her stomach that made her want to believe that he really cared for her.
She knew it was too soon to be love. But she also knew she was lying to herself. She’d never felt this way before. And maybe that had been why her cooking had suffered. All she thought about was Remy.
His hands on her back were turning her on but it was really just him stoking a fire that was alreadysmoldering. A fire that had been growing with every slight touch in thePremier Chefkitchen. Each night as he slipped into her dreams. Every single morning when she saw him over coffee and regretted that they hadn’t passed the night in each other’s arms.
