He was pretty sure he heard Claudia snort. ‘My boss has had me working like a lackey these last two weeks,’ he murmured.
Another snort from Claudia’s direction.
Luke smiled to himself as silence descended upon the room again. He wondered what the hell Sherry and Marco thought of this particular couple’s massage. He could just picture them raising their eyebrows at each other and shrugging their shoulders. They were undoubtedly more used to couples holding hands and bringing their own CDs of Gregorian chants than a couple who could barely say a civil word to each other.
Claudia was grateful for the warm cloth that Marco placed over her eyes. She’d copped an eyeful of Luke’s broad smooth back as she’d turned. Sherry’s hands glided all over the expanse of him, and she was alternately turned on and jealous.
She could massage the hell out of that back. She’d been told she gave a mean back rub and Luke’s muscles looked as if they were made to be kneaded.
Her heart crashed around in her chest as unhelpful images sprang to mind. No matter how hard she tried to let the drugging massage take her away, to concentrate on the long smooth strokes from expert hands, the image of her hands on Luke’s back—and his legs, and his chest—kept her well and truly anchored to the room.
To the man lying less than two metres away.
‘I’ll hold the towel so you can flip over.’
Claudia tensed and held her breath as Sherry’s command to Luke seemed loud in the room. What would he see when he turned over? Another man’s hands massaging oil into her legs? Her bare shoulders and chest? The towel clinging precariously to nipp**les and just skimming her upper thighs? Her exposed legs?
A lot of skin. Oily and slippery as his had looked, the flicker of flame casting a warm glow over it, bathing it in golden light.
Would it remind him of that morning?
Would he even look?
‘Just the back’s fine,’ Luke said.
Luke took a deep steady breath. The last thing he needed was to turn over. He’d spent twenty minutes trying not to think about the fact that a naked woman was having her body oiled and kneaded right beside him.
And not just any woman.
Claudia.
He’d tried really hard not to think about them being alone at the end of this, all slippery and oily and essentially naked. He closed his mind off to wondering how much weight one of these tables could bear. And he’d definitely not let himself go down the mental path of I-wonder-if-these-doors-have-locks.
He’d got this far without an erection but he knew he had a precarious control on his libido and he didn’t trust himself to turn over and not glance Claudia’s way one more time.
His libido didn’t need that kind of trouble.
‘Are you sure?’ Sherry asked.
He’d never been surer of anything in his life. ‘Positive.’
‘Well, let me work a bit more on your neck,’ she offered. ‘I’m surprised it hasn’t snapped right off your shoulders it’s so taut.’
‘Thank you,’ he murmured.
Because his head was about ready to snap right off. And he was damned if he was going to leave this room before Claudia did. He was keeping his head down and his face firmly jammed in the cut-out until Claudia and her robe had departed.
ELEVEN
‘Avery Shaw, you switched the dresses.’
‘Ah...yes. I can explain that.’
Claudia gripped the phone. ‘Oh, really? How?’
‘I had a hunch you’d chicken out on the red dress so I performed a little...switcheroo this morning.’
‘You did what?’ Claudia blustered into the mouthpiece. ‘When?’
‘Well, I enlisted—’
‘Jonah,’ Claudia said in disgust, the incident that had momentarily puzzled her this morning now making sense. She should have gone with her instincts when Jonah required her assistance to choose which font they were going to use on the new garden signs.
As if he gave a rat’s arse about fonts.
‘Don’t blame him,’ Avery pleaded down the line, jumping to Jonah’s defence—as if the brawny, muscle-bound, lovesick fool needed it.
As if he gave a rat’s arse about Claudia’s displeasure. He was clearly too busy thinking about his own pleasure.
‘I cajoled him into it,’ Avery continued.
Claudia snorted. ‘I bet it didn’t take much.’
‘He told me he didn’t think I should interfere.’
Claudia wasn’t swayed by Avery’s standing-by-her-man act—even if it was the sweetest thing. ‘He’s a clever guy,’ Claudia said dryly.
‘I’m not interfering, Claude...not really...’
Claudia touched the crushed-velvet fabric laid out on her hotel room bedspread and tried not to be seduced by its glamour. ‘You booked us into a couple’s massage!’