by Gail Dayton
He returned, carrying an opened bottle of beer on a tray, and bowed as he served it to her.
She glared at him as she snatched it up and took a drink, then she slammed it back on the tray. "I didn't want beer. I wanted a soda. Bring me something soft."
Still he didn't flare up. Still, he just bowed. "As you wish."
What did she have to do to make the man quit? She was beginning to feel bad about being so nasty to him. He was probably just as thirsty as she was. "Wait."
Rudi turned back, one eyebrow up as he waited for her next petty order.
"No use wasting the beer," she said. "You can have it if you want."
His smile was tiny, scarcely a smile at all, and it turned her insides into something soft and gooey, like chocolate pudding. She was in deep, deep trouble here.
"Thank you, zahra."
Now he was using Arabic words on her. It probably meant "slave driver." He inclined his head in that minibow that she was rapidly getting sick of, and vanished back into the house.
Moments later he returned yet again, the beer on the tray now accompanied by a can of pop. Rudi served her, then set the tray on the bench beside her before collecting his bottle.
Ellen racked her brain, trying to think of something else she could do to stop this stupid situation. Her annoyance with him, with herself, and the whole situation, grew.
"Stop looming over me like that," she snapped. "I hate it when you loom."
Rudi grinned at her, and her heart took off on a race to nowhere. He sat back on his heels, hovering there with his knees near his armpits, and his backside inches off the decking. "First I am coy," he said. "And now I loom. What will you accuse me of next?"
"Did I say you could talk?" Ellen refused to look at that backside, taunting her as it hovered.
His little bow was almost mocking this time, hunkered down as he was. "Forgive me, zahra. I exist only to serve you."
"Oh, for—" Ellen sprang from her seat, almost knocking Rudi over. "Don't you have any pride? Any self-respect? How can you stand to grovel like this?"
He rose to face her in one smooth motion. "I do not grovel. I serve." His forehead crinkled, the way it did when he spoke of something serious. "It is a matter of honor. I lost the bet, therefore I must fulfill the wager. Honor is only satisfied by paying my debts willingly, cheerfully and thoroughly. Halfhearted, grudging service will not do."
Ellen's heart sank. With that kind of attitude, she would never get him to quit. She turned away and walked to the deck railing, staring out at the red sun-set sky beyond the mountains. She didn't know what to do. She liked Rudi, she really did. But she didn't trust him.
All of her previous experience with men had taught her that they would do anything, say anything to get what they wanted. And what they all wanted was a notch on the bedpost. To be able to point to her and say, "See that beautiful woman over there? I did her."
Some of them wanted to own her, to turn her into a prize they could show off, the way Davis had. But none of them wanted any more than her surface—the face, the hair, the legs, the body. What was inside the package didn't matter to them. Which was why her appearance made such a terrific weapon in the business she'd chosen. They didn't expect to find anything beneath it, and it gave her the advantage of surprise.
Rudi might be different in a lot of ways, but not in that one. He still wanted to notch his post. Ellen didn't dare let down her guard. Liking him, wanting him, just made it that much harder.
She sighed and started to lower herself to the bench, when her thigh muscles screamed. Ellen confined herself to a gasp. She grabbed for the railing, managing to hold on to her soda while all the muscles in her body told her in no uncertain terms just how unhappy they were. Not only had she ridden a horse several miles, an activity using a complete set of muscles previously unknown to her, but she'd climbed an entire cliff. Up and back down again.
"Ellen? Are you all right?" Rudi's silky, sexy voice sounded in her ear.
"Ow." She couldn't manage more as she tried to straighten again. "No, I'm okay." She fended off his solicitude. She didn't need to like him any more than she already did, and she certainly didn't need him this close to her. "I just found a few muscles I didn't know I had."
"Can I help?"
"Aspirin." She nodded her head. "Aspirin sounds good."
Rudi's hands settled onto her shoulders and began to rub, his strong fingers finding the knotted soreness. "I am no expert, but I have picked up some techniques from various massage therapists in the past. Would you like…?"
"Aspirin," she repeated. She didn't dare let Rudi get anywhere near her with those magic hands. In fact, she would tell him to stop what he was doing, right now. Or maybe in just another minute.
"Are you sure?" His breath whispered warm across her ear, and Ellen shuddered.
She made herself duck away, a harder thing to do than flipping a sumo wrestler onto his back. She should know. She'd done both. "Just aspirin." Maybe if she said it enough times, she'd believe it.
"Didn't I smell some of Annabelle's famous cooking when I was inside?" Ellen said, trying to distract him. Or herself.
He bowed and swept a hand toward the house, playing the perfect servant again. So perfect, she wanted to smack him. Or kiss him.
His mouth drew her, mesmerized her, tormented her. It was his best feature, next to his eyes. And his shoulders. And his… Ellen stopped that line of thought. But she couldn't stop thoughts about his mouth, because somehow she couldn't make herself stop staring at it. It looked like such a kissable mouth. So why hadn't he kissed her with it?
Not that she wanted him to kiss her. She didn't. She didn't think she did, anyway. But she did wonder. Not one kiss. He hadn't even tried. Not even last night at her bedroom door. Kisses on the forehead didn't count. And it made her curious what a real kiss from that eminently kissable mouth would be like. Dangerously curious.
"Ellen?"
She heard Rudi speak from somewhere far distant, but she couldn't drag her demented mind from its focus.
"Ellen, why are you staring at—?" Rudi's mouth came closer. His breathing seemed ragged, but no more than her own.
She tried to focus. She really did. But the day's exertion must have tied her brain in as many knots as it had her muscles. She could neither think nor move.
"I must," he murmured.
And his mouth closed over hers.
The touch was light at first, a tentative caress that came again with more confidence. Ellen sighed, unable to summon even a moan, and let her body settle against Rudi. His hand cupped the back of her head as his mouth moved over hers. His arm around her back supported her, holding her in place.
At the touch of his tongue, Ellen opened to him, teased and tasted him. She took possession of his mouth, even as she surrendered her own to him. This was everything a kiss should be, and more. The kind of kiss she'd known had to be out there, but never believed could be found. Not by her. Not until now. Until Rudi.
She heard a groan, and thought it came from Rudi, though it might have been hers. His hand moved from the back of her head to her bottom, pulling her hips in tight. She could feel his arousal press hard against her stomach, and she pressed back.
At that moment her good sense recovered from its exhaustion and lifted its feeble head. What in the world was she doing?
Kissing Rudi, her body retorted. Her body wanted to keep on kissing, wanted to follow the tingle his mouth had started and see where it led. But her good sense already knew where this kiss would take her. Right into big-time trouble.
Besides sleeping with her client being unethical as hell, she knew herself well enough to know that her emotions would inevitably get tangled up in Rudi if she had sex with him. And inevitably, she would get hurt. There were too many obstacles between them.
He was a prince. His family had more money than God, or at least more money than Bill Gates, which was probably close to the same thing. She was just Ellen Sheffield, a nobody special w
ho'd had the misfortune to be born with a pretty face.
She couldn't afford to fall even a little bit in love with Prince Rudi, however great the temptation. And Ellen was firmly convinced that no one had ever been this tempted since that snake waved that apple under Eve's nose in the Garden of Eden.
Ellen pulled away, breaking the kiss gently. Already he was getting to her, making her reluctant to wound even his pride.
"Dinner?" she said. "Aspirin?"
He blinked, cleared his throat. "Yes," he said, releasing her. "Yes. Dinner."
Rudi stepped back, then turned and almost ran into the house. His swift departure might have hurt her feelings if she hadn't already decided this was best.
She followed at the fastest pace her aching body would allow. She'd expected her legs and her butt to hurt after sitting on that horse for so long, but her shoulders and back were killing her, too. Even the muscles running down her ribs below her arms hurt. Heck, even her ears hurt. She was still feeling them as she entered the kitchen.
Rudi closed the oven door and faced her, that disgustingly cute oven mitt still on his hand. "Is something wrong with your ears?"
"They hurt." She hobbled on into the kitchen area. "I didn't think I had any muscles in my ears."
Rudi chuckled. He shook off the mitt and came to inspect. "They are sunburned. You did not think to put sunscreen on them, did you?"
"I sunburned my ears? I have never in my life heard of sunburned ears." Ellen touched them gingerly. The pain was more of a burn than an ache, she realized.
"Did you never go to the seaside as a child?"
"Yes, but I never—" She paused, remembering. "I guess I did sunburn my ears, but the rest of me was so much worse, I didn't really notice." She poked him in the arm. "What happened to my aspirin, slave?"
"Yes, zahra." He made that fancy hand flourish with his bow this time. "I live to serve you."
"I can do without the sarcasm."
"What sarcasm?" His expression was wide-eyed innocence. "Every word from my lips is sincere truth." Then he laughed at her disgusted look.
Rudi pulled out a chair from the kitchen table as he passed it. "Sit. I will get the aspirin and some ice in a glass for your drink. It must be warm by now."
"Thanks." Ellen couldn't hold back the groan as she shuffled to the chair. She was positive she heard her body creak when she lowered herself into it.
"I cannot bear to see you in such pain." Rudi opened the aspirin bottle, poured two into his hand and held them out to her.
Ellen took the bottle instead. "Give me that. Those, too." She picked the tablets carefully from his palm, not wanting to touch him more than necessary. She was avoiding temptation just now.
She shook another aspirin from the bottle and tossed all three into her mouth, washing them down with swig of warm pop. Nasty tasting. "This is a three-aspirin ache," she informed Rudi, setting the bottle down on the table with a thump.
"Please," Rudi said. "Dinner is not yet finished cooking. Please, allow me to give you a massage. It will help. I swear it."
Ellen believed him. His magic fingers had done wonders for her shoulders. But she didn't dare. A massage would mean Rudi touching more than just her shoulders. He would touch her back and her neck and her legs. Probably even her bottom, considering it was one of the places that hurt the most.
At that thought, the leftover tingle from his kiss started up all over again. Between the tingling and the aching, she couldn't think. She could only want.
"I'm not taking off my clothes," she said. Where did that come from? She had intended to turn him down when she'd opened her mouth. At least, she thought she had.
"Your jeans are too heavy, and the blouse will be harsh against your skin." His thumbs dug into the knots on either side of her spine and she moaned with the pleasure-pain of it.
When had he gotten close enough to do that to her again? He was right, though. The gingham collar felt rough as he rubbed her neck. Rudi moved it aside and laid his hand on bare skin, easing her aches. It did feel much better that way.
"It is, of course, your decision," he said, his voice low and seductive. "I am merely your servant, and do only as you bid. You may feel safe with me."
Safe? Not hardly. But it wasn't Rudi's action that endangered, it was her own reaction to him. Odd as it might seem, given her past experience, she trusted him utterly to go only as far as she invited. She just didn't know if she could keep from issuing a blanket invitation. Something along the lines of Here I am. Take me.
"Ellen?" Rudi lifted her to her feet. It wasn't as painful a process when her own muscles did so much less of the work. He led her to the bedroom door.
"Lie down on the bed," he said. "Leave whatever clothing you feel appropriate, and call me when you are ready."
She went into the room and stared at the massive four-poster bed with its white textured coverlet. This was too hard. If she did as Rudi suggested, as her body demanded, she had sole responsibility for whatever happened. She couldn't blame Rudi for anything other than being himself. Could she handle a massage, or would it make her want more? And if she did want more, was she too afraid of being disappointed or hurt to risk it? Was that what had her dithering in the middle of the room?
"Coward." She hissed the word out loud.
Just because she accepted a massage didn't mean anything else would happen. Only that it could. She was the one in control tonight. Rudi had said that it was a matter of honor for him to obey her commands. To fulfill her wishes. He would stop if she asked him to. She knew it bone deep, as more than fact.
Ellen grabbed her shirt collar and yanked, popping the snaps open all the way down. She would take one step at a time. She would see how things went, and if she wanted to take the next step… Well then, she would. But she left her bra and panties on anyway as she crawled painfully onto the bed.
"I'm ready."
Rudi started at the sound of Ellen's voice calling from the bedroom. She was ready. But was he?
He took a deep breath, then shook himself, like a sprinter trying to loosen up before a race. Rudi didn't need to get loose, however. He needed tight, iron-hard control. He took another deep breath, closing his hands into fists.
"Rudi?"
"I am coming." He let the air out of his lungs as he reminded himself one more time that Ellen expected him to rebel against her instructions, and that therefore he must obey them perfectly. And he walked into the room.
The sight of her lying facedown on his bed, wearing only wispy scraps of pale blue silk, had him breathing deeply again, this time in hopes of holding his head in place on his shoulders. It threatened to fly away like a balloon. She was more beautiful than even his fertile imagination had pictured. Perhaps because this vision was real.
He put his knee on the bed and Ellen looked up, alarm in her eyes. "The bed is too wide," he said. "I cannot reach you properly unless I am on it with you."
"Oh." She nodded, accepting his excuse. "Okay."
She turned her face into the pillows again, her forehead resting on her folded hands.
Rudi clenched his hands tight once more before relaxing them and setting them on the smooth, silken skin of her shoulders. Then he dug his thumbs in, searching for the corded knots.
Ellen moaned. The sound twisted its way inside him to settle hot and heavy at his groin. This was going to be sheer torture.
He worked on her shoulders, slipping her bra straps out of the way. Then he moved down her back to the muscles between her shoulder blades. Ellen's moans and gasps sang counterpoint to the motion of his hands, arousing him as much as did touching her, for he imagined much the same music as he made love to her.
He massaged her deltoids, muscles he knew would be sore from the climb, and on down her sides.
"May I unfasten this?" He tugged lightly at the hooks fastening her bra, asking permission when he wanted to do as he wished.
"Go ahead," Ellen mumbled past her hands, giving him the freedom he desired.
His hands rubbed their way down her back, using Ellen's "music" as a guide to the places that needed his attention.
"Better?" he asked.
"Mmm." She took a deep breath, her back rising with it. "Much."
He let his palms slide lightly over her soft skin, delighting in the feel, in the knowledge that she allowed him this freedom. "Where else? Your arms? Your legs?"
She straightened one of her arms, lifting it slightly. "It might do me some good."
Rudi massaged both arms, one after the other. Then he worked on the leg she raised into the air, rubbing her calves.
"Keep going," she said, when he would have stopped at her knees. She turned her head so the bedding didn't muffle her words. "The hurt goes all the way up. The cure needs to follow it."
"As you wish, zahra." Zahra. Flower. A perfect description of Ellen, so delicate, so beautiful and fragrant. He would not survive this sweet torture. Touching her like this without promise of release was worse than any torments devised by his ancestors. Scorpions would be more welcome.
The sounds she made as he massaged her thighs intensified his arousal and thus his pain. He knew he should have changed out of jeans into native dress before beginning this. But if he had, his condition would be so obvious, he would doubtless frighten her back behind her mental walls.
"Anything else?" he asked, sitting back on his heels, sincerely hoping he would be given the chance to escape.
Ellen lifted her hips slightly and tightened her shapely buttocks. Rudi's mouth went dry. The tiny scrap of pale blue cloth covering them did not hide anything from his eyes. Any effect on modesty was purely imaginary.
"My bottom is sore, too. From the horse, I guess," she said in a faint, almost girlish voice. "Would you…?"
"At your command."
Seven