His Cherished Love (Cuffs and Spurs Book 8)

by Anya Summers

  She had the massage table covered with white sheets. At the table, she lifted up the top sheet.

  “I’m going to step out of the room so you can get yourself ready. We’ll start facedown first. Use the top sheet to cover your bottom half. Then we can begin.”

  While she spoke, Jack approached the table, and subsequently, her. Rayna backed up a step. It was either that or take a step into him and press her torso up against his. And that was something she was not ready for at all whatsoever.

  The corners of his sexy mouth turned up. And it was a damn sexy mouth. The top lip had a clear indent in the center and bowed out like two halves of a heart spread horizontally. The bottom lip was full in a way that made her imagine nibbling on it—for hours. “Do I make you nervous?”

  “No.” But he totally did. In spades. And not in the way he meant. He made her nervous because she wanted to touch him.

  “I’ll be back in a minute after you get yourself situated.” She didn’t mention she was going to go dunk her face in cold water to calm her overactive hormones down. Her damn ovaries purred at him, the little traitors.

  She escaped the living room with his deep, seductive chuckle following her. Rayna marched down the hall to her laundry room. It was situated past the kitchen at the end of the hall. On her days off from the diner, she attempted to stay on top of chores like her laundry. That she couldn’t convince forest creatures to clean her house for her was rather disappointing. It worked so well for all the fairy tale princesses. Then again, she wasn’t a fairy tale princess—at least, not of the new animated variety, more like the Brothers Grimm’s dark tales of murder and mayhem.

  It didn’t matter that at one point in her life she had been treated like a princess and been considered nothing more than a pretty piece of fluff and arm candy. It had been considered cute that she wanted to learn finance, and her father had allowed it indulgently—like he hadn’t really believed it was something she was capable of doing but he wanted to give her whatever she wanted.

  She had been the proverbial spoiled little rich girl… until college, and more importantly, Nicolas. His advent into her life had created a schism between the world she believed she had come from and the harsh reality.

  She switched her darks into the dryer, tossed her lights into the washer, and got both loads going. As she worked in the laundry room, she listened to Jack’s movements in her living room.

  There was silence. That meant it was time to get this show on the road. She strolled back down the hall in her bare feet, past the kitchen, and halted at a dead stop. Jack stood in her living room without a stitch of clothing on. Her gaze trailed over the muscled lines of his rock-hard body and she was proud that her tongue wasn’t hanging out. His body reminded her of a swimmer’s, with long, sleek, contoured muscles. The man didn’t have an ounce of fat on him. A dusting of hair a shade or so darker than the tawny caramel on his head covered his pecs then trailed in a single line over his ripcord abs to his groin. Suddenly, she realized she was staring damn near slack-jawed at his impressive cock. The long, wide appendage began to stir and lengthen under her gaze.

  She squeaked. “Sorry.”

  Her heart thumped wildly in her chest as she swiveled around on her heel and faced the wall. It took every ounce of strength she possessed to battle back the tingling lust spiraling in her center and flooding her system. “I didn’t hear any movement and thought you were already on the table,” she said in a breathy, defensive voice. She couldn’t five by five this. There was no way to unsee his magnificent body.

  “Rayna, I don’t mind that you saw my body. It doesn’t bother me. But I hope I didn’t offend or embarrass you.” His low voice was gruff and ignited a hunger to feel all of his exposed flesh against her. It slid through her belly and landed deep inside her core, making her pussy throb at the thought of all that glorious hard male body against hers. She didn’t like how much he affected her. Then again, she had just seen every inch of Jack. Every inch.

  The man had a lot of inches. Titillating, spine tingling inches that left her panting and flushed.

  “No. If you could just get on the bed… I mean, the massage table and cover yourself.” Rayna wanted to thunk her head against the nearest wall. Why didn’t she just say, ‘No problem big boy, why don’t I give you a different type of massage? One where we both have a happy ending?’ Her body sure as hell was on board with that plan.

  “You sure about that?”

  She heard the teasing laughter in his voice and clenched her hands into fists.

  “Yes. Just get on the damn bed, will you?”

  Jack laughed out loud.

  “I meant the table.” Shit. Her face flamed.

  “Yes ma’am.”

  She heard movement. The massage table groaned and creaked as Jack climbed on top. Rayna imagined straddling him on the massage table and riding him like a bucking bronco. How was she going to get through this massage when all she could think about was sex—lots, and lots of headboard breaking sex—with Jack?

  Was she that hard up? Or was it something more? There were a ton of rough and ready cowboys in the area, all manner of tourists, the outdoorsmen types who were physically fit from scaling mountains or skiing down them, and yet not a single one of them had ever turned her head quite like Jack.

  Then again, she’d not had a real relationship since Nicolas was murdered by her father. A few one nighters, but nothing deep or worthwhile.

  But Jack… he mesmerized her with his animal magnetism, the aura that proclaimed he was the biggest, baddest alpha around. After years of terror and fear, those qualities drew her to him like a boat seeking shelter during a hurricane.

  “I’m ready,” Jack murmured. The question was, was she?

  Rayna peeked over her shoulder and sighed. His big, lanky body was flat on its belly. The white sheet covered his hips and below, leaving the full expanse of his back exposed. His back was just as ripped and sexy as the front. Dammit. She blew out a quick breath, attempting to extinguish the dancing flames inside her veins. It was now or never. She padded the short distance into the living room and turned some soft piano and flute meditation music on, hoping that would dissuade him from wanting to converse.

  Saying a little prayer, Rayna started near his head. Putting a dollop of lotion on her hands, she began with long strokes from his shoulder down his back. She tried to lose herself in the rhythm of massage. She had always viewed it as helping a person heal or relax. But she found herself paying attention to the way his body reacted to her touch. The flexing of his muscles beneath her fingertips.

  She found a particularly tough knot along his shoulder blade and dug in, circling the knot, working to break up the calcium deposit beneath the skin that was holding the muscle hostage.

  Jack emitted a heartfelt groan.

  It startled her enough that she pulled her fingers back.

  “No, don’t stop. Please.” It was the please that made her start up again. She went back to the knot, ignoring the way his moans of appreciation made her tremble.

  “How long have you been doing this?” Jack asked, his voice a little lethargic.

  “About five years now?” Shortly after she’d assumed persona number two.

  “Why aren’t you doing this now instead of waiting tables?”

  Because her license to legally practice massage was in another name and state entirely. In reality, she didn’t see the point in going back through all the certification if she was going to have to run again, change her identity again. Just so that she could survive.

  Instead, she lied. “I like doing it. But doing it all day was tough on my hands. I would get home and have to soak them in ice water.”

  That at least was true. She didn’t know why but she didn’t like lying to Jack. Her whole life was a lie and yet she didn’t want to lie to him. How weird was that?

  “Well, you’re very good.”

  “And you’re very tight. Is your PT pushing you too hard?”

  “No
. I am, though. I want to be back on the job.”

  “It can’t be easy going back after your injury.”

  He shrugged a bit under her fingers. “Actually, being out of work while recovering has been more difficult. Police work is what I know, it’s what I’m good at, and what I tended to do around the clock.”

  “But is that actually healthy?”

  He snorted. “No. But it beats the alternative.”

  “And what is the alternative?” She had migrated to his non-injured arm, her hands flowing in long strokes over his biceps, then down his forearms.

  “Going home to an empty place.”

  “Most people like going home.” That was one of the things about Jackson Hole, it felt like home to her. More than anywhere else she had been in the last decade.

  “I never did.”

  “Why is that?” She traveled to his injured side and began to work on those tight muscles.

  “Home was never good growing up. Typically meant a backhand from my father. Or watching him beat my mother and being too small, too scared, to be able to help her.”

  Her fingers slowed. “But you tried.” She said it as a statement. Because she knew he had.

  He blew out a breath. “Yeah.”

  “And what happened?” she asked, noting the sudden tension in him as he talked about his past.

  “In the end, he killed her.”

  “He what?” Rayna was horrified and heartbroken for him.

  “It’s why I became a cop. I was in high school, my sophomore year. He’d lost another job and tended to go deep into the bottle whenever that happened. Blamed the rest of the world for his problems and took his anger out on my mother. She never fought back. On that particular day, he got mean and beat her to death. When the cops came, he tried to hold them off with his rifle. Old bastard never was a good shot sober, drunk he was even worse.”

  “What happened?” She was afraid to ask but needed to know the outcome.

  “He died in a shootout with the police.”

  Her heart went out to him. To be that young and lose both your parents to violence… it scarred in ways nothing else did. “Jack, I’m sorry. I realize that doesn’t cut it. How old were you?”

  “Sixteen.”

  “I understand. Somewhat. The loss, anyway. My mom died when I was twelve. Cancer, not from anything like what happened to yours. But I get it. The grief from losing them when we were that young never really goes away,” she said. Rayna remembered watching her mother take her final breath. Remembered the dawning horror and unmitigated agony her loss created. She remembered screaming for her and one of her aunts taking her out of the room while she struggled, trying to reach her mom.

  “No. It doesn’t. What about your dad?”

  Her father was the one person she never wanted to talk about. At all. She couldn’t tell Jack the truth. Even though she thought, out of anyone she had met over the last ten years, she could trust him with her secret. She never had told anyone because it could get them killed. But Jack could bear it. Maybe. It made him different from anyone she had met.

  She lied anyway, hating that she did it. She felt like a scum-sucking bottom feeder when he had told her his tragic childhood trauma, yet it was too ingrained in her to keep her true identity, her real past, hidden. “My dad and I don’t speak to each other. Haven’t for more than a decade. We had a major falling out.”

  “And you never tried to patch things up?”

  Kind of difficult to do that. One, because her father hated her. Her betrayal, her helping the Feds end his corrupt regime, had severed their ties completely. And two, he’d died five years ago in prison after being stabbed to death by a fellow inmate. There was no chance for her to even try to reconcile or seek any type of forgiveness. The fact that his last words to her were, ‘You’re no daughter of mine,’ would live with her for the rest of her existence. The pain had dulled some, but it was always present.

  “No. He died a few years ago.”

  “I’m sorry too.” He hissed as she massaged the muscles directly around his injury. Scar tissue could be tough to work with and make pliable and fluid once more.

  “Is that too much pressure?”

  “No. Christ. Remind me never to get shot again.”

  “The muscles are extremely tight. Are you putting anything on it every day to help with muscle stiffness?”

  “Like what?”

  Silly man. “What, do you think you can just rub some dirt in it, and it will make it all better?”

  “Well, yeah. That’s how guys tend to roll,” he said with a hint of laughter in his voice.

  “Uh huh. It’s a wonder any of you survive into adulthood. I have some stuff. It’s a cream that will help ease the muscles and tendons, open the blood vessels up. I want you to put it on after every PT session.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She finished up his backside and had him turn over, holding the sheet up to give him privacy as he maneuvered onto his back. Then she began to work on his chest muscles. If she lingered a bit on his pecs, well, no one knew but Jack and his eyes were closed, his face relaxed.

  Then she glanced down his body and noticed another part of his anatomy was up as well. Very up, and tenting the white sheet.

  “Um, Jack…”

  “Just ignore it. It happens. Especially when I have a beautiful woman putting her hands all over me.” He lifted his eyelids and gave her a rather cheeky grin. But when she looked deeper, she spied lust beneath the calm exterior. Dark, carnal, headboard-breaking lust.

  “Okay, well, I’m going to get that lotion for your arm.” She backed away out of pure self-preservation. The man was temptation personified. It wouldn’t take too much maneuvering on his part and she would be riding him quite happily.

  She turned away. Her pulse thrummed at heightened speeds. Her erogenous zones throbbed in time to her heartbeat. Rayna yearned for Jack but she couldn’t give in to the temptation he presented. It would be best to sever all ties. Maybe she should move. Not out of Jackson, but to another property.

  Her feet carried her swiftly out of the living room but Jack was faster, his reflexes honed from years of chasing suspects. He caught her arm before she could escape and spun her back around. In the short span of time it took her to turn and walk away from him, the sheet that had been protecting them from indecency—mainly her—had slid into a heap on the floor by the massage table. Jack stood before her, his erection bobbing. The man was naked and his upper body slicked up with lotion.

  A cyclone of lust rolled over her and every molecule in her body quivered. She had two hundred pounds of hot, aroused alpha before her.

  “What are you doing?” she sputtered. He pulled her body toward his and for the life of her, her feet refused to listen to her command to stand still. She stepped up to him.

  “I have to see something,” Jack murmured, sliding his arm around her back, bringing her into contact with his firm body. With his other hand, he cupped her nape, tilting her head up toward his until she was looking in his eyes. Her hands went to his chest to push him away. Instead of doing as she commanded, they curled into his firm chest and she sighed. Damn traitors.

  Jack lowered his mouth until it was no more than an inch away. He stared at her—waiting for what, she had no idea. She licked her dry lips. His warm breath trickled over her. It was all the invitation he needed. He closed the gap, his mouth firm and demanding as it captured her lips for a torrid, erotic duel.

  Jack didn’t coerce, he invaded. Plunging his tongue inside her mouth, he ravished her until everything else fell away. The two of them could have been standing on the edge of a volcano about to erupt and she wouldn’t have noticed. He conquered as he kissed her with a single-minded focus that washed away the memory of every man who had come before him. Her hands crept up around his neck to hold on as she returned his dominant kiss.

  This was what she had been missing. This need, the sensation of a firm, male body pressed against her. His kiss was raw, u
ntamed, and held the promise of dark, decadent deeds. That if she allowed him to, he would take her body, her being, to places she had never been before, and she would like it. No, she would revel in it. Sex with him would be titillatingly naughty with a side dish of dirty tossed in for good measure. She felt his kiss throughout every corner of her being.

  She heard someone moaning, then realized it was her. Her throaty moan jolted her out of the miasma of desire and back to reality with all the delicacy of being doused with a bucket of ice water.

  Rayna disconnected her mouth from his, wrenched herself from his arms and took two steps back. Then two more. She back tracked until she felt she was finally at minimum safe distance not to touch him again.

  “Can you put that thing away please?” She gestured toward his cock, that even now looked like it was waving at her, trying to entice her back.

  “Rayna.” His deep gravelly voice made her shiver.

  She shook her head, trying to clear the desire clouding her vision. “I’ll go get the lotion for you to take home. Please get dressed. I have things I need to get done before I go to work tonight.”

  She walked away from him, nearly running up the stairs to her bedroom. She had to, before she did something really stupid, like invite him up to her room for more dark, sensual kisses that made her toes curl and her body weak with longing.

  And that last image of him, staring at her with lust darkening his gaze, his upper torso glistening from the lotion she had used, and his cock jutting proudly from his groin, the tip seeping a drop of pre-cum, would live with her for quite a while.

  When she was calm enough to head back downstairs, Jack was dressed and semi-decent—or he would have been if not for the huge bulge in his basketball shorts. She ushered him out her front door with nary a word. If she opened her mouth, she couldn’t trust what would come out. Her body hummed from being in his arms and kissed brainless.