squeezed again. It was a silent communication to let him know where she was, but it was surprisingly firm. Confident.
“I’ll use our unscented oil. If there’s significant inflammation, I can add geranium or yarrow.”
He almost suggested she could dress him like a salad, but bit it back. He didn’t usually have to filter himself quite so carefully when he was alone with a woman. He was the one naked and facedown, pretty much at her mercy, but an urge to pursue gripped him. He had to be careful.
“Whatever you think is best.”
“How was the snow?” She was on his left side.
“Good.” Amazing, actually. The sun had come out and the powder had been chest deep, but he barely recalled it now as he heard the click of a cap and the quiet friction of her palms rubbing together. He discovered he was holding his breath with anticipation.
Her fingertips settled in his middle back, light as a leaf coming to rest on the ground. Slowly, she applied pressure until she was leaning into him, prompting him to exhale until there was nothing left in his lungs.
As he drew in his next breath, the warmth in her hands stayed firm, penetrating his skin. She began to move in sweeping strokes, spreading the oil before her touch slowed and grew more exploratory.
Rhys had a massage at least once a month. He was as athletic as possible given his busy life of travel and meetings. He worked out regularly and ran marathons on treadmills, but he had a knack for storing tension in his shoulders and neck.
She found it, squeezing his trapezius muscle on either side, not working it, but acknowledging it. It wasn’t supposed to be erotic, but he found her greeting of that tension both teasing and soothing. A comforting warning that she would be back.
It fostered a sense of connection that he instinctively knew would make for both heaven and hell. He probably should have called this massage off right here and now, but the temptation to feel her hands on him was too strong. Even though he doubted he’d be able to relax when—
He grunted with shock as she set her thumb into a spot next to his spine and sent a white-hot blade between his ribs.
“Sorry.” Her touch lifted away. “Trigger point. I’ll come back to it.”
“No.” It was as if she’d found something in him no one else had ever discovered. “Do it again.”
“I just felt all this tightness here.” Her hand got into the crook of his neck and shoulder while she pressed into the trigger point again with the point of—
“Is that your elbow?”
“Too hard?” She lifted away.
“No.”
The pressure came back, the pain intense for the space of three breaths before it faded into a release of tingles like fairy dust, so profound he groaned in relief.
“There we go,” she murmured, hands sweeping to soothe before she moved to the other side.
For the next ten minutes, she worked his shoulders, alternately persecuting and appeasing before she moved into his lower back. She even nudged aside the sheet to get her elbows into the tops of his glutes. It was another pressure point, hurting like hell before the cords in his lower back relaxed and his muscles turned to pudding.
He had never considered himself kinky, but this was bordering on erotic. The whole time he was blinded by intense sensations, he was equally aware of the sensual brush of her breast against his hip and what might have been the tickle of her hair falling against his spine. When he lifted his hips slightly, trying to give himself room to grow, she straightened away and drew the sheet up over his tailbone.
“I’ll try going after that area with reflexology.” She uncovered his feet. “Tell me if this pressure is too much?”
Her thumbs dug against his instep. He nearly levitated, but the endorphin rush was worth it. By the time she’d gone up his calves and into his hamstrings, he was hers. He’d never been in such a state of sublime arousal. She could have tied him to the bed and shown him a riding crop and he’d have begged, “Yes, please.”
She worked his arms, and it took everything in him to keep them lax rather than flexing to drag her close. He ached to touch her as intimately as she was touching him, but he had to stay motionless and let her drive him mad.
This was torture. Genuine torture.
“Would you like to turn ov—”
“No,” he growled. He was fully hard. If she looked him in the eye, she would know how badly he wanted to drag her atop him and see how much abuse this table could take.
A surprised pause. “I’ll finish with your neck and scalp, then?”
“Yes.”
She moved to stand above his head. All he could see through the face cradle was her bare feet.
Each of her big toes wore a silhouette of a woman’s shoe against a background of pink. The plain one was peeling up. The other was bedecked with jewels and winked at him as she curled her toes and set gentle fingertips against the back of his neck.
“If I’ve been too rough—”
“You haven’t.” He closed his eyes in pleasure-pain. “This is the best massage of my life. I have to cut it short before it turns into something else.”
He thought he heard a small “Eep.” He definitely heard her swallow.
“Stay mean,” he growled.
Her laugh was garbled and semihysterical, but she obeyed. She did cruel things to his trapezius muscles, turning snarling pit bulls into docile golden retrievers.
The final act was a merciless grip of all four fingertips of both hands into the muscles at the base of his skull. She held him in a dull headache for what felt like ten minutes before the pain evaporated into a sensation of sunshine dawning after a long, harsh winter.
She speared her fingers into his hair and erased his memory of pain, leaving the tranquil buzz he’d only previously experienced postcoitally.
“Take your time rising and dressing.” Her voice sounded throaty and laden with desire, causing a fresh rush of heat into his groin. “Drink some water.”
He couldn’t move. Wait. He picked up his head, but the door was already closing behind her.
He felt drugged as he sat up, peeved that he hadn’t asked her name. Probably for the best. He looked down at his lap, as ready for sex as he’d ever been.
If she could put him through his paces with a massage, what would sex with her be like?
The strong tug between his thighs told him thoughts like that were unhelpful.
As he pulled on his robe, he resented the hell out of his position. Curse tradition and snobbery and an illness that had put the future on his doorstep. Ten years ago, he could have had an affair with a spa worker and no one would have known or cared.
Once he’d moved back into the palace, he’d had to become more circumspect in his choices, but he still could have managed a fling with someone whose connections were less prestigious than his own. There would have been blowback, but an affair wasn’t marriage.
That’s what Rhys had to court now, though. Any relationship he started would have to be taken to the finish line. Was he really going to go against the grain with a pool-girl masseuse? Refuse to do his duty to his brother and the crown in favor of appeasing his libido?
He cursed, annoyed. One dinner was all he was after, before he made the rounds through the more expected choices of potential brides. Was that so much to ask? One evening to get to know her before he was forced to settle?
It was a selfish rationalization he shouldn’t even contemplate.
He poured a cup of water from the cistern