Mister Match (The Match Series Book 1) (4 page)

“What!” Clare looked outraged. “Like that worked out so well the last time.”

The last time, of course, had been when he’d moved in with Lisa. She shrugged. “He’s allowed. He’s moved on. It’s a good thing.” Maybe, she thought, saying it aloud would make it true.

“Well, good luck to whoever she is, getting involved with an embezzler who’s going to suck her dry and then drop her on her ass for somebody younger and more toned.” She glanced quickly at Lisa. “Not that you aren’t extremely hot. You know you are.”

“Yeah, sure.” Another reminder of what Rodney had done to her, and this one stung most of all. Or maybe it was just the cumulative effect. “Maybe he’s changed,” she offered lamely.

Clare looked at her like she was insane, or at least very, very dim-witted.

Which was somehow soothing. Deep down, one of Lisa’s biggest fears was that her relationship with Rodney had imploded not because he was a liar and a cheat, but because there was actually something wrong with her.

No,
she thought vehemently.
Screw that.
And screw this open-minded-and-mature pretense she was trying to get Clare, and herself, to buy.

“You’re right,” she said. “He’s a total prick. I hope his girlfriend screws him over. I hope she cheats on him with his best friend, steals all his money and gives it to a yoga cult.” She narrowed her eyes. “And I hope she gives him genital warts.”

Clare pumped a fist approvingly in the air. “That’s the spirit. Feels good to let loose a little rage, doesn’t it? Screw yoga—revenge fantasies are what’s good for the soul.”

Lisa snorted, and then squirmed. Clare was studying her for a little longer than was comfortable.

“What?”

Her friend rose and sat in the chair next to hers. “Look, I’m going to give you a little unsolicited advice. And I hate to say this, because believe me, I’d be first in line with my baseball bat if you decided to have a Rodney-piñata party. But I think you should just let him go, Lees. Really. Just write the whole thing off as a loss and a learning experience, and move on.”

“But he owes me—”

“I know, honey,” Clare said, cutting her off. “That’s what I mean about letting him go. Staying engaged with him, with any of it, in any way... I just don’t think it’s healthy for your—” She waved a hand. “Your psyche, or your aura, or whatever Willow would call it.”

“I know.” Lisa shook her head at the floor. “But I could really use that money. He owes me thousands of dollars. I’m actually embarrassed to tell you how much.”

“And you really think you’re going to get it back?” Clare’s direct gaze was full of the cold, hard truth. “You think you’ll get one penny by dropping by his house and asking nicely for a check?”

“No,” Lisa mumbled. “I guess I figured...” She sighed, closed her eyes for a moment, and straightened. “I don’t know what I figured, really,” she admitted.

“Look at it this way. You’re doing fine. You’ve got a job that pays pretty damn well. You’ve got most of your former clients coming here now, purely because they love you. You’ve got the two best friends in the whole entire world, and we’ve got your back. And most importantly, you’re rid of the Rod. You’re free, and you’re loved. Things could be a whole lot worse.”

Lisa’s eyes suddenly prickled. Sometimes, Clare surprised her with wisdom beyond her years.

“It’s funny. That’s exactly what I was telling myself just a little while ago.” She smiled at her friend, then stood with a sigh. “Guess I’d better get back in there. That was plenty of time for him to get fully undressed, right?”

Clare snorted. “I’d be surprised if he hasn’t fallen asleep by the time you get in there.”

“Right. Remind me to kill Willow later.”

Chapter 4

____________________________________

W
hen she knocked on the door to Room Four the second time, she made sure to wait for his call before sliding the door aside.

She found Adam Masters lying on his back on the padded massage table, a white Keiko sheet draped over him from the chest down.

“Mr. Masters, I’m Lisa DeLuca.” Looking him in the eye still felt too embarrassing, so she stared instead at his feet, which he’d left poking out from the bottom of the sheet, and his nice, knobby ankles. His toes were long and well formed, his arches high, but not too high—

I’m sick,
Lisa thought. Apparently, she had a previously unrealized foot fetish. Mortified, she looked away, but that just led her gaze up the sheet, to the bulge at the juncture of his thighs.

Obviously, the man had some assets. She swallowed. Okay, nothing wrong there. The only thing wrong was in her sex-starved, utterly depraved brain.

She blinked hard, jerked her eyes away from him altogether and turned to slide the door shut.

“Hey, listen,” he said. “Lisa? That’s your name, right? I’m sorry about—a few minutes ago.”

Somehow, unlike with hairy Harry Richmond, she didn’t mind that he called her by her first name. “It happens. Don’t mention it.” Hiding a quick, embarrassed smile, she dimmed the lights and glanced over the client sheet. “All right, I have you down for a sixty-minute session today, is that right?”

“I’d love to do more, but I have an interview later this afternoon, so I should probably leave plenty of time to prepare for it.” He sighed and shifted on the table. “I’m all worked up for some reason. You’d think you’d get used to it, but I still get nervous every time I have an interview scheduled.”

“Well, if you want to relax, you’ve come to the right place.” Lisa opened her supply box and quickly arranged her bottles on the stand in the corner. Apparently she was still feeling awkward—she knocked a bottle down by accident, and fumbled to right it again. “Um, is it all right with you if I use massage lotion, or would you prefer a scented oil?”

“Lotion’s fine. Whatever you like working with.” He moved to prop himself up on an elbow and looked at her. “Hey, call me Adam, would you? I don’t really like Mr. Masters. Too formal. Makes me think of my dad. Not that I don’t like my dad.”

She glanced over at him, he grinned at her, and she was undone. His lips were wide and his smile was just the littlest bit crooked, like he had a secret he just might be willing to let her in on.

And his chest. Propped up like that, the contours of his muscles were even more defined than when he’d been lying down. His skin was tanned, as if he ran outside without a shirt. His nipples were dark, and she found her gaze drawn to them for an instant before she remembered to quit ogling him, already.

She was definitely going to have to be careful with this one.

She looked away. “All right. Lotion is better, and this one’s really nice,” she fudged, wishing again for her usual brand. “It has a light, almond-y scent. I think you’ll like it.”

She shook a dark lock of hair out of her eyes and reached back to bind the bulk of it into a ponytail. “Would you like for me to turn on some music? I have several different options.”

Some clients preferred silence, but she hoped he’d say yes. Music would help her get into the right mindset. She thought of massage as a form of sculpting, and felt that her best work happened in the state of mind in which she could communicate with a body through her hands, sensing intuitively what it needed.

Her best work definitely did not happen when her brain was distracted by overwhelming surges of hormones screaming,
This one, we want this one!

“Music? Sure. Great. Um...do you have any Stones?”

She assumed he meant the Rolling Stones, which just happened to be her all-time favorite band. She had a bunch of their early albums on her iPod, but the Keiko spa had a certain ambience and reputation that employees were supposed to help uphold. “I’m sorry, I only have instrumental things. Some classical piano, flutes. I also have waterfall sounds, rainforest sounds, ocean waves.”

“No Stones, but plenty of water,” he joked. “Sure, put something on. Surprise me.”

She laughed lightly at his joke—it was surprisingly dorky and sweet, a point in his favor—and hit Play on the remote that controlled the stereo.

Soothing flute notes piped out softly from the speakers.

“Okay, if you’ll just turn over onto your stomach, I’ll start with your back.” She held the sheet so he could maneuver himself discreetly beneath it. “Is there any area in particular you’d like me to focus on?”

As he settled onto his stomach and she draped the sheet over him once again, her gaze strayed to the rise of his buttocks, covered by just one layer of soft, thin fabric. An image flashed into her mind of rubbing him down with lube and tracing her palms down that incredible back, down, down beneath the sheet, to the rounded, muscular territory that she would find below...

She squeezed her eyes shut. This was so completely unprofessional. Her months of celibacy were obviously starting to wear on her sanity.
Get a grip, DeLuca.
Manhandling clients was an absolute no-no. Even flirting was off-limits.

“My upper back has been bothering me,” Adam was saying, “between my shoulder blades. I travel a lot and sit at my computer way too much.” He shrugged, and she couldn’t help but watch the muscles move beneath his skin with the movement. “I probably don’t have the best posture in the world.”

He looked pretty close to perfect to her. “What do you do?” she asked as she began working the pressure points along the meridians in his back. Talking while giving a massage wasn’t her favorite thing, but she found that most clients preferred to chitchat a bit before slipping into silence.

“I own a start-up company. A website.”

Of course. Austin was a Mecca for tech geeks. He’d mentioned an interview, which meant he was probably in town for a convention, or to seal a deal with an investor. “I saw on your sheet that you’re from Dallas?”

“Well, I’m from all over, really. My family moved around a lot when I was growing up, and Dallas is where we ended up. My sister’s still there. Stepsister, actually. I stay with her when I’m up there.”

“Mmm.” She warmed some of the lotion in her palms before smoothing it over his upper back.

She was starting out slowly, trying to get into the zone, letting her fingers travel over his corded muscles, pressing into knots, coaxing them to release. “Your shoulders are tight,” she murmured. “You work too hard.”

He opened one eye. “You can tell that just by massaging my shoulders?”

She pursed her lips, annoyed with herself. It wasn’t good practice to make pronouncements to her clients about what she read in their bodies. But sometimes bits and pieces leaked out, like now, when her focus was scattered.

“I can tell a lot from a client’s muscles,” she told him. “From how they’re configured. I can tell how well they take care of themselves, or don’t. I can tell where they hold their tension.”

His eyes drifted shut. “You can probably tell I’ve been traveling around a lot lately, then. Sleeping on all kinds of different hotel beds.” He sighed deeply. “Your fingers feel like heaven.”

So does your back,
she thought. She reached for the bottle of lotion.

It slipped out of her already-slick fingers, bounced off the floor and hit the wall with a loud
bonk
.

“Oops.” Now her face was flaming. She moved fast to pick up the bottle before it oozed any more of its contents onto the carpet, and accidentally bumped a hip into the edge of the massage table.

“Oh! Sorry.” Flustered, she grabbed the bottle and straightened. There was a messy glob of lotion drooling down the wall. She turned her thoughts firmly away from which bodily fluid it looked like, and turned back to the massage table.

“Everything okay?” Adam asked, mercifully keeping his eyes closed.

“Just fine. Sorry for the interruption.” Feeling her heart rate skittering along, she commanded herself to breathe slowly and deeply as she squeezed another dab of lotion into her palm.

She needed to focus on her client as a sculpting project rather than as a man. As she had told him, she could tell a lot just from delving into his muscles. The slight hunch to his shoulders, the tightness where the muscles knotted together to form a protective wall around his heart, told her he was lonely. Her guess would be that he’d been on the road for too long.

She began the massage in earnest, squeezing and releasing his deltoids, using her elbows to delve deeply along the sides of his spine. She levered her forearms over his trapezoids, using the repetitive motion to encourage the release of tension and trying not to notice his excellent muscle tone.

She watched her fingers as they pressed into his firm, tanned flesh, as they traced over the smooth contours of his physique. When she noticed she was giving less of a massage than an extended caress, she frowned and applied more pressure.

He groaned.

Wincing, she lightened up immediately. “Is that pressure all right?” She rolled her eyes at herself. She’d suddenly started digging into him as if he were a particularly stubborn round of bread dough.

“No, it felt great. Amazing. No one ever uses enough pressure. I’m surprised you’re so strong.” Instantly, he gave a quick, apologetic laugh. “Sorry, I didn’t mean—you’re just so slender and petite. The truth is, when I first saw you, I didn’t know if you’d be able to give me the kind of massage I needed.”

The kind of massage he needed
—why did everything the man said sound naughty to her sex-addled brain? Once again, she felt heat rise up her neck into her cheeks. Thank goodness, his eyes were still shut.

And to be called “slender and petite” was just embarrassing. She was neither, not by any stretch of the imagination. Willow, like her name, was long and willowy. Lisa, on the other hand, had long muscles, a benefit of her profession, and a trim enough core and legs. But her curvy chest and hips pretty much threw off any overall illusion of slimness.

Adam sighed contentedly. “Massage therapy must give you a great workout.”

Inadvertently, she recalled Harry Richmond’s bulk again, his wide, furry back. She laughed. “It does. Sometimes even more than others.”

“What’s funny?”

“I—nothing.” She stopped kneading for a moment, closed her eyes and let out a breath. “I feel I should apologize. I think my focus is a little bit off today.”

“Really?” He sounded genuinely surprised. “This has been great so far, for me. Seriously, this is the best massage I’ve ever had. You have amazing hands.”

She sighed nervously. Even the apology was more than she’d wanted to reveal. “Well, you don’t have to be particularly strong to give a good massage,” she explained. “It’s all in the leverage and the technique.”

She pressed the balls of her thumbs into the knots between his shoulder blades and was rewarded with a rumbling, deep-throated moan.

“God, I wish I could hire you to be my personal massage therapist,” he murmured. “If I could have just one session a week, one this good, I’d be a truly relaxed and happy person.”

A flat sense of disappointment settled in Lisa’s chest. She did her best to ignore it. She’d thought this guy seemed really sweet. Turned out, he was just another rich guy trying to convert the world into his personal workforce.

That was nothing new. Working at a high-end hotel spa meant coming into contact with wealthy, entitled types on a regular basis. Lisa just wished this one wasn’t quite so hot, or so charming. What a waste of an appealingly goofy sense of humor, not to mention a kick-ass body.

Then, in spite of herself, she found herself picturing what it would be like to be his personal, private massage therapist, attending him in one of the Keiko suites.

In her fantasy, she wore nothing but a gauzy chemise that barely covered her nipples and reached just to the tops of her thighs. Adam Masters was stretched out on her massage table, and she leaned over his nude form, tracing her palms down his back to rub his muscular buttocks.

Her daydream-self climbed up onto the massage table to straddle him, pressing herself against his muscular bulk. Her movements drew the thin silk of her chemise over her skin, rubbing ever so lightly against her ultra-sensitized nipples.

“Mr. Masters,” fantasy-Lisa whispered, “you feel very, very tense. Is there anything, anything at all I can do to help you relax?”