Goddammit all, she was leaving so fucking soon. Couldn’t he allow himself one last taste of the forbidden? Didn’t she deserve a friend who would help relieve her pain?
“Why don’t I return the favor?” He met her startled gaze, attempting to appear impassive. “I’m no expert, but I should be able to work out a few kinks.”
Her brows rose. “Really?”
“Yeah. I, uh”—he swallowed—“took a course or two a few years back.”
A hedonist at heart, she didn’t hesitate. “That soundsamazing. Thank you so much! Where do you want me?”
On the floor. In the chair. On his desk. In the shower. On the bed, for hours at a time.
But he supposed she meant for the massage. “If you’d like me to focus on your shoulders and upper back, the chair. Ifyou’d like me to work on your lower back or legs too, we’ll need”—oh, Jesus—“a bed.”
“Hmmm.” She tapped her lip with her forefinger. “Let’s not bother with oil. I just want a gentle massage, and I don’t want to have to take another shower tonight. And?—”
Thank God for small favors. At least they weren’t adding lubrication to this disaster-in-the-making.
“—my feet are aching a bit, so I guess…the bed?” She wrinkled her nose. “Is that okay? Or do you want me to bring in my massage table?”
“The bed is fine.”
Why not? It wasn’t as if his balls could get any bluer. They’d already reached Horny Smurf status an hour ago.
“Okay.” She practically skipped to the bedroom. “Let me get undressed, and I’ll be ready in about a minute.”
He didn’t require a minute. He was already there, Smurftastic balls and all. “Fine.”
For the next sixty seconds, he braced himself for whatever state of nakedness Lucy might choose for her massage. She clearly wouldn’t be wearing a bra, since he was pretty sure she didn’t own one. But what about that loose shirt? Or her skirt? Or—he squeezed his eyes shut—her underwear?
“Ready!” she called out.
Caught between running away and sprinting to her side, he forced himself to walk at a normal, deliberate pace. Only to find her lying on her stomach, topless, her back completely exposed. She’d pushed the skirt up to her thighs, so his eyes could devour almost the full length of her long, strong legs. Maybe she was wearing something else beneath that skirt, maybe she wasn’t.
She tucked her hands beneath her cheek. “Is this okay? Because I don’t usually wear a skirt during a massage. Do you want me to take it off?”
“No.” His hands were shaking. “No, it’s fine where it is.”
“Okay.” She took a deep breath, and the alluring line of her back rose and fell. “Please don’t do this for long. I don’t want you hurting only minutes after I got you relaxed.”
Then he was standing beside the bed, poised to touch her bare skin. Not her hand, or some other innocuous body part countless people had handled in the past, but a private patch of flesh. Paler than her arms, more vulnerable. More intimate.
With the first stroke of his hands over her back, she sighed, and he just about did the same. The warmth of her skin stunned him, its softness echoing her gentle nature. But beneath that smooth skin lay honed, well-used muscles, indicating a strength most people didn’t see.
He did. He’d always seen it, from the first moment she’d tugged him away from an incipient fight and forced him to eat lunch with her on a shady patch of grass beside the school. From the first time she’d met his parents and charmed them immediately with her enthusiasm for their unfamiliar dinner offerings. From the first note she’d passed him in class, telling him how much his friendship meant to her.
Again and again, she opened her heart and bared her soul, no matter how the world battered both.
That required strength he couldn’t match.
Under his hands, she seemed to melt into the mattress. Her eyes had closed, her golden-brown lashes fanning below them.
“Feels so good,” she murmured.
It did. It felt good to give her pleasure. It felt good to touch her in a way that required trust.
“I’m glad.” He moved to her legs, using his forearms in long strokes over her strained muscles, and she smiled, her eyes still shut.
“I wrote down the limerick.” Her jaw cracked with her yawn. “Your latest masterpiece. Put it in my suitcase.”
