Chapter 11 #3
“Mina. Good, you’re here.” She takes my arm and steers me away from Sara.
“I need you in treatment room three. The new owner is here and has requested a massage from our best massage therapist.” Gloria’s grip tightens.
“I need you to make this good, Mina. Better than good. I need you to be exceptional.”
I feel a little affronted. “I always aim to give my clients exceptional experiences.”
“You don’t understand. Our new owner has commissioned a study on the whole hotel, focused on profitability.
Our figures have been down for two months in a row.
He could rip out this entire spa tomorrow and put in a conference center or a themed bar.
Something that he believes will make him more money per square foot.
” Her eyes bore into mine. “It’s up to us to show him that this spa is an asset to the hotel. ”
I feel my skin prickle with sweat. The spa is popular, and I felt sure I could count on it. I think of Leon and the rent. The fragile stability I’ve built over the past four years, one paycheck at a time.
“I understand,” I say. “I’ll take care of him.”
“Whatever he wants, Mina. If he wants extra time, give him extra time. If he wants conversation, be charming. If he wants silence, be invisible. Just—” She exhales and forces a smile. “Make him happy. Make him relaxed. Make him want to keep us.”
“I will. I promise. I’ll do whatever it takes.”
Gloria nods, some of the tension easing from her face. “Treatment room three. He’s waiting.”
I’m already wearing my uniform, the simple beige pants and fitted white tunic top that all the massage therapists wear, and I check my reflection in the staff bathroom mirror. Hair pulled back in a neat bun. Minimal makeup. Professional. Calm.
The hallway to the treatment rooms is quiet, the ambient music softer, the lighting dimmer. The door to treatment room three is closed. I pause outside it, taking a breath. Then I plaster on my warmest, most professional smile.
When I open the door and enter, I’m vaguely aware of a man sitting on the massage table, but I focus on closing the door with intention. Gloria is very big on intention, saying that chaos and thoughtlessness are stressors.
With intention, I turn around and greet the new owner. “Welcome to the Palazzo Spa. My name is…”
My smile dies on my lips. My voice fades away.
Sitting on the massage table, swathed in a white toweling robe emblazoned with the name of the hotel, is Cristiano.
For a moment, I can’t breathe. I can’t think. I can’t do anything except stand there like a deer caught in headlights while the world tilts sideways.
He watches me, those amber eyes tracking every flicker of emotion across my face. He sees it all. The shock, the fear, the way my hands have started to tremble at my sides.
The silence stretches between us. One second. Two. Three.
I could run. I could scream. I could demand to know what he’s doing here and why he’s determined to weave himself into every corner of my life until there’s nowhere left for me to hide.
Or I can pretend I have no idea who he is.
I choose pretense.
“Welcome to the Palazzo Spa.” My voice comes out steady and professional, which is a small miracle. “My name is Mina, and I’ll be your massage therapist today.”
His brow rises slightly, but he doesn’t call me out on the absurdity of introducing myself to a man who’s known me our whole lives. He just inclines his head slightly, playing along.
“Thank you, Mina.”
My name in his mouth. I’d forgotten how it sounds, low and deliberate, like he’s savoring each syllable.
I force myself to continue, clinging to the script like a lifeline.
“What type of treatment would you like today? We offer Swedish massage, deep tissue, hot stone therapy, aromatherapy…” I’m barely aware of what I’m saying, the words tumbling out while my heart pounds against my ribs.
“Sports massage, reflexology, or I can recommend a combination based on your preference.”
“You know best, Mina.”
I falter. “I’m sorry?”
“I’ll have whatever massage you think is best.” His gaze hasn’t left my face. “I trust your judgment in these things. I always have.”
My heart pounds harder.
He trusts my judgment in how he likes to be touched.
“A Swedish massage. Full body, focused on relaxation.” I gesture toward the table. “If you’d like to disrobe and lie face down?”
He gets smoothly to his feet, turns around, and the robe drops from his body. Normally I’m already turning away to select oils as I point my clients toward the table, but today I’m not thinking, and Cristiano moves without hesitancy.
He’s standing in front of me naked.
Butt naked.
My eyes drop to his muscular ass as he reaches out to hang his robe on a hook.
I’ve seen hundreds of naked clients. It’s part of the job. Bodies are just bodies, and I learned years ago to view them clinically, without judgment or reaction.
But this is Cristiano, and I think a woman would have to be made of stone to not react to his body.
He’s taller than I remembered, broader through the shoulders, every inch of him carved with lean muscle.
His skin is golden, like he’s spent years sunbathing under the Italian sun.
I’m vaguely aware that he has some ink across his back, but I’m too transfixed by the sight of him to notice what it is.
Heat floods my cheeks. I look away quickly, but too late, and reach for a fresh towel.
Cristiano settles onto the massage table with an easy grace that shouldn’t be possible for a man his size. I drape the towel over his lower half, my knuckles accidentally brushing his skin. His ass is perfect beneath the white fabric, like the rest of him.
His body is a dream. A nightmare. Both at once.
I move to the warmer and retrieve the oil, taking longer than necessary, using the moment to steady my breathing. He’s face down now. He can’t see me or the way my hands are shaking or the flush that’s spreading down my neck.
I can do this. It’s just a massage.
I pour oil into my palms, warming it between my hands, and approach the table.
The first touch is electric. Even through the barrier of oil, I can feel the heat of him, and the tension coiled beneath his skin.
I press my palms flat against his shoulder blades and begin to work, searching for knots, easing into the muscle.
He’s quiet beneath my hands. I can see his ribs expanding and contracting with each slow breath.
In and out. In and out. Deliberately controlled, like everything else about him.
I work my way across his back, and that’s when I finally look at them properly.
His tattoos.
At first, I think they’re ribbons. Decorative lines twining down both shoulders and the middle of his back. As I look closer, spreading oil across his skin, I realize they’re not ribbons at all.
They’re scratch marks.
Narrow, crisscrossing lines in neat rows, permanently inked into his flesh. The kind of marks a woman’s nails would leave during sex, dragged down his back in the heat of passion.
My breath catches.
I spread my hand over the tattoos without thinking, my fingers trembling against his skin. The size is right. The spacing between the lines. If I curled my fingers and raked them across his flesh, they would match perfectly.
He can’t have.
He wouldn’t have.
That would be crazy.
But Cristiano is crazy.
The last time I touched his back like this, I was eighteen years old and crying out his name. He was deep inside me and begging me to scratch him harder, to mark him, to make him feel—
“Mina?”
I jerk my hand back like I’ve been burned.
“You’re very tight through the lower back,” I manage to say.
A lie. He’s not tight at all. His body is loose and relaxed beneath my hands, completely at ease in a way that feels almost insulting given how hard my heart is pounding.
I continue the massage on autopilot, my thoughts spiraling. How do women react when they see those tattoos? Do they ask him about them? Do they trace the lines with curious fingers while he lies asleep in their beds, wondering whose nails left the marks?
The thought of other women touching him, pinned beneath him, crying out his name the way I once did, makes an unpleasant sensation twist in my stomach.
“Turn over, please,” I manage hoarsely.
He shifts onto his back, and I busy myself with more oil, avoiding his gaze. The towel is still draped across his hips, but I can see the shape of him beneath it, and he’s…
I swallow.
He’s hard. Not fully erect, not standing to attention in a way that would be overtly inappropriate, but he’s thickened. Swollen. As though simply being in my presence while I massage his muscles is pleasurable for him.
I’ve only ever had sex with one man, and it’s the man I’m presently touching.
Until this moment I wouldn’t have claimed to be someone who has “needs to be fulfilled.” But as my gaze keeps sliding back to the generous outline of Cristiano’s cock beneath the towel, I suddenly have a need, and it’s aching to be filled.
I focus on his chest. His arms. His shoulders. The thick muscles of his thighs. Clinical. Professional. Just a body. Just a job.
Finally, mercifully, I’m done.
“That concludes your massage.” I wipe my hands on a fresh towel, still not meeting his eyes. “Is there anything else I can do for you today?”
Silence.
I risk a glance up. Cristiano has opened his eyes, and he’s watching me with that same focused intensity. Slowly and deliberately, he sits up.
The table is at my hip level, and even seated, he looms over me. Broad shoulders blocking out the soft lighting, those amber eyes fixed on my face.
“There is something, Mina.”
My stomach drops.
I’m acutely aware of the shape of him beneath the towel. If he asks for anything sexual, I don’t know what I’ll do. I’d like to think I’d slap his face, like a haughty, bristling woman in an old movie. But I think I’d probably just burst into tears and run from the room.
“What?” My voice comes out thin. Barely a whisper.
He doesn’t answer immediately. Just looks at me, his expression serious.