My life had just become much more complicated.
7
Fern
“Someone is on the phone with one of those free-massage coupons. Can they get in today?” Jammie held the phone to her chest and blew a huge bubble with her chewing gum before letting it pop and sucking it back in. The hot-pink gum matched her hot-pink hair perfectly.
I nodded, eager to book more clients. Anything to get my mind off the handsome doctor we’d seen the day before. My thoughts hadn’t strayed far from the man, not even when Kinsley shocked the hell out of me by shifting in the kitchen. As if that wasn’t bad enough, she nipped my finger when I tried to pet her. “I’m free right now, actually, if they can get here in the next half hour.”
“How ‘bout right now?” She paused, listened, and then laughed. “Girlfriend, yes. You get over here, too. I know you’d look great with some color on you.”
I did a once-over of my already spotless massage room before dimming the lights and lighting an unscented candle. I tried to make the room as relaxing as possible for my clients. I’d just turned on the sound machine that blocked ambient noise from the salon when Jammie finished up her call.
“He’ll be here in five minutes. He just works down the street.” She winked. “He’s a looker, too.”
I came back out into the salon and leaned against Laila’s station. The youngest stylist, October, was out sick, and Parker was seated in October’s chair holding baby Stella close to her chest. “Thanks for sending me to Dr. Daniels. I think he’s going to help tremendously with Kinsley.”
“Oh, isn’t he drop-dead gorgeous?” Parker fanned herself with a People magazine. “I mean, not as hot as my Maxim, but still.”
I laughed awkwardly and tucked my hair behind my ears. “Sure.”
Laila raised her eyebrows without looking away from her client’s bangs. “Sure?”
“You’re talking about Dr. Daniels the pediatrician?” The woman in her chair, whom I didn’t recognize, snorted. “I’ve been taking my son, Henry, to him since he first opened the doors of his clinic. Henry thinks he’s too old for a pediatrician now, but I’m not giving up my chances to ogle Harrison Daniels.”
“Henry is twenty-three, Mary.”
Parker burst into a fit of giggles that had Stella whimpering and wagging her chubby little arms. “Oh, baby, I’m sorry. Come on, don’t cry.”
Laila dropped her scissors and immediately took Stella into her arms. “There’s my little godbaby. Are you fussy today? Come to Auntie Laila. Come on, sweetie pie.”
A funny feeling came over me just as the door opened. I stared at my feet trying to figure out why my stomach had just done a flip and why my arms were suddenly covered in goose bumps. When I looked up, I found Dr. Daniels standing in front of me, staring intently. I froze, pinned in place by the look on his face. I was trying to wrap my mind around the intensity in his gaze when the large man licked his lips and stepped toward me.
Parker clapped her hands in front of my face, startling me out of my daze, and I jumped. Then she addressed Dr. Daniels. “You came!”
He glanced briefly at her and then resumed staring at me. He acted like he didn’t want to look away at all. “I couldn’t resist a massage.”
“Dr. Daniels is going to be my newest addition to the Cybermates site. Did you bring the paperwork with you?”
“No.”
Everyone in the shop seemed to have stopped what they were doing to watch the man with curiosity. We occasionally got older male clients at the salon, mostly those who were trying to hook up with Jammie, Kitty, or Margie, but it was rare to get younger ones. It was almost unheard of to get young, hot, and single ones.
“That’s okay. I’ve made sure applications were available at several of the local business establishments here on Sunkissed Key. Laila, do you have a spare Cybermates application?”
I was too transfixed by Dr. Daniels to decipher what Parker was saying. My brain was trying to grasp why he was here.
“Um, sure. I have one right here.” Laila moved to grab something from a shelf at her station, but Dr. Daniels cleared his throat and stopped her.
“No.” The word was a rough growl. He cleared his throat and tried again. “I mean, I’m not filling out the form. I don’t need to.”
Parker grunted. “Why not? You have to, Harrison. You accepted the free-massage coupon. Those were the terms.”
I caught the final words and panic hit me hard. Massage? He was the client coming in to redeem the free-massage coupon? I couldn’t give him a massage! I wouldn’t dare touch him. I couldn’t trust myself.
“I have no need of your services, Parker.” He looked back at me and smiled. “Polly said you were ready for me?”
Parker opened her mouth to argue, but Laila elbowed her. “He doesn’t need your services, duh. Look at him.”
Parker clamped her lips shut and looked from Dr. Daniels to me and back to Dr. Daniels. “Wait…”
“That’s right.” Dr. Daniels nodded, and I was still lost.
I tore my gaze from the doctor and watched Laila and Parker elbow each other a few more times before giggling hysterically. I didn’t have a clue what was happening, but I knew I couldn’t massage Dr. Harrison Daniels. I couldn’t do it. My brain was acting as badly as my dramatic teenage daughter. It was threatening to shut itself down if I had to massage the man.
My body didn’t get the memo my brain was putting out, though. I felt myself moving toward my room in the back and motioning for him to follow. The entire salon was dead silent, and all of them were watching. I wanted to scream at them to turn the hell around, go about their business, act normal, but I was the farthest thing from normal myself at that moment.
Dr. Daniels crossed the salon, and in two long strides, he was next to me. The radiant heat from his large body enveloped me, making my brain fuzzier. He looked down and smiled again. “When Polly insisted I redeem the coupon, I didn’t know you’d be the masseuse. This is a pleasant surprise. Very pleasant.”
Parker scrunched her face up in an exaggerated wink. “I’m just going to turn the radio up. For the next hour, or so. You kids get as loud as you want.” She gave Dr. Daniels two thumbs-up.
Horrified, I felt my face turn beet red. I was going to murder that woman. How should I explain her to Dr. Daniels? I mean, should I apologize for my perverted friend, who openly implied that he and I were about to do the naughty-naughty in the back while business went on as usual in the front? It was then that I realized that I hadn’t said a word to him yet. The entire time he’d been in the salon, I hadn’t uttered one word. Oh god, I was being so fucking weird!
8
Fern
“The weather is lovely today, isn’t it?” Turning my back to Dr. Daniels, I closed my eyes and let a silent scream of mortification echo through my brain. The weather is lovely? What was I even saying? Why was I talking about the weather? I was such a complete freak!
He replied by grunting softly, effectively killing that line of conversation. He stood waiting. Even with my back turned to him, I could feel him.
I put on a blank expression and gathered every ounce of my self-control in an attempt to at least appear to be professional. I sidestepped him and pushed the door closed. “You can undress behind the screen. For the massage! Just for massage. I mean, you can undress for any reason you want. I’m not the boss of you.”
I should probably just tie a cinderblock around my ankles and take a long walk off a short pier. Why couldn’t I stop acting so strangely? Someone, please, put me out of my misery.
Dr. Daniels stepped behind the curtain, thankfully, giving me a break from having to further embarrass myself. The sounds of his clothing being draped over the chair behind the screen were like fireworks going off in the small room. I thought I heard him removing his shoes and socks, then a shirt, pants… He stopped.
“Um, you can leave your underwear on. And there are towels to wrap around yourself on the shelf to your left.”
&nb
sp; “Not wearing underwear.”
I gulped audibly, nodded, nodded again, and kept nodding, until I realized that I needed to speak again. The man made basic functioning hard. “Commando. That’s…that’s…yeah…fine. Just wrap the towel around your waist and lie face down on the table out here.”
“Are you alright?”
Now there was a question. Was I alright? No, probably not. “Yeah, sure. I’m fine. I’m just fine. I’ve just never massaged…uh…one of Kinsley’s doctors before. It’s a little weird. A bit of a mental hurdle, is all. But I’m perfectly fine.”
I heard him groan as he settled on the massage table.
“Are you okay? Is there anything hurting?” Turning to face him, I noticed him discreetly adjusting himself before settling back on the table face down with his arms on the armrests.
He chuckled darkly. “I’m okay. It’s an unusual situation for me, too. I’m looking forward to it, though.”
My laugh was high pitched and stilted—one of the oddest sounds I’ve ever made. I really needed to get myself together and rise above the tension, but it was easier said than done. I looked down at Dr. Harrison Daniels and all the bare skin showing. Bear skin. I awkwardly snorted and slapped my hand over my mouth. “Um, sorry. I seem to have a case of the giggles. This is where I get professional, though. I promise I’m usually a complete professional. And mature, too.”
Dr. Daniels was so tall that the edge of the massage table hit him at midcalf. His broad shoulders tapered down to a trim waist and hips. The muscles in his back rippled when he moved, and his shoulders and arms flexed as I stepped around him. Every inch of his skin that I could see was deeply tanned, like he spent a lot of time in the sun. Naked. Freckles dotted his shoulders and upper back. A lone freckle was lower, in the center of one of the dimples of his lower back.
With a start, I realized I wanted to lick that lower freckle. All of them, really. I wanted to lick all of Dr. Daniels. My body buzzed with awareness, and I fought to get it under control.
“I’ve heard good things about you.” Adjusting his position again, he let out a low growl and gripped my armrests more tightly.
I worried that I wasn’t moving this along fast enough for him. He was a doctor. He was busy. He had maneuvered his schedule around to steal away for a well-deserved massage, obviously. I should stop wasting his time just staring at him.
“Are there any particular areas you’d like me to focus on?”
“Not particularly. Just do your thing.” His voice was an even deeper growl.
Not wanting to keep him waiting any longer, I rubbed warmed oil into my hands and stood at the front of the table, my hips near his head. Leaning over, I placed my hands on his back and instantly felt a jolt of pleasure zing through me and shoot straight down my body to my toes. His warm skin and firm muscles were pliable under my hands, and I felt something that I could best describe as the buildup of an electric charge. Touching him felt a little like sticking my tongue to the tip of a battery. I’d done that when I was a kid at the urging of a neighborhood bully, but I’d found that I liked the sensation it gave me. I sure as hell liked the sensation I was getting from touching Dr. Daniels. The zingy-zapping was making my girly parts tingle.
He made a growly noise and that feeling heightened, but I fought it. I was a professional. I shook my head to clear the fog and clenched and unclenched my fingers before trying again. Palms flat on his back, I worked my fingers into his muscles. I leaned farther on him as I trailed lower, so tempted by that lone freckle. It wasn’t until my pubic bone brushed against his thick hair that I realized how far into Lalaland I was.
Dr. Daniels let out a sound that could be described as a growl mixed with a groan, and his big hand whipped out to grip the back of my thigh. “Fern…”
I sucked in a deep breath and straightened. “I’m sorry. Sorry, I didn’t mean for my…to make contact with your… Sorry. So sorry.”
I stepped to the side of the table and carefully kept my body as far from his as I could while I worked his lower back. Lower, lower, the edge of the towel taunted me, begging me to slip my fingertips under it. I cleared my throat and forced my hands to stay in a neutral zone. I didn’t know what the hell was wrong with me. Why was I acting like a complete perv?
I managed to keep myself together for a few more minutes, until I decided that massaging the backs of his thighs would be an awesome idea. It wasn’t an area that I necessarily avoided on clients. The thighs held a lot of tension, but why I’d skipped straight there on this man, I had no clue. Yes, I did. Control. I had no self-control.
But, oh, he had thick, strong thighs, dusted with hair that tickled my wrists as I kneaded his hamstrings. It was insane. I was more turned on than I could ever remember being. My body was pulsing in time with the way I worked my hands over him. I was touching him again, leaning over him, my pelvis was practically riding his leg. I was crossing a line I’d never crossed.
“Jesus, woman.” Dr. Daniel’s rough voice startled me.
When he raised his upper body and captured my eyes with a heavy-lidded gaze, I snapped back to reality. Filled with horror, I backed away lifting my offending hands in the air. “I am so sorry. So very sorry. Please just get dressed. I’d understand if you filed a complaint. I’m not… I don’t know what… I’ll go. Oh god.”
I had all but molested the man. I was so ashamed that I couldn’t handle the idea of facing him a moment longer. I flew out of the room, slammed the door shut behind me, and came face to face with a room full of women who’d obviously been doing their best to overhear what was happening in my back room. I let out a horrified little squeak.
“I need the rest of the day off. It’s an emergency.” With that, I raced out onto Main Street so mortified that I seriously considered picking up Kinsley and leaving the state.
If my gas tank wasn’t nearly on E and my bank account balance wasn’t $2.62, I probably would have. Instead, I ran down Main and rounded the corner onto Magnolia vowing that the first thing I was going to do when I reached my cottage was Google pediatricians in the area and find Kinsley a new doctor.
9
Harrison
Two days later, I was still trying to decide what approach to take with my mate. I’d stopped back at Jammie’s Salon a few times between patients on both days trying to catch her, but she seemed to have some kind of radar tuned into me. Every time I showed up, she was either gone or busy with a client. I got a painful erection every time I thought about her, which was almost every moment of every day. I was ready to find her and make her mine. I’d waited long enough. I knew that she wanted me as much as I wanted her. The way the heat level of her massage amped up had proven that.
Fuck, I could still smell the delicious aroma of her arousal and I was dying to taste her on my tongue. Just the thought made me salivate. I was still beating myself up for not being quicker when I’d had the chance in the little massage room. Why hadn’t I grabbed her, bent her over the little massage table, and proven to her that I was the man to make sure her needs were met? I would ease any ache, scratch any itch, and fulfill any desire she had. Always. I was ticked at myself that I botched my chance. When I had tried to reach for her in the massage room, she’d run out faster than a bolt of lightning streaking through the night sky.
I considered taking the day off and using it to stake out the salon, hang out until she had no choice but to see me. Unfortunately, there was a stomach virus going around the local elementary school and the clinic was swamped.
Fern. My beautiful human mate with the magic hands and a vintage name that fit her perfectly. To the Victorians, ferns had been a symbol of humility and sincerity.
“Are you seeing scheduled patients today, or are you planning to spend all day staring at the wall, lost in a daydream?” Polly stood in the doorway to my office with her hands on her hips.
I sighed. The problem was I couldn’t focus. My mind wouldn’t stop straying to Fern, and the longer I went without seeing her, the m
ore I felt the need to find her. What if she was still stressing about the massage? I needed to reassure her, and she needed to know that we were mates. I had to make it clear that her massage was neither too provocative nor unwelcome—quite the opposite. Although, if that was how she massaged her other clients, we seriously needed to talk. That got me thinking about her placing her magic hands on other men and I let loose an angry growl before jumping up and rounding my desk.
“Hello? Earth to Dr. Grump?” Polly snapped her fingers. “Is your spaceship set to touch down on solid ground in this solar system any time soon?”
I grunted and sank into one of the chairs that faced my desk. “Why are these chairs here? I never have people in my office. What purpose do they serve? They’re completely useless.”
“Okay, I’m gonna get real with you here. You’re acting like you’re a few fries short of a Happy Meal. What gives?”
I let my head drop back and stared at the ceiling. “I met my mate.”
“Yeah. And?”
Jerking upright, I wrinkled my brow. “You knew?”
“Of course, I knew. The whole island knows. After the two of you got all hot and bothered over at Jammie’s, island gossip ran rampant. We’re all placing bets on when y’all are gonna bump uglies. What are you waiting on?”
“Bump uglies?” I groaned at her crude expression. “And let’s get one thing clear, we did not get hot and bothered. Who’s been saying that?” I hated the thought of rumors about Fern behaving unprofessionally in any way being spread through Sunkissed Key’s gossip party line.
Charmed Mate (Cybermates Series Book 2) Page 4