“May I ask…the bravery? You write dirty romances, which some reviewers slam as mommy porn. Is this something you saw yourself doing back in South Africa where you studied the naturalist poets?”
“You know, it’s not. But I’ve found a way to express myself. Wait, let me rephrase. I didn’t know I had this need or desire to express myself like this, until I just began to do it as an outlet and need to write. It honestly just came out and I’ve had fun with it ever since.”
“You don’t write under a penname. Considering your husband’s position now, you are not leery about this?”
“I learned a long time ago that running from your last name, or hiding didn’t do me any good. I want to be authentic. I want women to embrace their sexuality and be proud, not ashamed. Thank you.”
Bradley’s strong hand rested on my lower back, the gentle touch leading me further down the press line.
“Senator Rainshaw, you’re thirty-three, married, a baby girl due shortly. You’ve got the whole world in your hands now. You’ve turned Rainshaw Enterprises around. You started at a great loss by shutting down the foreign operations, but in three short years you’ve doubled your company’s net worth. You clearly have an eye for growth and strategy. You’ve got the work ethic, talents, and clout; can we expect you in the race for governor soon? Or maybe, president one day?”
“Never say never.”
“What do you have to say about your wife's scandalous books that she writes?”
“I think that there's no greater way to live than with courage, no regrets, and to live life not caring what people think. To live life being who you are and not giving a shit about what other people think. Pardon my French. Clearly it led to something right here.”
He lovingly covered my belly and we both laughed.
“What do I really think?” He tilted that Greek-god-like chin, and I could just stare at him all day long. My husband. Mine.
“It's pretty hot and I think it's time for me to go home if you catch my drift. Because dinner’s on the table and dessert’s in the bed.”
The crowd was charmed and laughed boisterously.
“Kate? Any last words?”
“You can talk about me behind my back, but at least you’re talking about me.” The famous words of my mother’s tagline. I winked at a chuckling crowd as Bradley kissed my cheek.
And we were off back to our New York City flat.
Him.
Me.
And Baby.
With him I had the world.
With him I had the courage to be seen for who I really am.
With him I had the courage to dream, to write, and to express myself.
Because of him I felt finally free to be seen.
Bonus Book 3 : MAGIC FINGERS
Chapter 1
ALY
* * *
In rose gold colored sandstone, the words Spa Unico - Patrons Only curved across the sign to the private access entrance of the world-renowned health spa. By the time the valet had taken the keys to my car, I let out an exhausted breath, hoping that this place was as good as everyone said it was. A miracle was pretty much the only thing that would get me to leave feeling refreshed and relaxed at this point.
"Hello and welcome to Spa Unico," a pleasant older woman greeted me at the lavishly decorated front desk as I walked up. "May I have your name, miss?"
I smoothed back the wavy mess of blonde highlights that kept falling in my face despite my sunglasses being propped up on my head and smiled back at her. "Aly Waterhouse."
She glanced at her computer screen, double-checked over a few sheets of paper, and looked back up, nodding. "Miss Waterhouse, if you'll just take a seat in our lobby, your massage therapist will be out shortly." Leaning over, the shorter woman produced a small silver tray and proceeded to pour a glass of one of my favorite champagnes. Gesturing to the flute bubbling with the golden liquid, she gave me another pleasant smile. "Please help yourself to our complimentary champagne, or any of our other refreshments in the lobby area. We also suggest drinking a full glass of our lemon water after any massage, as it will help flush the toxins out."
Tilting the flute toward her, I thanked her and carefully threw my huge purse back over my shoulder, my heels click-clacking over the dappled marble floor as I headed in the direction that the woman had pointed.
Amid a handful of tastefully upholstered armchairs and chaise lounges, I snatched up one of the Women's Fitness magazines from the glass table and took a quick sip of my drink before sitting down on one of the smaller peach colored sofas.
The lobby smelled clean and fresh, sort of like a mix between my favorite fabric softener and a good martini. There were a few other people waiting around nearby, chatting about the newly renovated sauna. I quirked my brow as I flipped through to the next page. Hmm. I might just have to check that out.
It didn’t take long until I was the last person left in the lobby. As they tended to do when I wasn’t otherwise occupied, my thoughts unfortunately went back to Josh. Back to the way he kept smoothing over his slicked back hair, unable to accept the truth.
I rolled my eyes at myself and took another deep sip of the champagne, trying to push the big fight out of my mind for now. The last thing I needed to worry about while I was getting a massage was my ex-fiancé.
My watch glittered under the lobby’s chandelier, and I raised a delicate eyebrow as I noticed the time. For such an upscale, high-faluting place, they sure do take forever to finally get to you.
Just as I was about to check back in with the front desk lady—my impatience getting the best of me, since all I wanted to do was just relax already—one of the doors to the left of the lobby swung open. It was a good thing I’d set the flute back down on the side table, because when I looked up, I swear to God I was struck speechless and nearly slid out of my seat right there.
In Napa Valley, you come across plenty of wealthy men, especially when your mother is one of the most well-known sommeliers around. Plenty of older men would waggle their bushy eyebrows at me or even my younger sister, Sage, when we'd enter a room. And sure, there were some good-looking ones out of the bunch, but they tended to be so boring and so predictable that I tuned them out just as quickly as I could.
The man who had just walked through the door, however, was something I would have never predicted. From the golden-kissed tan of his skin pulled taut over the huge, bulging biceps barely hidden under the tight white polo he was wearing, to the thick, dirty blonde hair that hung around his chiseled face, framing his icy blue eyes… this man was pure sex on a stick.
Unable to move, I tried desperately to look anywhere else but directly at him, like he was the sun and I was protecting my eyes from being burned right out of my sockets. With my face blushing hard, I chewed on my lip and took another sip as casually as I could.
But the man was determined to catch my eye, and he walked over to me, his clean white tennis shoes squeaking along. Eye-level with his crotch, I had no choice but to quickly look up at his face, half embarrassed that I'd just been staring right at his obviously well-endowed nether regions.
If he noticed, he pretended not to. "Hello. Miss Waterhouse?" The deep thrum of his voice struck me in places I didn't even know I had.
I swallowed hard. "Um, yes, hi."
His gorgeous, crooked smile nearly blinded me with his movie-star white teeth, and the cute dimple on the left side of his mouth. "I'm Liam, your massage therapist for this session. Would you care to follow me?"
Anywhere. Just take me with you.
Even though it was clearly my turn to speak, my mouth was incapable of functioning, so I settled for a quick nod and snapped up my purse, barely paying attention to the way the remnants of my champagne came dangerously close to spilling out over the top as I did.
Liam led me back through the door and down a wide hallway with several doors spaced out along it on either side, each with a golden plaque emblazoned with the room's number.
Standing be
hind him was probably a mistake, because now all I could focus on was how tight and round my massage therapist's ass looked in the Dockers he was wearing. The man had to work out on the daily. There was no doubt in my mind that his thighs were probably just as toned as those arms…
When we got to room number twelve, he gently knocked on the door, pausing for a beat before turning the handle. My heart was racing as I realized this was really happening. I was really about to get completely naked and let this gorgeous specimen of a man put his hands all over my body. Lust panged between my legs at the very thought and I squeezed my thighs together for a moment before following him inside the room. Hopefully he didn't notice the way I shimmied along the wall like a deranged cat in heat.
I inhaled deeply, the cozy room's light scent of lavender invading my senses. The lighting in the room was perfectly dim, and with the soft taupe color of the walls easy on my eyes, I could already feel my body relaxing, even though my mind was going at about a hundred miles an hour.
Liam turned to face me expectantly. "Once you're fully undressed, you can place your clothing in the basket over here. Your other belongings can go in the armoire. We ask that you turn off your phone. When you’re ready, you'll lie down. I'll give you a few minutes to undress," he explained, handing me a soft, fluffy white towel with the spa's logo embroidered on the front.
With my pulse throbbing in so many places across my body, I tried to calm myself down. "Okay, thank you."
Once the door was safely shut behind me, I raced around, shedding my jeans and V-neck sweater, cursing to myself as my sunglasses got tangled in both my hair and my sweater as I yanked them off. Red-faced and utterly embarrassed, I tried to quietly lie down on the massage table, reminding myself that this wasn't my first rodeo. I simply needed to close my eyes and really let myself relax.
There was a knock at the door. "Come in," I called out, hoping the rest of me wasn't as flushed as my face.
I heard the door open and close, and saw the edge of Liam's white tennis shoes as he walked around the room to the shelves on the wall next to me. "So, Miss Waterhouse. I was just looking over your chart, and it says that you are dealing with some anxiety. And your hamstrings are sore mainly from running?"
I cleared my throat. "Eight miles."
"Eight miles!" he repeated.
"Anxiety," I muttered, hoping I didn't sound like a crazy person. "I just took my bar exam and um, broke off the engagement with my fiancé before that. So right now I'm trying to lay low with my mother and sister and wait for the results. This pretty much turned into a sad excuse for a vacation for me. Between the exam and being cooped up with my family… honestly, I'm sort of terrified." Words started trickling out of my mouth before I had a chance to think them. "I'm sorry, I'm not usually this personal and out there with people. I guess I maybe had a bit too much of the champagne."
Stop, stop, stop! I gritted my teeth, trying to breathe normally.
“It sounds like you have a full plate. No one can blame you for getting a little worried. At least you took it out in a productive and healthy way. No judgment here.”
I smiled to myself, but Liam's hands were suddenly at the insoles of my feet, and I nearly jumped out of my skin from the contact.
"Sorry, I'm starting down here at your feet, then I'll work my way up your legs. I'll help you out with the anxiety, don't worry. Just breathe," he said, his voice calming.
His large hands worked my feet, turning my ankles this way and that. Fingertips dug into the spaces around my heel and kneaded the balls of my feet. If I were sitting up, I’d be letting my head loll back. It was nearly impossible not to make a sound, especially as he rubbed in more massage oil.
His fingers pushed and skimmed over the muscle of my calves as he worked his way up. I was holding on, able to keep the crappy thoughts at bay. But instead of feeling at peace, something else was taking hold in my brain. I imagined what Liam must look like, rubbing my legs with his large, capable hands. My eyes fluttered as he firmly pushed up past the tendons behind my left knee until he reached my hamstring. It ached from being sore, but now I was aching for an entirely different reason.
"Is this pressure good? There's a lot of tension in your hamstring here," he said, his voice even quieter. Biting my lip, I smiled to myself. "Mm-hmm." The pressure was definitely good.
Liam splayed his hands out, working them up and around the aching hamstrings, one at a time. Between the calming scent of the lavender and the soothing way Liam pressed the heels of his hands into my legs, I was in heaven. My mind was torn, trying to figure out if I was more turned on than relaxed though. When I felt his presence even closer to me—his white shoes squeaking on the tiled floor as he moved closer into view—my stomach flopped as a new scent hit me. This one reminding me of a woodsy aftershave that I knew must be Liam. My eyes fluttered shut again as he moved to my other hamstring, his thumbs rubbing on either side of the tendons there.
In the midst of my somewhat sleepy but still massively horny thoughts, I wondered how Liam came to be so good with his hands. Had he always been a masseuse? Surely he could’ve been an underwear model and made three times as much money! Deep down I knew that he knew where his talents lie…at the ends of his hands.
The deeper he massaged my sore muscles, the more relaxed I felt. But as his fingers started softly stroking upwards along the sides of my knee, I realized he was going to go up even further.
I caught the moan that threatened to escape my throat as Liam's fingers deftly stroked and pushed along the fleshier part of my inner thigh. "It's good to rub all around the trouble spots. It helps get the blood flowing and helps to push the toxins out. Otherwise you'll have a little knot of tension right around here," he said, his fingers slipping just inside the edge of the towel where it barely covered my thick thighs.
My chin trembled as I imagined Liam suddenly becoming overtaken by his lust for me, his fingers pushing further and further up, slipping past my already wet folds, methodically rubbing at my swollen bud while he explained what he was doing, whispering in my ear. Oh, if only…
What started out as feather-light strokes of his long fingers turned into Liam really getting in there, using the whole of his hands to push down and dig deep into each muscle. My breathing picked up and I found it almost impossible to concentrate on whatever words were coming out of his handsome mouth.
“Always make sure to stretch out your hamstrings really well before going on a run that far. I like to stretch for about fifteen minutes, myself. Then again, I usually only cover about five miles most days.”
Deep down a tiny part of me felt smug. I beat out Mr. Buff in the running department? Who knew? But the smugness easily faded back into something else when I remembered that Mr. Buff also had his large, capable hands on my left thigh…
It was difficult not to squirm because as Liam's hands did go further up each thigh, all I wanted him to do was to say the hell with this and touch me there, my insides quivering like mad.
I couldn’t believe the effect his touch had on me, and desperately tried to warn myself to calm the hell down, but it wasn’t working. Liam lifted the bottom part of the towel another inch and I could feel it lying flush against the bottom of each of my round ass cheeks. He was so, so close.
My fingers scrambled over the edges of the massage table and held my breath when his fingertips repeatedly skimmed along the soft skin directly under my ass. The heel of his hand was right there…right where my ass and legs all joined up in the most delicate manner!
But just when I was sure I was going to come just by Liam's professional touch, he cleared his throat and walked to the other side of the table. Instead of pulling the towel up even more like I was secretly begging him to, he pulled it down a few inches, leaving the top portion of my tailbone exposed. Suddenly Liam’s feet were right under my head.
The massage continued upward, where he placed his hands on my lower back and worked his way along either side of my spine. Thankfully Liam was quie
t, letting me enjoy the extra deliciousness of his touch elsewhere. It wasn’t between my legs, no, but I had to admit that his magic fingers felt phenomenal no matter where they were on my body.
It didn’t feel like very long though, when Liam’s hands dropped away from my relaxed shoulders and he walked away, the sound of a faucet turning on making me pout to the floor. "All right, Miss Waterhouse, we're all finished here. I think that from now on, warming up your hamstrings for two to three minutes before you go for a run would be a good idea.” The sound of the faucet stopped and Liam took a few steps back toward the table. “I know you’re anxious about your test results, but try to get some relaxation while you're here. There’s no sense in worrying over things you can’t control, if you ask me. Oh, and you'll need to drink some of our lemon water, once you're finished up."
He turned so that I saw his feet again. "I hope you start feeling better soon." His tone had changed, sounding grittier for some reason, before he quickly exited the room.
I slowly sat up, actually feeling somewhat dizzy. As I slid off the massage table, I was mortified when I realized that in my lustful thoughts, my overexcitement was now very clear evidence for Liam or anyone else to see. I frowned and grabbed the bottle of cold lemon water he’d placed nearby, chugging down a few gulps before strategically placing it right by the small puddle of wetness, hoping no one noticed.
Chapter 2
ALY
* * *
Following behind the bubbly younger assistant in her stark white polo, I was given another glass of champagne and led back to the woman’s clubhouse locker room. "There are several differently sized pools, as well as three different hot tubs. We have a recently renovated sauna room if you'd like to relax even more. I almost forgot!" she added, her big brown eyes going wide. "We just had a party of five cancel their afternoon appointment, so it looks like you'll have the entire clubhouse to yourself for the next couple of hours."
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