The Trouble with Magic (Loveswept) (8 page)

“Okay, here we go, ah, Payton. Just sit. ...” He let her ease him down onto the edge of the bed.

“Maybe I should undress.”

“What?”

“Well, don’t you think I’d be more comfortable in the bed if I took off my shoes and pants?” He wanted to rub his hands together with glee, but extended one shoed foot instead. She looked from his face to his foot and back in confusion. “It hurts to bend over,” he said.

“Oh.” Adorably addled, she stooped to remove first one shoe then the other, stepping back when she was finished.

“My pants?” he said, amused to see her face and neck turning red. “If you could help me stand ...”

In an agitated movement she was at his side, supporting his arm. “No, I think if you stand here in front of me, with your hands on my waist here ...” He placed her hands on his ribs above his waist and his hands on her shoulders. “I think I can stand, but if the room starts to spin, I might fall.”

“I’m here,” she muttered, trying to sound reassuring. But reassuring for whom, him or herself?

With inordinate slowness and immense relish he got to his feet, standing so close to her that he could feel her warm breath through the fabric of his shirt. Her gaze was riveted to the second button.

His libido was wide awake and paying close attention to her reactions, like the trembling of her hands at his sides when his fingers brushed against her midsection, reaching for his belt buckle. He inched forward, wanting her to feel his every motion.

He stopped smiling, and he didn’t feel particularly playful when she raised her eyes to his. They were warm and wondrous, wild and worried, not a reflection of his own emotions. He felt the clutching in his belly, and his muscles contracted. Something primitive in him knew that if she made the slightest movement, he’d take her to the floor. Something just as primal hoped she would do something, and he couldn’t forego tempting her.

In the tight quarters between their bodies, he worked his belt buckle loose. Watching the slight parting of her lips, he heard her sharp intake of air. He quickened, instinctively responding to her arousal. The slow, soft rasp of his zipper had her swallowing convulsively—they were both as stiff and unmoving as cardboard cutouts.

The disappointment was acute when he pushed his pants past his hips and she stood, unwavering, while they slipped to the floor. Immediately, she stepped back, narrowed her field of vision to the front of his shirt, and eased him back to the bed—his shirttail barely covering him to midthigh.

“I ... I have something for you,” she said, walking so briskly through the door and down the hall to the nursery that if he’d tried to stop her, she would have sustained whiplash.

“Mr. DeLuca was very thorough,” she called back through the hidden corridor. “I didn’t ask how he got the information—I hope it wasn’t illegal—but he assured me that it was accurate ...” she was huffing and puffing her way back to his room “... so I hope all this fits you.”

She wrestled a large suitcase into the room and set it in the middle of the floor. She flipped her braid over her shoulder and smiled, pleased with herself.

“A suitcase?” he asked.

“Full of clothes,” she said. “In your sizes. The sizes Mr. DeLuca gave me.” When he remained speechless, she waddled the heavy bag to the side of the bed and braced herself before she hoisted it up onto the bed. “There. You should find everything you need. Toothpaste and toothbrush. Comb, brush, shaving stuff. Shirts and ... well, you look through it and get ready for bed while I go get you something to eat. Do you think your stomach will tolerate a bit of food now? You really should try to eat something.” Her arms flapped at her sides. “If ... if there’s anything I forgot to get or something else you want, well, there’s plenty of my father’s things still here, and there’s bound to be something you can make do with.”

She smiled at his dazed expression and turned to leave.

In stunned silence he sprang the locks on the suitcase. The uppermost garments caught and held his attention.

“What are these?” The persnickety tone in his voice stopped her cold.

“What?”

He extracted two pairs of flannel pajamas. One of a bold Bert and Ernie design, the other set in a repeating pattern of Mickey and Minnie in startling, and somehow sacrilegious, sexual positions.

“Pajamas,” she said, guileless. “I wasn’t sure if you were the last man on earth who still wore them to bed or not, and it does get very cold here at night. I tried to cover all the possibilities.”

He was getting an education from the mouse diagrams and didn’t look up. She misunderstood his silence.

“I ... I was angry with you when I bought those,” she said.

A roar of laughter quivered at the back of his throat. For a pain in the patootie, she wasn’t so bad, he thought, liking her spirit. Would any ordinary kidnapper go to such lengths to insure such amenities for his victims? Ha! He hadn’t enjoyed anyone quite so well in a long, long time.

“I understand,” he said, tossing her token of revenge back into the suitcase before he performed a spectacular tragedy of discomfort in the rubbing of his brow. “Fortunately, I sleep nude.”

“Oh. Well.” He couldn’t tell if she approved of his sleeping habits or not, only that they made her nervous. “I’ll get you some food.”

“I’m not really hungry,” he said, trying to look tormented. “What I’d really like is a—well, never mind. I’ve inflicted enough on you already.”

“No you haven’t,” she said, her gaze darting to his lap and swiftly away. “I mean, well, you haven’t been an imposition. Please. What is it you’d like? If I have it, it’s yours.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes. Of course. Please. If there’s anything that’ll make you more comfortable ...” Her hands waved encouragingly.

“A massage,” he said, his sigh a perfect level of wistful. “I’d give my left arm for a really good rub.”

A
REALLY GOOD RUB
?

Harriet rejected one body oil and lotion after another, in search of one that met Payton’s exact specifications. Not too oily, not too fragrant. If she didn’t have unscented, something light and not too feminine would suffice. And nothing with lanolin, it had to be aloe, because lanolin irritated his skin.

Provoked beyond her endurance, she growled. Were all men such infants when they were sick? she wondered. She was no criminal, but she wasn’t a saint either! She wasn’t sure how many more of Mr. Dunsmore’s mewling requests she could handle. Who would have thought that someone so powerfully male could be such a crybaby?

A wayward pang of conscience stopped her, reversing her thoughts.

Mr. Dunsmore wasn’t so bad, she conceded, giving him the benefit of the doubt. He hadn’t asked to be stranded on the island with her, and it wasn’t his fault he was ill. He was bossy and demanding and full of himself, but he was still a human being—of sorts.

And what if his ailment wasn’t simply a tension headache? What if it was some hideous brain disorder that needed emergency medical treatment hours ago? What if he died?

What had she been thinking? It would be prison for kidnapping him; death row if she was responsible for his death. She clasped a bottle of lotion in both hands, pressed the cool container to her forehead and closed her eyes. What had her life come to? She wasn’t a good criminal. It was scary and confusing; it made her stomach hurt. What had happened to her? What had she done to herself?

Lord, what had she done to Payton Dunsmore?

It was time to give up, she decided firmly. Her scheme had been harebrained from the beginning. She shouldn’t have tried it. It was time to put a red lantern in the middle third floor window. Time to be rescued. It was time to give it up and get Mr. Dunsmore the care he needed, time to give up the island, time to give up her dreams and hopes for the future, time to give up period.

“Mr. Dunsmore,” she called halfway down the hidden hall to the master suite. “I have some good news for you. You can relax now. I—”

“—found some lotion,” he said, finishing the sentence for her. “Great. It took you so long, I was beginning to lose hope.”

He came slowly to a sitting position and flung his legs over the side of the bed. In Harriet’s book, long, sinewy, naked male legs, sprinkled with coarse black body hair, below tan boxer shorts and a white dress shirt, were an extremely intimate sight. It threw her a little off course.

“I ... I ... I ...”

He gave her a humble smile, pretending not to notice that she’d gone suddenly dysfunctional.

“I’m afraid I’m still a little dizzy,” he said, his eyes pleading. “I’ll need your help to get my shirt off.”

“Off?”

He nodded. “It’s best that way. Deeper penetration ... of the muscles. And the lotion works better without the shirt.”

Goodness, he was handsome. But being in the same room with him made her as jumpy as a cat with its tail on fire. She set the lotion down on the table beside the bed.

“Is there a best way to do this?” she asked, reluctant to touch him until she absolutely had to.

“Well, I think I can hold myself upright, if you could unbutton my shirt and take it off for me.”

Ah, jeez. Was it her? Or was undressing a man you barely knew accepted etiquette these days? It didn’t seem to bother him. Could she be any less casual about it?

He stood tall and straight at the side of the bed. His gaze was a tangible thing on her hair, her face, her trembling fingers as she concentrated on what was becoming an impossible task. When did they start making the holes and buttons on men’s shirts so small? She was tempted to get a magnifying glass. She wasn’t normally so clumsy, was she?

“I’m sorry this is taking so long,” she muttered, her cheeks flushed and hot. Her eyes kept darting back to the sparse mat of hair on his chest. Every time a button came loose, more of the trail of hair down the middle of his stomach was revealed, with more golden skin and more rounded muscles.

“You’re doing fine,” he murmured, his voice soft, like a caress.

His after-shave was subtle but heady—well, it was going straight to her head anyway. It was like an invitation to bury her nose in his chest and breathe in deeply the way she would a flower.

“There,” she said, triumphant, stepping away from him. “Done. Would you ... would you like something to wear, like pajama bottoms, sweatpants or something.”

“No. Thank you.” He hesitated. “Unless, of course, you’re uncomfortable.”

“Who me? No, no, no. As long as you’re comfortable.” She saw his grimace of pain as he struggled to remove his shirt. “Here, let me help.” She pushed it past his shoulders and tugged it off over his hands. And there he was—towering, virile—in his underwear. She could feel her knees and elbows melting. “How ... How should we do this? I told you I wasn’t very good at it. Inexperienced, I mean.”

“Relax, Harri,” he said, crawling onto the bed, lowering himself to his abdomen. “Do you mind if I call you Harri?”

“Not many people do anymore.” She took up the lotion and frowned at it. How much should she use? “It fit when I was a kid. But I’m more of a Harriet now, I think.”

“Well, I like it, so do you mind?” He was poofing his pillow into just the right shape.

“No.”

“Good. Anyway, relax. There’s no wrong way to do this.”

“How much should I use?”

“Some. You can always get more,” he mumbled into his pillow.

She used a palmful of lotion and cringed when he startled at its coolness.

“Sorry,” she muttered, concentrating on the muscles in his back, trying to ignore the warmth and softness of his skin, the broad contours, the crazy thoughts that his back looked solid and mighty; that it would be protective and dependable. She bent over him, working diligently, silently.

The room filled with his moans and groans and hums of bliss. It gratified her. Finally, she was doing something to please him. And maybe, just maybe, if the massage worked the tension and pain out him, she wouldn’t have to surrender to defeat. Maybe he’d feel better tomorrow and they could begin falling in love—or at least have an accommodating conversation.

“Harri,” he mumbled, sounding half-asleep.

“Yes?”

“What happened?”

Her fingers faltered, but she couldn’t pretend not to know what he was talking about. The subject had hung invisibly between them since he’d mentioned it in the bathroom.

Dusk was settling outside the windows and the room was cast in shadows, though there was still plenty of light to see.

She was chewing her lower lip, wondering how much he needed to know and how much she could bring herself to tell him, when he spoke again.

“Was prison so awful that you can’t talk about it?”

“No. Prison was a picnic compared to the rest of it. The accusations, the lies, the trial, facing my father and the people I thought to be friends. Leaving prison was harder than being there.”

“What happened?”

“Do you know what I am? What I’m educated and trained to do for a living?”

“A school teacher, I thought,” he said, trying to recall. “Science, right?”

“Biology. I teach undergraduate biology at Tubow College now, but only because no one else would give me a job after I was released from prison,” she told him, bowing her back as it started to cramp.

“Straddle my hips, it’s easier that way,” he said, numb and nonchalant.

She took in the expanse of his shoulders, the small of his back, his hips and bare legs and decided that she couldn’t straddle any of it.

“Harriet, I’d have to be triple jointed to rape you from this position,” he groused into his pillow. “Give yourself a break.”

Leaning over the bed
was
awkward. She climbed up on him rapidly, impulsively, before she had time to give the act any more thought. “Where does it hurt the most?”

“My shoulders and neck,” he said. “You didn’t teach school before you went to jail, I take it.”

“I’m a biochemist. I worked for a pharmaceutical company in New Jersey, in research and development.”

“How long?”

“Since college. I was second in my class. I showed great promise, they said. I was there eight years, got my doctorate in pharmacology.” She laughed softly. “I thought I had the world by the tail. I had almost everything I ever wanted.”