In the few weeks he’d been home he’d seen more than enough of Claudia to last him a lifetime.
‘You’ve had more stress than all of us combined,’ he said. ‘And besides...’ Luke glanced at Marco. ‘You sounded like you were enjoying it. Very much.’
Claudia couldn’t deny how much she’d been enjoying it. How much she’d been looking forward to a massage ever since Avery had mentioned the spa idea yesterday. And to deny herself Marco’s fingers would be a particularly heinous form of torture.
‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ she said, suddenly annoyed at him and herself for acting as if they were in some Victorian melodrama. It wasn’t as if they hadn’t already seen each other in next to nothing. ‘The table’s here, Sherry is here...we shared a bed for years. Just lie down already.’
Luke was aware of the two masseurs exchanging looks. ‘We were kids,’ he clarified to Sherry. And then flicked his gaze back to Claudia. ‘I’m fine.’
Claudia glared at him. ‘And dandy?’ And then when he didn’t look as if he was going to give in she said, ‘You’re making me tense just looking at you.’
Which really wasn’t a lie. The thought of what he had on under that robe was making her really freaking tense. They’d asked her to strip everything off so she assumed he had too...
Luke held Claudia’s gaze for long seconds. ‘Fine,’ he muttered again. He turned to Sherry. ‘Where do you want me?’
Claudia wasn’t sure if he was being deliberately provocative but she gritted her teeth as she placed her face back in the hole on the massage table and prepared to go back to her happy place.
Not easy to do with six feet four inches of pissed-off man right beside her.
Naked pissed-off man.
Luke found it difficult to relax even under Sherry’s expert hands. Everything in the environment around him was conducive to a state of relaxation—the low lighting, the essential oils, the rainforest music—he just couldn’t find it. All he could see behind his shut lids was big male hands on the backs of Claudia’s legs, slippery and kneading.
And they weren’t Marco’s.
Luke tensed even more as the deep melodic timbre of Marco’s voice reached him. ‘I’ll lift the towel if you want to turn over to your front.’ Claudia’s table creaked slightly and he swallowed as he tried not to think about her turning over.
Do not think about Claudia naked and jiggling.
‘You’re very tense,’ Sherry murmured somewhere near his ear in the same melodic timbre that blended with the music and ambience.
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 nipples 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!’
‘I did not book you in as a couple,’ Avery protested for the umpteenth time. ‘I can’t help it if Sherry got the impression you two were...together.’
‘And then,’ Claudia said, ignoring Avery’s arguments because they both knew damn well who had planted those impressions in Sherry’s head, ‘you sabotage my wardrobe.’
‘We’re going dancing—you need your dancing dress.’
Claudia glanced at the dress again, then firmly turned her back on it. ‘The blue one is fine.’
‘Of course it’s fine. But the red one...’ Claudia heard Avery sigh loud and clear across the connection and rolled her eyes. ‘The red one is ooh-la-la. Every man’s head is going to turn when you walk into the room in that thing. Every man is going to want to dance with you. Your dance card will be full.’
‘I don’t want every man’s head turning,’ Claudia said waspishly. ‘I don’t want to dance with every man in the room.’
There was a pause for a moment before Avery’s voice said softly in her ear, ‘Just the one?’
‘Avery,’ she warned. ‘Forget about Luke and I.’
There was another silence during which Claudia could almost hear the thoughts whizzing around in her friend’s head.
‘We can never have that kind of relationship, Avery,’ Claudia said, gentler his time. ‘We’ve known each other too long. Too well. And he’s too cynical about love.’
It helped to say the words out loud, and not just for Avery’s sake. ‘It’s never going to happen.’
A brief pause followed this time but Avery was never one to be kept down. ‘So that’s even more reason to go out and let your hair down,’ she enthused. ‘You deserve a night on the town. So go knock ’em all dead in that dress.’
Claudia turned back to face the dress. ‘I don’t know, Avery...I’m kind of tired.’
It was a lie, of course; the massage had rejuvenated her from the inside out and it had been such a long time since she’d danced...and if Luke wasn’t going to be there she’d definitely be up for a party.
She stroked a finger down the deep V of the halter neck.
‘Oh, come on, you know you’ll have fun once you get into it.’
‘I suppose...’
Avery tutted in her ear. ‘Suppose? Phfft! You know you’ll love it. Now, say it out loud. I, Claudia Davis, will put on my red dress and shake my booty all night and I will enjoy it.’
‘Avery.’
‘Say it!’
Claudia sighed and repeated the requested phrase. ‘Louder,’ Avery said. ‘Say it with feeling.’ Claudia said it louder. And with feeling.
‘There, now, doesn’t that feel better?’ she asked.
Claudia smiled. ‘Yeah, it does.’
‘Good,’ Avery chirped and the triumph in her voice was infectious. ‘Now, what have you learned from this incident?’ she asked, then gleefully supplied the answer to the rhetorical question. ‘That Avery’s always right.’
Claudia laughed. ‘No. Try never trust someone who has access to your door key.’
* * *
Luke almost had a heart attack when he called on Claudia to pick her up right on the dot of seven as they’d prearranged. She was swathed head to ankle in slinky dark red velvet. Like crushed raspberries.
And he was starving.
Her hair was in some kind of messy up-do that trailed blonde wisps down her nape, her shoulders were bare, her cleavage was bare—do not think about her breasts—and she had on some strappy shoes with ten crimson toenails flashing at him in all their sinful glory.
She looked as if she’d been shrink-wrapped from chest to hips into the dress before it flowed around her thighs and calves.
‘You’re wearing that?’
Claudia supposed she could have taken offence at his rather rude greeting, but she wasn’t stupid and she didn’t believe in acting obtuse around men. It was clear she’d stunned him and her feminine ego swelled dramatically.
‘And good evening to you too,’ she murmured, pulling her door closed.
Luke ignored the gentle reprimand. He looked into the depths of her cleavage. ‘Don’t you have some kind of...’ he waved his hands in the general direction of her shoulders and cleavage ‘...wrap?’
Claudia’s chin rose. ‘No.’
‘Don’t you think you should?’
Claudia smiled and shook her head. ‘You do know I’m not six years old any more, right?’
Luke blinked as she swept past him and headed for the lift, the dress clinging to every microscopic movement of her body. The palm that had held the softness of her breast tingled.
‘I’m hardly likely to forget in that outfit,’ he called after her.
Luke’s breath hitched as Claudia looked over her shoulder at him and gave him a wink.
* * *
They ate a sumptuous meal in the aptly named Rumba Room and Claudia was pleased that Avery had thought to book one of the tables that ringed the large dance floor. The entertainment here was always spectacular and being this close they wouldn’t miss any of the acts.
The restaurant was crowded and the food was delicious. Avery and Jonah were happy to lead the conversation and Claudia let them go. She spoke where required, as did Luke, but neither of them were very engaged. Claudia was too aware of the strange vibe between her and Luke. He brooded away in her peripheral vision, also responding perfunctorily to verbal cues in between glaring at any man who dared look at her.
It was off-putting to start with but after a couple of glasses of wine Claudia actually started to enjoy it. It was a fairly pointless exercise but knowing that he found her attractive after years of secretly drooling over him was something of a head swell.
And he was looking particularly dashing tonight. He’d teamed a pair of dark trousers with a retro button-up shirt in a paisley print of dark greens, purples and greys. It was open at the neck and the sleeves were rolled up to his elbows and it had been left hanging out.
It was very funky. Very London.
His whiskers had been shaved to within an inch of their lives and while she wished he’d just let them grow, become the shaggy and scruffy stubble of her fantasies, a part of her was just as attracted to the whole London suit thing he had going on.
She wanted to reach out and feel for herself that a man’s face could be that deliciously smooth. Trail her finger along his chin. Push her nose into the underside, where neck met jaw, and rub her lips against all the satiny smoothness she knew she’d find there.
And then maybe she could get a better whiff of his sweet but spicy aroma. She’d been trying to place it all night. Not that she was a connoisseur of men’s aftershave but she did appreciate a man who smelled good.
‘I thought your ambition was to have your own agency by now, Luke?’
Claudia sensed Luke tensing beside her and tuned back into the conversation. What was Avery saying?
‘So it was,’ Luke said, his lips tight. ‘And if it hadn’t been for Philippa screwing me over, I would have.’
It was Claudia’s turn to tense at the mention of Luke’s ex-wife. She held her breath and waited for him to elaborate, to talk more about what must have been a fairly low point in his life. To tell them something about his ex-wife. The mysterious Philippa.
She’d never once had a conversation with him about the woman who had, according to Gloria, broken her son’s heart and almost destroyed his professional reputation. One minute he’d been married at a London register office without bothering to even tell his mother and the next it was all over.
Two years was all it had lasted. He’d been going to bring Philippa out to meet them all but they were always too busy and it had never eventuated. And then it had all fallen spectacularly apart.
‘Oh, I’m sorry, Luke,’ Avery said as Jonah frowned and almost imperceptibly shook his head at Avery. She reached out to touch his hand. ‘That was insensitive of me.’
‘It’s fine,’ Luke dismissed. ‘I’ll get there again. I plan to be out on my own—completely on my own this time—in two years.’
Jonah nodded at his friend. ‘Well, you can have my account,’ he said. ‘I haven’t been happy with my advertising mob for a while now.’
Luke chuckled, his taut muscles relaxing. ‘Well, I’m flattered but you can’t just hand over a huge account like that,’ he said. ‘What if you don’t like what I can do?’
‘Can’t be worse than I have now. I’ve been a little distracted lately,’ he murmured, trailing his finger up Avery’s arm, ‘to care. I’ve really let the ball drop in that department. Besides, you forget, I know what you can do with that awful plastic-cheese crap. If you can sell that you can sell anything.’
The whole table laughed this time and Luke joined in. He’d won a national jingle competition when he’d been eleven years old, not long after his parents had partnered with Claudia’s to run the Tropicana. It had been to sell pre-wrapped cheese slices and he’d been hooked on advertising ever since.
Luke shrugged. ‘I can have a look if you like.’
Jonah nodded. ‘That would be good.’
The long, low sultry note of a saxophone oozed out then, interrupting their conversation, and a murmur ran around the room. Claudia felt her heart flutter a little.
Bring on the dancing.
Spotlights from up above flicked on, one at a time, illuminating circles on the dance floor; other instruments joined the saxophone until a raunchy tune was playing.
‘The samba,’ Claudia announced to no one in particular.
And then a half-dozen couples twirled onto the floor from the wings. The women were dressed in tight, sequined dresses with huge slits that fitted like a second skin and the men were dressed in skinny trousers that fitted across narrow hips, formed a sash across flat abs and flared slightly at the hem. Their white silky shirts bloused and flapped, a little like pirates’, the buttons mostly undone.
They found their positions and, as one, they all commenced dancing.
Really dirty dancing.
Bumping and grinding. Big male hands all over petite, scantily clad, female bodies. Spanning waists, gliding down legs, skimming breasts.
They twirled and turned and practically floated across the dance floor, light as feathers. When the music ended, the male dancers dipped their partners with dramatic flair, the spotlights cutting out, and the room burst into applause.
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