“Why would they?”
“You were convincing,” Megan conceded. “You made it sound like you were with the management.”
Kira thought she detected a hint of criticism in Megan’s voice. “The real management won’t mind.” She didn’t really give a shit about what she’d done—either about her management impersonation or about her little encounter with Megan’s groupies outside the restroom—an encounter that would remain unmentioned.
“Let’s hope not.” Megan put her glass down on the closest empty table. “Because I need to go talk to the manager now and get paid.”
“Want me to go with you?”
“I’ll just be a minute. Do you want to wait here?”
“No problem.”
When Megan returned, Kira folded the completed surveys she’d been looking over and tucked them into the back of her waistband. There were several requests for body mud and several more for yoga, and one for a beer waterfall, which didn’t surprise her, considering the venue.
“You ready to go?” Megan asked.
Actually, no, she was not ready to go. Not until she found out whether Megan’s invitation to join her here tonight was one hundred percent work-related, or whether there was some small part of her that would say yes to dancing. She was almost certain Megan would say no, since the first time they met she had shot her down when she suggested dinner—and dinner was a lot safer—but it was worth a try.
“Do you dance? Since we’re already here…”
Megan’s eyes widened. “Okay.”
Kira’s jaw dropped. She should have had faith. Extroverts were entertaining, but they were too easy to figure out. The quiet ones had a way of surprising you.
She took Megan’s hand and led her to the edge of the dance floor. It was probably a bad idea to touch her, but she couldn’t help herself. Megan got to her on a level where logic didn’t always rule. And speaking of logic, she had no idea why Megan had agreed to dance with her, although it was just like her to be sweet and generous and… Wait. Kira let go of Megan’s hand. She didn’t want her to do this out of politeness. “If you don’t want to…”
Megan recaptured her hand.
Kira melted. It was still entirely possible that Megan was just being polite, but she let herself pretend it was more than that. All her senses focused on Megan’s powerful grip on her hand. Amazing how such a small, delicate hand could be so strong.
She pushed her way blindly through the crowd, Megan at her heels. Grudgingly, the mass of bodies ceded them a few square inches on the dance floor. Megan moved her hips to the throbbing beat. Their bodies swayed and swiveled in unison, close enough to feel the heat of each other’s bodies, but not touching except for that one hand, palm to palm, fingers intertwined.
Megan was a good dancer. Slinky and graceful and smiling like she was having a good time. Smiling at her. God, if she could feel this happy from Megan smiling at her when they weren’t even on a real date, she was afraid to think about what would happen if they were on a real date. Because passing out would just be embarrassing.
A couple of blondes tried to squeeze past them without coming unglued from each other. Megan faltered and fell off the beat and the color drained from her face. The taller of the two blondes paused and stared at Megan in surprise.
“Amelia,” Megan said.
Kira frowned at the intruders and stopped dancing. She took a step closer to Megan.
“You’re dating another massage therapist?” Megan blurted out. “No offense, Cynthia,” she added, acknowledging her target’s companion for a microsecond before redirecting her anger. “What happened to the woman you were with at the Sand Bar the night you broke up with me?”
“Oh, you mean Carol. That was nothing serious.”
Okay, definitely the ex.
“I can’t believe this,” Megan continued. “You said I was too weird. You said all massage therapists were irrational.”
“Cynthia’s different.” Amelia smiled at her new girlfriend, who rubbed one hand up and down her back like a supportive massage therapist girlfriend straight out of Shayna’s ridiculous fantasies. “She’s not out on the fringe the way you are.”
Megan squeezed Kira’s hand, hard.
“And she’s not too stubborn to take my advice. She’s willing to improve.”
Kira took a menacing step forward. “Megan doesn’t need improvement.”
Megan stopped her with an insistent tug and Kira shut her mouth.
“Would taking your advice have changed anything?” Megan asked bitterly.
“Contrary to what you seem to think, I tried to make things work.”
“By dumping me? I see.”
“I tried,” Amelia snapped. “We can’t all be a damn saint.”
Kira moved so she was standing behind Megan and wrapped one arm around her waist, hoping Megan wouldn’t stop her. She pulled her pretend date’s ass to her hips, front to back, away from Amelia. Not grabbing her, not desperate the way Amelia was clinging to her sidekick—who had the grace to look nervous, but not the grace to look embarrassed—just a firm grip with one arm. A nice possessive gesture that said back off without violating Megan’s personal space.
Or at least that was the idea. It wasn’t actually working out that well, because she probably was violating Megan’s personal space, seeing as how her entire body was pressed up against her, and because holding Megan this close felt unbearably good. And that was going to make it difficult to think straight.
Oh well. To hell with thinking straight. Kira locked eyes with Amelia to make sure she was watching, then moved her pelvis to the techno beat, grinding into Megan’s backside. And what do you know, Megan mirrored her every move perfectly, as if they’d been dancing together for years. She might have even felt her giggle. Maybe when this was over, Megan wasn’t going to smack her after all.
What had possessed Amelia to break up with this sexy, amazing woman? She almost felt bad for her. To make such a serious error in judgment…
“Don’t keep Megan out past her bedtime.” Amelia gave them a condescending smirk and moved off into the crowd.
“Forget about her,” Kira told Megan, her lips grazing her ear.
Megan stroked Kira’s forearm where it lay wrapped around her waist and continued to shimmy her hips to the music. Kira kept hold of her, tightening her grip with an involuntary shudder. She watched over Megan’s shoulder as Amelia got lost in the crowd. That’s right, Amelia, go away. Go dance with your deluded girlfriend and leave Megan alone.
She clung to the warmth of Megan’s back against her chest, breathing her in. She knew she had to let go, but she didn’t think she could. If they weren’t in public she would be extremely tempted to turn around and ease her to the floor and press her body against her and work very, very hard to find out exactly how to make her scream.
This was not good news.
As long as Megan wanted to keep dancing she’d be okay, but what did she think was going to happen when it came time to stop? A little preventative thinking a few minutes back might have been called for.
Megan rotated in her grip, their legs and hips and chests still close, but no longer touching. She raised her hand to the side of Kira’s face and traced the line of her jaw. “Your jaw’s tight.”
Whether it had been tight before or not, Kira had no idea, but Megan’s caress did nothing to relax her. If anything, it made her clench her jaw tighter. Megan’s touch was innocent and gentle and feminine. Not to mention irresistibly arousing. And Kira didn’t have the right to hold her this way. She should let go.
Instead, she leaned into Megan’s hand. Megan curled her fingertips around her jaw with a featherlight pressure that she probably didn’t even realize drew her closer. Kira moved her head in a barely visible hitch of invitation, the only warning she could give. And kissed her.
She hadn’t intended to do more than brush her lips against hers in a gentle, tentative, not-quite-sure-of-her-reception kiss. But Megan’s lips were wa
rm and hungry and not at all guarded, so instead, she lost her mind. She thrust her tongue into her mouth and it felt like the best decision she’d ever made in her entire life.
Megan’s hands found their way under her shirt and up her back, pulling her closer. Kira tucked her hands into Megan’s pockets and fit their hips together. Their legs bent and swayed to the music pulsing in her veins, and Megan’s hips matched her beat for beat. They moved like one body and kissed with a searching, possessive need.
Megan tasted just like her dreams, clean like the ice cold water she could never gulp enough of after a long, hot run. But Megan couldn’t be the one from her dreams—it didn’t make sense that she could have dreamed of her so long ago. Reality didn’t work that way. But it felt like her. So familiar. So right.
What the hell. Maybe reality did work that way. She was willing to give the mysteries of the universe the benefit of the doubt.
Because as it turned out, reality was much, much better than her dreams.
Megan twined her leg around Kira’s, pulling them off balance, and Kira stumbled and caught her footing, managing not to fall. Megan didn’t seem to notice. She kept kissing her, kept rubbing her inner thigh against her. Kira tightened her grip and let the feel of Megan’s body sear a memory into the deepest fibers of her being at every single point of contact. Nothing existed but her heat and her taste and the way she kissed her like the kiss would never end.
Until a half-naked man bumped into them and Megan sprang back. Kira reached for her, but Megan put a hand up to stop her.
“I can’t do this,” Megan said abruptly.
No. Kira’s body ached for her across the space that separated them.
“You’re a client.”
What? “I’m not a client.”
“The 10K…”
Kira’s mind spun, trying to adjust to Megan’s sudden change of heart as club lights played across her body in weirdly inappropriate patterns. Her words didn’t even make sense. “That doesn’t make me a client. That tent—that was an assembly line in there. Half those people you wouldn’t even recognize again.”
“I know, but…I shouldn’t.” Megan looked deflated and apologetic. “I could lose my license if I’m not careful.”
The troubled look in her eyes—and the unspoken trust that Kira would understand—knocked the fight right out of her. She could never try to force Megan to do something that made her uncomfortable, not if she wanted to be able to live with herself. Although she had to say that as far as excuses went, the losing her license thing was bogus. No way did she qualify as a client. But none of that mattered if Megan didn’t want her. It was hard to process, but that was what Megan was telling her—she didn’t want her.
She’d been showing off for her ex. What a waste.
So, okay. She could respect that. She wasn’t a man. She’d worked with enough Neanderthals to know that men always wanted the woman who was out of reach, the woman they had to chase, and once they got her, the excitement was over. They missed out on a lot, thinking that way. Because she had a feeling that once Megan let her into her life, the excitement would only get better.
Unfortunately, it didn’t look like she was going to get to find out.
Chapter Nine
Megan opened her front door and looked past the courtyard toward the street for Esther Bonney, her ten o’clock appointment, who was about to be late.
She spotted a familiar gray Taurus. Wasn’t that Barbara Fenhurst’s car?
Before she could wonder if she’d written down the wrong name in her appointment book, Esther drove up, parked and hobbled out of her car, the arthritis in her knees slowing her down more than usual.
Megan left her door open and went over to help Esther with the walk from her car.
“Thanks for your reminder call yesterday.” Esther gripped the support of Megan’s extended arm. “Can’t count on my memory anymore, and I’d hate to miss an appointment with you. Now the dentist, that I don’t mind missing.”
“How’s the arm?”
“Hurts a bit.”
“You don’t have to be stoic around me, you know.”
Even though Esther wore long sleeves to hide the compression wrap, Megan could tell her right arm was twice the size of the other one. Several years ago a mastectomy had saved her life, but it had left her with severe lymphedema. At least nowadays they didn’t remove all the lymph nodes as a matter of course. But surgeons still had this attitude of I saved your life, what more do you want from me? They cut the cancer out and if you complained about pain or infection or loss of function, well, that was the price you had to pay for not dying. It was a price women were willing to pay. But that didn’t make it right.
When they got upstairs and Esther was settled on the massage table, Megan elevated her arm and massaged it with the lightest, gentlest touch possible. Pressure would only aggravate the swelling. She brushed the arm over and over again, encouraging the excess fluid to flow toward the chest and leave the arm. The scent of the arnica massage cream filled the room.
By the end of the session the edema had visibly improved, and that meant the pain should be better, too. Megan sat on her stool behind her client and rested her hands on either side of her head. Like a mother tenderly stroking her sick child’s hair, she soothed her with slow circles on her scalp and forehead. Megan’s eyes lost focus, making Esther’s skin smooth out and her face become rounder, more youthful. It wasn’t hard to imagine her as a little girl racing around the beach with her arms open wide, screeching with delight.
Megan held the healing image in her mind and radiated love into Esther’s energy field. She realigned what she could, noted where there was resistance, and, with the pressure of her hands, invited her to let go. She positioned her hands at the base of Esther’s skull and waited for her to drift into the stillpoint—a gap between breaths, between heartbeats, between thought. A moment of pure stillness, where time followed different rules and deep healing occurred. She loved holding the stillpoint, feeling loving but detached, because when she was in that space, it was impossible to get sucked into her client’s problems. Or maybe it was the other way around: When she got sucked into her client’s problems—or her own problems—it was impossible to be a channel for pure love.
Which was why she was having trouble staying in the stillpoint. She was pulling herself out of it each time she thought about what happened at Avalanche with Kira. And she couldn’t stop thinking about it.
That kiss was a mistake. Kira had been so nice to her the whole evening. She looked so hot, too, in her tight shorts. The music was great, and what with all that pretending they’d been doing to make Amelia jealous, she’d gotten carried away. Way too carried away.
It had felt so natural to meet Kira’s lips, to let her tongue in, to revel in the way her hands tightened on her ass to pull her closer, so desperate for her. Megan had felt pretty desperate herself. It had taken quite a while before she remembered where she was and why she didn’t want to do this.
Inviting Kira to go to Avalanche with her had sounded like fun at the time…and yeah, it had been fun. Too fun. Somewhere along the way she’d left her ethics at the door and forgotten Kira was a client.
Clients were off-limits. For good reason.
She couldn’t see a woman’s personality clearly when that woman was a client, because it was all infused with that heart space she worked from to create healing. She loved her clients, every single one of them. She loved them because it was her job to set aside her personal prejudices and see them as innocent and lovable. Once she had looked at someone through that lens, that image was hard to shake. She wasn’t sure she could ever see them any other way.
And her clients couldn’t be objective about her, either. They raved about her because they saw her at her best, and because she helped them. They didn’t see her when she was tired and cranky and had other things to do. It was an illusion, and that illusion caused problems outside of the massage room.
Which was wh
y she should have pulled back the instant she realized Kira was about to kiss her. There’d been time.
Time which she’d spent mesmerized, dizzy with yearning as she caressed Kira’s taut jaw, watched her lower her gaze, and felt her hesitate, knowing she was coming closer, knowing she was going to kiss her, wondering what it would be like.
Instead of thinking.
Thank God her brain had kicked in eventually.
Maybe they could just forget the kiss ever happened. Kira might agree to that. She was desperate for her help with the spa, and wouldn’t want to complicate their working relationship. They’d treat it like an accident—an accidental bumping of the lips. That accidentally turned into an irresistible soul kiss.
Yup. That would work.
Kisses that brushed against her soul were easy to forget. Not that she’d ever come across one before…
Well, she was sure it was possible.
***
It didn’t take long for George—Kira’s foreman—to confirm her suspicions. She liked to check on the construction site and assess the hotel’s progress every day, even on weekends when no one was around, so when she’d stopped by after her early Saturday morning run and noticed a stack of several large coils of copper pipe had disappeared, she’d immediately called George to assess what else might have been stolen.
George checked all the areas under construction as Kira followed close behind. “Looks like that’s all they took,” he said.
“Were they watching the delivery?” Kira had been in this business long enough to know she had to budget for some worksite theft, but it galled her every time—especially since these pipes had been delivered less than twenty-four hours ago. She’d almost been late meeting up with Megan at Avalanche the night before because she’d been waiting for the delivery and the truck got stuck in Friday afternoon beach traffic. Like that was a big surprise. She’d told them not to do it on a Friday. Her crew had gone home for the day and she had waited for the truck. Eating pizza out of a cardboard box, wondering when the truck was ever going to get there, knowing she was going to inconvenience Megan if it didn’t arrive soon… It had been a frustrating way to start the evening. And all for nothing.
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