Chapter 2
2
ROWE
R emoving my jeans might not have been the best idea. The sturdy zipper had done a great job of masking what was going on in my crotch area. Now even the T-shirt wasn’t enough to hide the growing bulge.
“Let me know when it hurts,” Montana said.
When Zack told me to track down a woman named Montana, I never imagined she’d be this beautiful. I expected someone my age or older, probably wearing a wedding ring.
But when I walked in, I knew instantly she was the skilled massage therapist he’d talked about. She just had a confidence that said this was her domain. And I found that confidence as appealing as her beauty.
I sucked in a deep breath as a monstrous twinge jolted up my thigh. She paused, her fingers warming the skin to the right of my kneecap.
“Does that hurt?” Montana asked.
Oh, crap. I was supposed to be paying attention and letting her know when I felt pain. But the fingers of her left hand had moved around to the back of my knee, and my dick was feeling every move.
“It’s okay,” I said.
The sharp pain had lessened to an annoying throb. More of an ache.
“Better?” she asked as she pressed on a spot less than an inch away.
“Better,” I said.
My voice sounded strained. No doubt she’d mistake that for pushing past the pain. Little would she know it was me battling something much more enjoyable.
“Could you lie down?” she asked. “It’d be easier.”
I’d lie down for this woman any day, anytime. Especially if she’d take those clothes off and climb on top of me. It would be damn near the best thing that ever happened to me.
Mind out of the gutter, Rowe, I said to myself. I lay flat on my back on the table, knees pointed toward the ceiling. I tugged my T-shirt back into place, but it stubbornly slid upward again.
“So, tell me about your injury,” she said. “How did you get it?”
Lord, I wished I had a good story. Maybe that I injured it climbing Mount Everest or walking the Appalachian Trail. But I needed to be truthful if I wanted her to help me.
“Work,” I said. “I started doing construction when I was fourteen. My dad owned a company. Great money, always plenty of work, but it’s hard on the body, you know?”
“I could see that. So, you work in construction now?”
I wanted to believe she was asking for personal reasons, but it was part of treating me. I couldn’t let myself forget that.
“Woodwork,” I said. “Custom cabinetry, that sort of thing. Mostly in Knoxville, but I’ve been getting more jobs here in Rosewood Ridge lately.”
Her fingers slid across the top of my calf, and a fresh jolt of heat went straight to my groin. I didn’t know if this would help my knee at all, but it sure took my mind off the pain.
“I can work around my knee troubles at work when I’m on the job,” I said. “But every year, summer creeps up on me, and I have to get back into shape long enough so I can play.”
“I imagine it’s pretty hard on your knee,” she commented. “You must really be into the sport.”
“Not really.” I closed my eyes and tried not to think about her fingers sliding over the area of my leg just above my kneecap. “Peer pressure. All the men around joined in, and now they’re forming teams. I can’t let my friends get their asses kicked by the Rosewood Ridge Riders.”
I opened my eyes to see her focusing intently on her work. Her gaze was trained on my left knee. Hopefully, her peripheral vision wasn’t treating her to a glimpse of my bulge.
“Rosewood Ridge Riders?” she asked.
“Group of bikers in town. A few of them moved here, and others have gotten into it since they arrived.”
“I assume you mean motorcycles, not bicycles,” she said.
I almost laughed out loud at that. “Yeah, don’t say that in front of them. Motorcycles. You’ll usually hear them when they leave town on one of their group rides. Depending how close you live to the main road, they just might wake you in the middle of a peaceful sleep.”
“I don’t live in Rosewood Ridge,” she said.
She began working the muscles of the area just above the bend of my knee at the back of my leg. Every stroke of her fingers went straight to my cock. I swallowed hard and gritted my teeth, finally working up the strength to speak.
“You’re just passing through?”
“Something like that,” she said. “I grew up here. My grandmother’s best friend owned this property. It was passed on to her granddaughter, who opened this place.”
“Zack’s wife,” I said.
“Yes, Ashlynn. I’m here to get the spa ready. The full-time massage therapist starts Monday. I’m going to stick around until she’s comfortable running things alone, and then I’ll be back at work in Knoxville.”
“You do this in Knoxville?”
Stupid question. Of course, she did.
“I work at a rehab center,” she said. “I’d love to go into business for myself. I’d even consider moving back to Rosewood Ridge if there was enough business.”
“You could always work here. Plenty of dudes with bad backs and shoulders and knees from trying to be badasses when we were younger.” I laughed. “We’re still trying to be badasses.”
“You talk like you’re an old man or something.”
She ran her fingers over the surface of my leg just above the knee. Each brush of her fingers sent shockwaves of pleasure up my leg.
“Mid-thirties,” I said. Did that come out sounding as raspy to her as it did to me? “I just assumed you would put me in the middle-aged category.”
I looked down at her then. She was smiling. But her attention was mostly focused on what she was doing to me. She might call it a massage, but I considered it something else entirely.
“You ever had a guy…you know, get a boner while you’re doing this?” I asked.
That pulled her attention off my leg. Eyes wide, she looked up at me, her movements freezing. Oh, shit. Had I just gotten inappropriate? That probably crossed the line. A massage therapist would definitely have a line.
But instead of ordering me off the table, she moved her fingers up slightly higher on my leg. Was she doing that on purpose? It sure didn’t feel like a massage.
“Not really,” she said. “Most of the people I see are just looking for pain relief.”
I opened my mouth, and a flirty response to that almost spilled out. “I’m seeking relief too” was the first thing that popped into my head, but even the tame version of that would come across as creepy if she wasn’t into me.
The last thing I’d want was for her to think I was trying to talk her into giving me a happy ending just because she was a massage therapist. I respected her as a professional. I was just drawn to this woman in a way I hadn’t been drawn to anyone before.
It wasn’t only because she was touching my leg. No, it was her. It was everything about her, from the freckle on her left cheek to the calming but uplifting lilt of her voice. And that didn’t even touch on the way our conversation stimulated me. I felt like I could talk to this woman for hours.
“It’s not like that,” Montana said, jerking me out of my thoughts and reminding me I had clamped my mouth shut and gone silent for at least a couple of minutes.
I should say something serious and professional now. Flirting with her would be wrong.
“Like what?” I asked, afraid to allow myself to say anything more.
“When a massage therapist does her work, it stimulates endorphins to battle the pain. If you’re in pain, the last thing you feel is aroused when someone touches you.”
“I beg to differ,” I said.
Oh, crap. That had come out of my mouth. It looked like my battle to shut the fuck up was now lost.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
I couldn’t help but notice her movements hadn’t paused this time. I would have expected them to. She hadn’t moved upward, but she’d been working that muscle at the bottom of my thigh for a little too long.
“I just mean it’s not a fact that a man can’t get aroused while being massaged for pain,” I said.
“I didn’t say a man couldn’t get aroused,” she began. “Just that there’s nothing sexual about what I do.”
“But there could be. If your boyfriend wants a massage, it could easily go beyond therapy.”
“I don’t have a boyfriend,” she said. “And I’ve never given a man that type of massage.”
“So, you’re into women?” I asked.
Why was I so obsessed with whether she was in a relationship? It wasn’t like this was going to lead to anything.
“No,” she said. “I’m attracted to men. I’ve just never gotten that far with one.”
All else was forgotten as I stared at her. That far? She couldn’t be saying what I thought she was saying.
If this woman was a virgin, I was guessing she’d been fending off men’s advances for years. A woman like her wouldn’t have been able to walk into any bar in this country without at least one man trying to take her back to his place.
“You’ve never had a boyfriend?” I asked.
“I’ve only had one serious boyfriend.” She laughed. “If you could call it that. We were mostly just together because all our friends hung out. It was convenient.”
I frowned down at her. “You can’t possibly be saying you’re a virgin.”
She squeezed her eyes shut, and the sight pained me. I had a bad habit of saying whatever popped into my head. That worked fine with my buddies, but when I was around a woman, I usually tried to minimize talking before I could say something that would make her decide I was a total douche.
“I’m a virgin,” she said. “It’s not because guys haven’t tried. I’m just not feeling it, you know?”
For a brief moment, I was disappointed to hear that she’d never felt like sleeping with someone. That meant she didn’t feel it now. Was this one sided? It seemed impossible she wasn’t feeling this too.
“Maybe you just haven’t met the right guy,” I said. “Until today.”
It was a bold move, but it would make it clear that I was here if she wanted to lose that pesky virginity of hers. Of course, I didn’t expect it to go over well. She’d probably end the massage session immediately.
Instead, she surprised me, looking up at me and moving her hand even farther up my leg. “I haven’t,” she said as I held my breath. “But you’re the perfect person to show me what I’ve been missing.”