An Unexpected Proposal

by Amy Andrews

  She was wearing a plain grey T-shirt that moulded her breasts and grey cotton boy-leg knickers. He’s never seen so much of her flesh and Marcus felt the denim of his jeans grow taut as a small fire ignited in his loins.

  Hell, man! Pull yourself together, he admonished himself. She’s unwell, for God’s sake. The usual brilliant green glitter of her eyes had dulled to a lacklustre jade. He doubted that she would answer the door in next to nothing to anyone, especially him, had she been in her right mind.

  Madeline stared at Marcus, trying to figure out what the hell he was doing here on her doorstep, but stopped when it became too painful. Her eyes hurt from the glare and not even his dazzling good looks eased the thumping.

  ‘Thank you for your brutal honesty,’ she snapped. ‘Now go away.’ Madeline swung the door closed but his quick reflexes caught it before it was half way shut. She sighed loudly and turned on her heel. She didn’t care what he did, she was going back to bed.

  Madeline made her way back to her room and collapsed on the bed, dragging the sheet up to cover her body.

  ‘Maddy?’ he called from the bedroom doorway.

  She opened an eyelid and almost groaned out loud. ‘Are you still here?’

  ‘You’re not well.’

  What a brilliant deduction! ‘Yeah, well, you’re not helping.’

  ‘Did you forget our date?’

  Madeline sat up abruptly in bed, wincing as the sudden movement reverberated through her grey matter. ‘Date?’

  ‘You were going to show me the sights?’

  ‘Oh, God.’ She did groan this time. ‘I’m sorry—I forgot.’ The headache had obliterated everything.

  ‘That’s OK. We’ll do the date another time.’

  ‘It’s not a date,’ she said, not bothering to hide her irritation. ‘I was being polite. I wouldn’t date you if you were the only man on earth.’ Pain knifed into her skull again and she lay down quickly as a wave of nausea hit.

  Marcus would have laughed but when Madeline clutched her head and moaned and collapsed backwards, he realised she was in a bad way.

  ‘Headache, Maddy?’ he asked as he moved into the room and sat beside her on her bed.

  ‘Madeline,’ she corrected him through gritted teeth.

  ‘When did it start?’ he enquired. He reached for her arm and felt for her pulse.

  Madeline flinched at the contact, adding a few more beats to her already racing heart. She would have moved away from him had she not been gripping her shirt so tightly to stop from vomiting right here in front of him.

  Marcus noted the vice-like grip turning her knuckles white.

  ‘Yesterday afternoon.’

  ‘Is this a regular occurrence?’

  She shook her head, finding his fingers at her pulse quite soothing. ‘Once every few months.’ She relaxed her grip on her shirt as the nausea subsided.

  ‘What brings them on?’

  ‘Stress,’ she stated bluntly.

  ‘And what’s been stressing you lately?’ he asked innocently. Yeah, right! Like he didn’t know! He was the main reason she had this wretched headache. If she hadn’t spent hours worrying about this stupid outing—A fresh wave of nausea struck. She wriggled her hand away to stop her treacherous body betraying her. It was his fault she felt dreadful.

  ‘You are kidding, right?’ she said, opening one eye and fixing him with a glare.

  Marcus smiled. He had given her the headache? Well, that was a first. He’d been known to cure them before…

  ‘Have you always had them?’

  ‘No, I got my first one about five years ago.’ About? Who was she kidding? Madeline remembered it as if it were yesterday. The afternoon of Abby’s funeral she’d been practically incapacitated.

  ‘Was that a particularly stressful time then?’

  She shut her eyes, not wanting him to know just how awful it had been. ‘You could say that.’

  Marcus watched as Madeline rolled onto her side, facing away from him. End of conversation. He rubbed his jaw absently as his gaze followed the slender curve of her back. In holistic medicine, knowing about stress triggers and what caused them was an important part of his diagnosis and treatment. But he wasn’t going to find out at the moment and, whatever the deep-rooted cause, Madeline’s debilitating symptoms were of more pressing concern.

  Maybe if he cured it, her opinion of him and his job would improve? Maybe he would gain some ground? Why it was so important that he did he didn’t want to analyse at the moment—he just knew she got to him. And he didn’t like to see anyone suffer.

  ‘Have you taken something for it?’

  Madeline’s eyes drifted open as his voice reached out and joined the hammering in her head.

  ‘Several Mersyndol.’

  No wonder she was acting spaced, he thought. No, that wouldn’t do. A massage. That’s what she needed. Nothing like a good massage to relieve stress and tension. Lavender. He needed some lavender and other essential oils to induce relaxation. He’d better get going. He had a lot to prove today.

  ‘Maddy? I’m going to leave you now.’

  ‘Hallelujah!’ she muttered.

  He laughed. ‘Sorry to disappoint you…I’m coming back. I’m just going to get some stuff for your headache.’

  ‘Don’t bother, Marcus, I’m afraid I don’t own a cauldron.’

  Marcus laughed again. Even bedridden by a blinding headache, she could be as sharp as a tack. Would she ever miss an opportunity for a dig? ‘No hocus-pocus, Maddy, I promise.’

  Whatever, Madeline thought as she shut her eyes and drifted away on her Mersyndol cloud. The little white pills did lessen the severity quite a bit but she knew that they mainly worked by altering her perception of the pain, which wasn’t quite the same as curing it. But it would run its twenty-four-hour course and the pills would help make it more bearable.

  Marcus returned forty-five minutes later to find Madeline curled up in a foetal ball on the bed. ‘Madeline,’he said quietly.

  She opened her eyes and squeezed them shut again as she felt the mattress sink under his weight. He was back? She almost screamed, except she knew that would only hurt her head more. Maybe if I lie very still he’ll go away, she thought. Maybe he’ll think I’m asleep.

  ‘Madeline,’ he repeated, switching on the bedside lamp.

  If her head hadn’t felt like it was about to fall off her shoulders, she would have yelled at him to go. But she just wasn’t capable of anything that excessive. She opened an eye and looked at him disparagingly.

  Even in the dim light Marcus once again noted how dull her eyes were. Gone was the brilliant green of a highly polished emerald. Now they reminded him of the dull raw stone just plucked from the earth. He held up a bottle of oil that had just the right blend to restore their usual brilliance. ‘I have the perfect thing for headaches.’

  She eyed him dubiously. ‘If six Mersyndol haven’t helped, I doubt very much that what’s in that bottle can. I’ll pass.’

  ‘Oh, ye of little faith,’ he tutted.

  ‘What is it? Do I have to snort it, swallow it or inject it?’

  He laughed. ‘None of the above. It’s massage oil. I apply it. Roll on your tummy,’ he ordered.

  Even through her drug-induced, disorientated haze, Madeline had enough wits to know that she would be entering dangerous waters if she allowed him to do this. The strange pull she felt around him hadn’t been obliterated by the migraine, just buried a little. And a massage in her bedroom, on her bed….

  She stared at him and tried to fathom how he didn’t seem worried about the intimacy of the situation. Was she the only one that felt the weird energy between them? The…thing…that she’d felt from the moment she’d seen him on the skateboard?

  ‘I don’t think that’s a very good idea,’ she said huskily.

  ‘Come on, Maddy, I mixed a secret potion.’ He grinned. ‘I know you don’t believe in any of this but at least give it a go. It works. Really it does.’

 
So she was the only one that felt it? He looked strictly professional. No indication that they were anything other than practitioner and client. Her head was too sore to try and figure it out. Thump, thump, thump. Her head pulsated with painful regularity. She doubted seriously whether a massage would help but…what if he was right?

  ‘OK,’ Madeline agreed, shifting gingerly onto her stomach.

  ‘I’ll look away while you take your shirt off,’ he said. ‘Use the sheet to cover up.’

  Madeline raised herself on her elbows and looked back over her shoulder at him. ‘I don’t think so,’ she said.

  Marcus sighed in frustration. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. I need full access to your neck and shoulders. I can’t give you a proper therapeutic massage through your shirt. I am one hundred per cent professional whether you think so or not. I don’t come on to women under the guise of my work and I certainly don’t come on to women who are engaged! Ever.’

  Normally Madeline would have been mortified to have insulted anyone—she was just too polite. But the thought of him touching her was sending her hormones into chaotic overdrive. Marcus looked insulted that she had questioned his ethics but, seriously, the thought was as terrifying as it was irresistible.

  He turned his back and she quickly divested herself of her shirt, pulling the sheet up around her, her feet sticking out either side.

  ‘Ready,’ she said.

  Marcus turned back, still miffed that she would doubt his professional boundaries. Ok, this wasn’t a doctor-patient relationship but there was a line you just didn’t cross in these situations. He was perfectly capable of distinguishing between therapeutic and sexual and the two groups of women that each was appropriate for!

  Madeline lay stiffly, her breathing ragged, waiting for the touch of his hands on her neck. She heard him rubbing the oil between his hands and her shoulders tensed, waiting for the glide of his fingers at the nape of her neck. So when he gently stroked her feet she almost leapt off the bed.

  She felt like he had just plugged her into a power point. Energy arced through her, electrifying every cell in her body. Her body hummed with the intensity of a city grid as the life-force pulsed through her. How on earth was this going to help her headache?

  ‘Relax, Maddy, it’s OK,’ he crooned quietly. ‘I thought I’d start with a reflexology massage of your feet. Did you know there are certain pressure points on the soles of the feet that correspond to certain parts of the body?’

  ‘No hocus-pocus, you promised,’ she accused, her voice muffled from being buried in the pillow as she tried not to moan out loud.

  He chuckled. ‘Such a sceptic. OK—no attempts at conversion. Forget the science behind it. How about you just enjoy it because it feels fantastic?’

  Well, she couldn’t argue with him there, she admitted, biting her lip to stop herself audibly groaning as his deft fingers probed and rubbed her feet. He seemed to linger and concentrate on some areas, particularly her big toes, but wherever his fingers roamed they left devastation of cyclonic proportions on her equilibrium. He lavished equal attention on both feet and although Madeline would never have admitted it out loud, she could feel the intensity of the migraine beginning to ebb.

  He stopped after twenty minutes and Madeline stifled a protest. It wouldn’t do at all to have him think she actually wanted him to continue. She dragged her scattered wits together.

  ‘Thank you, that was most kind,’ she said in a small prim voice, masking the inner turmoil he had created. She started to move.

  He chuckled and placed a stilling hand on a shapely calf. ‘The best is yet to come.’

  Madeline shook her head, alarmed that he was going to wreak further havoc on her equilibrium. ‘No, it’s all right. I’m feeling better now,’ she said, turning her head to look over her shoulder at him. ‘I just need to sleep it off now.’

  ‘Shh,’ he whispered, placing two fingers against his lips.

  Madeline’s pupils dilated as she followed the movement and the desire to have him touch her lips with his oily fingers in the same manner and draw his fingers into her mouth and taste the beautifully aromatic oil shocked her. She didn’t understand where such thoughts came from. Up until she had met Marcus, she’d never felt so out of control of her body.

  ‘Lie down, Maddy,’ he ordered gently. Madeline Harrington was quite a conundrum. Why did a beautiful, desirable woman look so perplexed by a man’s touch?

  She obeyed quickly, the pounding in her head being replaced by a deep, slow pounding in her chest. She stiffened momentarily as she felt his hands in her hair but relaxed when she realised he was gathering together the loose tendrils and pushing them off her neck.

  Marcus fought the urge to bury his face in her beautiful locks. He could smell her shampoo as the scent wafted towards him. Frangipani and cinnamon. He was moving into dangerous territory. The look she had just given him had been heavy with desire and if he continued there was no way he could take the moral high ground and pretend the massage was still only therapeutic.

  Madeline felt the oil on the heated flesh of her shoulders and was amazed it wasn’t sizzling. She could hear his breathing as his fingers stroked gently through the liquid. Was she mistaken or was it as uneven as hers? She’d known the man for two days and had allowed him liberties that had taken Simon months to earn.

  Lavender filled the air with its sweet fragrance. There were other fragrances as well that she couldn’t place.

  She cleared the huskiness from her throat. ‘What’s in the oil?’ she asked. She prided herself on sounding almost normal. This was good. This was what she needed. A little conversation to distract her from the traitorous pulse of her body.

  ‘Guess,’ he said, and slowly ran two glistening fingers under her nose and along her top lip.

  Madeline almost moaned out loud and the temptation to suck them inside her mouth was so real she ground her toes into the bed to stop herself.

  She swallowed. ‘Ah…lavender?’ she said. ‘And it smells a bit minty, too. But there’s something else…I don’t know.’

  He chuckled. ‘Very good. Lavender, peppermint and the other fragrance is melissa oil—it has a citrus aroma,’ he said.

  Madeline shut her eyes as Marcus’s fingers probed the muscles of her shoulders and neck. He applied more oil and worked a little deeper and she bit her lip to stop herself from whimpering. ‘And what do you use as a base oil?’ she asked, desperate to convey normality.

  ‘It depends,’ he said massaging her neck. ‘Lately I’ve been using grape-seed oil.’

  She vaguely heard his answer. The effect of his touch was profound and she gave up trying to fight it. The strangest sensations were taking a grip on her body. Madeline felt all her tension ooze out of her pores. The longer he kneaded and caressed, the better her head felt. It wasn’t long before the migraine had all but disappeared.

  Heat unfurled along her nerves, melting her muscles and dissolving her bones. She felt weightless yet heavy at the same time. Her breasts ached and there was another ache, deep down low, and she pressed her thighs together to get some relief from the steady build-up of pressure.

  Simon had never touched her like this. Therapeutically, sexually or otherwise. They’d been engaged for four years and together for ten and she couldn’t remember the last time she’d been this hot under the collar. When had been the last time they’d been carried away on a wave of passion?

  Looking back at their relationship, she had to admit it hadn’t been just the last couple of frantic years when their intimacy had taken a nose-dive. It had never really been based on passion. They’d known each other since kindy and had just kind of fallen into a relationship at university without really realising it.

  Simon lost his mother in the first year of med school and she’d been there for him. Having only just lost her own mother to breast cancer, she’d understood his devastation. So they’d started to hang out together and people had started to assume and it had been convenient for two busy med students
to not have to worry too much about matters of the heart. And then when Abby had died five years later during her final exams, he’d become her rock.

  But as Marcus’s fingers continued to weave their magic down the length of her spine, Madeline had to wonder what the hell she’d been missing out on! Simon’s touch, his kisses had never been like this. They had been nice rather than passionate, polite rather than magical. But that had been OK. What did that stuff really matter when you loved someone?

  Actually, it had suited her. Secretly, deep down she’d always thought that her profound grief had rendered her incapable of grand passion. It had been hard to get in the mood when sex had seemed unimportant compared to the things she had already lost. But now, lying there as Marcus made her body hum and sing and come alive with a deft touch and a bit of oil, she knew she’d been wrong. She was sexual. She was a woman with a woman’s needs. That sex mattered. A lot!

  The thought depressed her. Here she was, nearly naked on her bed with a man she barely knew who was creating complete and utter havoc inside her, and there wasn’t anyone she could turn to. What would Veronica say? Turn over right now and let him massage your front.

  She bit her lip. She couldn’t do it. It just wasn’t her. But as she gave herself up to the kneading and the stroking and the rubbing, a blissful euphoria enveloped her, lulling her into a deep relaxing slumber. And a little piece of the ice around her heart started to thaw. Marcus had started a flame, a tiny spark of heat, and each rub of his fingers fanned it a little higher.

  It took Marcus several minutes to realise that she had fallen asleep. He was way too busy concentrating on coaxing the deep knots of tension out of her neck and shoulders. Too busy pretending she was Mrs Furness—a rather large, sour lady who had made his professional life very unpleasant on the occasions that he had been unlucky enough to see her.

  He figured if he could just keep picturing this awful woman he wouldn’t be tempted to replace his hands with his mouth. He wouldn’t lick and suck at her small earlobes, taunting him through the tumble of her glorious hair. He wouldn’t kiss her neck and turn her over and show her passion that would make her forget all about her fiancé.