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“So, anyway.” Angela broke the awkward silence. “I was thinking we could take the same package idea, but have it available as a holiday special from Thanksgiving through New Year’s Day. We can charge a flat rate and sell certificates people can buy for themselves or as a gift. What do you think?”
“Wow. I love that idea!” Bonnie grinned, eyes alight, and looked at Seth and Jack for their reactions.
“Same here,” Jack said. “Get us new business and reward our existing customers. Win-win.”
“I was talking with Daniel about it last night as a wedding package and whining that we’d missed the summer bridal rush and then it came to me … the holidays!”
“I love the idea, Angela.” Demi smiled at her. She looked so amazingly happy these days. Last spring she’d fallen for a guy who’d come into her bakery for white cupcakes to commemorate his late fiancée’s birthday. Angela had sneaked in a chocolate cupcake to cheer Daniel up, and ended up doing a lot more than that. On her right hand she wore his diamond promise ring. “It’s brilliant.”
“I’ve got the perfect jingle.” Seth got a faraway look in his narrow gray eyes, then cleared his throat and started a jazzy tune. “Spend holiday money on your sweetest honey. The cash you’ve paid will ensure you get lai—”
“Stop!” Angela and Bonnie yelled at the same time, then tried to restrain their giggles.
“What? What did I do?” Seth dropped his innocent look for a grin and squeezed Bonnie’s shoulder. “Okay, maybe it needs work.”
“We should plan this out.” Angela started counting on her fingers. “Make posters, work on a jingle for a radio spot—G-rated, thank you, Seth. I also think it’s time to bite the bullet and come up with a communal website. Right now we each have our own. What do you think?”
There was general assent, lots of joking, lots of constructive brainstorming and thorough planning. Demi was, as always, impressed by the quartet she’d signed on with. They worked hard and had all done well, though she wasn’t sure about Bonnie, who always went oddly quiet when the others discussed their good fortune. She’d also dropped quite a bit of weight in the last six months or so and never seemed terribly busy in her shop. Demi hoped she was just angsting about her romantic life. Maybe she’d fall in love with a nice rich guy. Demi’s sister had done that. Boy had she. And didn’t let anyone forget it for more than twenty seconds.
The meeting broke up; Demi left the four of them still chatting. She was tired, anxious to get to bed, a little flustered at the idea of seeing Colin again the next day. Often she’d dream about whatever she concentrated on at night, powerful dreams that affected her the whole next day. Tonight before she went to bed, she’d imagine him toothless with bugs crawling all over him. That way she might be able to turn him into an object of disgust.
Yeah, and if that worked, she’d try walking on water next.
Half an hour later, she was snuggled in bed, listening to the October rain tap on the window, concentrating on Colin, not the way he was, but the way she wanted to dream about him.
Big brown eyes—make those piggy, puffy red ones. His fabulous male scent—now eau de skunky hangover. His rare smile—brown and broken. His build—flabtastic. Plaid pants, platform shoes. Flowered shirt unbuttoned to his waist.
Gold chains …
She gave a huge yawn and nestled deeper under the covers, smiling faintly.
Long, greasy hair.
Another yawn. Take that, Colin …
Morning already? Couldn’t be. Somehow Demi was in her office suite without getting out of bed. Her waiting room, normally a cool, refreshing blue-green color, had been repainted violet with rainbows and pictures of clowns. She glanced at her watch, not the gold one she’d bought for herself, but pink glowing plastic with a picture of Barbie on it. Noon! Colin was about to show up.
A knock on the door. She tried to say, “Come in,” but couldn’t make a sound. The door opened. Colin! Except he was about four foot five, wearing a clown costume—white with huge red dots and yellow ruffles, floppy black shoes, giant red nose.
This must be her dream. Perfect.
Lie down, she told him without sound. I’ll work on you.
“Sure.” His voice emerged without problem, deep, resonant, very sexy. Oops, she’d forgotten to change that to an appropriately girlie squeak.
You can keep your clown suit on.
“No.” He moved his hands to the back of his suit.
She tried to say yes, but couldn’t make herself understood, and frowned at him instead, frantically gesturing that he should stop.
Wait, was he growing taller? He was, no! Taller than she was, up to his real height, just over six feet.
Bad clown, bad.
The silly suit melted off. Instead of proper clown underwear, he was wearing boxer briefs that molded to a decidedly not flabby body. The violet walls changed to trees, and suddenly Demi and Colin were lying in a meadow on a blanket, picnic basket nearby, holding glasses of champagne.
Uh-oh.
Then the champagne was gone and he was kissing her tenderly, his body warm and solid against the length of hers … which no longer had any clothes on it. And his briefs were gone, too.
Oh, no.
His mouth tasted hers languidly—upper lip, bottom lip, this corner, that. Then he pulled back and gazed at her from under his brows, causing her blood to race, her body to arch toward his.
Oh, yes.
He rolled over her, the width of his shoulders making her feel protected, surrounded. She felt him hard between her legs, opened hers wide to welcome him inside.
Then he was pushing into her, filling, stretching, setting her nerve endings on fire. She clasped him around the back, lifted her knees high and wide to bring him in deeper.
He said her name over and over, increasing the pressure and pace until she was gasping, reaching for her climax, reaching, reaching, feeling it start to grow, to burn through—
“Demi, I love you.”
Say what?
Demi Woke With a jerk, staring with wide eyes up at the ceiling, breath coming fast, body still hot with arousal. Instinctively, her hand went between her legs, and then she stopped herself.
No.
There was no way she could get herself off right now. Because if she did, she’d be imagining Colin making her completely crazy with lust, and when he showed up for real in—she blinked at the clock—six hours, there would be no way she could look him in the eye. And no way she could put her hands on his back and think of anything but the way she’d clasped that same back while he was hot and hard inside her.
Bad, bad clown.
COLIN WOKE WITH a jerk, staring with wide eyes up at his ceiling, breath coming fast.
A dream. Damn it all to hell. He’d been on the last leg of the Ironman World Championship triathlon in Hawaii. He’d already sailed through the two-point-four-mile swim, powered through the one-hundred-twelve-mile bike ride and was approaching the finish line after the twenty-six-mile marathon barely out of breath, legs still strong, in first place by a hundred feet.
What a high. What a feeling. His body ultrafit, lean and strong. All those hours, all those years of training, coming down to this one explosive sprint to victory that would make him world champion. Just him, on top of the field, the dense crowd at the finish line already cheering for him. Stephanie was there, too, long blond hair swept back in a ponytail, blue eyes glowing, beaming with pride. Her man was number one and she was crazy about him.
Then he’d woken up, not on a triumphant path to victory, but in bed, back muscles contorting in agony, pain shooting down his right leg.
From king of fitness to short-term disability after falling off his bike like a six-year-old just learning to ride.
They said he was done. They said his back was too messed up ever to be able to ride long hours bent over his handlebars. They said disc injuries like his could be controlled but not healed.
Bull. Maybe some people could hear “no” and accept it, but Colin wasn’t one of them. “No” just meant he’d have to work harder, train harder. Fine by him. He was no stranger to hard work.
But he shouldn’t have tried to get back to training so soon. Demi had been right, damn it. He’d left her in exasperation last summer, disgusted that an athlete of his caliber should be doing exercises a couch potato could do without effort. Infuriated by her insistence he’d have to cut his recovery expectations to a more “realistic” level. Frustrated that she didn’t understand why his level of fitness couldn’t be compromised, not now, not this year, not when he had so much to accomplish. So he’d left. Tried another therapist, then another, both of whom had babied him even worse than Demi had. Finally he’d decided he could manage his own damn recovery. Who knew his body better than he did?
Pain shot through him, and he tried like hell to breathe through it, not to tense into the spasms, which made them worse.
Yeah, guess what, managing his own recovery had been a bad idea. Everything sounded like a bad idea these days. Including going back to see Demi.
Because there was another reason he’d left her. By the last of—what was it, three, four appointments? maybe five?—he’d spent the entire session desperately trying to keep from having an erection. He had no idea what she did to him, but it was hell. Demi couldn’t hold a candle to his ex-girlfriend Stephanie’s fresh California-girl beauty. Demi was dark; he preferred blondes. And she was withdrawn, where he liked a woman with spirit. She was decently attractive, but not beautiful, with wide eyes and a faint cleft in her chin. She had style and grace to burn, and she exuded peace that both stirred and soothed him.
And her hands …
Not going to think about that. The only thing on his mind in her studio today would be multiplication tables and baseball statistics. Unless the crazy attraction had run its course and he’d react more normally this time. That would be good.
He waited for the attack of pain to subside, then drew one knee up slowly toward his chest to stretch, barely able to get it halfway. His flexibility was crap. He couldn’t work. Couldn’t train.
This sucked.
Yeah, he was being a big poor-me baby, so sue him. He had good reason.
His cell rang. The act of twisting his head to locate his phone on the bedside table caused another spasm, this time in his neck and upper back.
Thirty-four years old and he was falling apart.
Gritting his teeth against the pain, he picked up the phone. Nick. His erstwhile training partner, and the other half of the collision that had pitched Colin off his bike. Nick had skinned his knees. Not that Colin would ever wish this injury on anyone else, but sometimes life was damn unfair.
He took a deep breath, willing his voice to sound normal. “Hey, man.”
“How’s it going?”
“Not bad.” He didn’t dare use long sentences in case he had to break off and groan in agony.
“John and I are going to run some hills. Wondered if you’d like to meet up for lunch after.”
Yeah, he’d love to. Sit there, the sad cripple, while they exulted in how well their training was going.
“Can’t today. Got an appointment.”
“Yeah? You back at work?”
“Nah. Physical therapy.”
“Dude, you’re doing that again?”
“Yup.” He didn’t feel like explaining.
“Okay. So, uh …” He cleared his throat awkwardly. “You heard from Stephanie lately?”
“Nope.” This conversation was not making him feel any better. His girlfriend of four years had gotten sick of his bad attitude and his misery and dumped him on his ass, ironically just as he was seriously considering giving her what she wanted: a proposal.
Stephanie was a marathoner and they’d done a lot of training together. Colin should have noticed how hard it was on her that he was suffering, but he’d been a selfish jerk for quite a few months now. He figured it was only a matter of time before Stephanie came back to him. No doubt in his mind that he could make things right when she cooled off. She loved him. He loved her. They liked the same things, shared friends—at least they had before the breakup. What more did they need? Maybe the relationship had gotten a little stale, but the initial excitement never lasted. He needed to settle down if he wanted kids, which he did, and Stephanie would make a good mom and a solid partner.
One thing at a time. “Have a good lunch, Nick. Maybe I’ll be up for it next time.”
“Sure. Sure.” His tone made it clear he wasn’t holding his breath. “Nice talking to you.”
“Same.” No, it hadn’t been nice for Nick. It wasn’t nice for anyone to talk to Colin lately. His mom had told him he needed to see a shrink. Dad, predictably, told him to suck it up and be a man.
Yeah, well, he’d never been the kind of man Dad wanted him to be, so why start now?
He closed his eyes, smiling grimly. His level of cranky misery was even disgusting him.
After a few more careful stretches he’d loosened his muscles to the point where he could just manage to get out of bed. A stunning victory, one that lifted his spirits at least a little. The visit to Demi, if she could help him, would do more of the same.
For the past decade Colin’s pursuit of physical power and endurance had dominated his life. He’d been something of a missionary about the miracle of fitness, becoming a personal trainer to help others find the same high of good health and solid self-esteem he’d been able to achieve through working his body.
Now what he could reclaim of his old life rested in the talented hands of a woman he’d sworn never to cross paths with again.
2
DEMI GLANCED AT the clock on the wall of her office, embarrassed to be so jittery. Two more minutes until Colin arrived. Stay cool, girlfriend. He was just another client, a man in pain, one of the many she’d treated, one she’d be able to help. For today she’d ignore her whole-client philosophy and concentrate on seeing his body as a collection of muscles, tendons and bones. There would be time for worrying about his brain later—if he stuck with the therapy.
Mysterious, this upset to her system. Demi knew what kind of guy attracted her, and the überjock was definitely not it. Besides, Colin had a serious girlfriend. Sharon or Tiffany or something. A marathoner. Not that he’d look at a woman like Demi twice anyway, especially after she’d pissed him off so badly last time by gently trying to get him to face the truth about his recovery—or lack thereof.
Another glance at the clock. One more minute. Would he be out in her waiting area already? Her studio space, originally a two-bedroom apartment, had been renovated into a waiting room, office, one small room for examination and massage and a larger one for exercising, with a gym mat, treadmill, stationary bike, and the free weights, balls and other tools of her trade.
The minute hand of the clock joined the hour hand at twelve. She gave up her rather lame attempt at updating her previous client’s file and stood. Ready, set, go. Reminding herself of Colin’s anger and poorly hidden contempt at their last meeting, she lifted her chin and opened the door to the waiting room.
Her body went on an immediate adrenaline fizz.
Yeah, he was there. And he was still gorgeous.
At least she’d prepared herself. The first time she’d opened this same door to him back in August, she’d been so flustered by the intensity of his brown eyes and the sheer beautiful size and shape of him, she’d blushed, dropped her gaze and mumbled like a complete geekazoid.
“Colin, hi, come on in.” She smiled and gestured toward her massage room, this time blushless, in control and professional.
He nodded and stood slowly, hitches in the motion indicating muscles lashing out at him.
“Uh-oh.” Demi’s smile faded when she saw what the movement cost him. “You don’t look so good. Bad pain?”
“It’s—” His response was cut short by what must have been a killer spasm. “Not the greatest.”
Translation for a normal human: nearly unbearable. When it came to pain, elite athletes spoke a different language.
“I’ll work on that today—should be able to give you some relief.” She followed him into the small room where she did her massages. Decorwise, she’d worked to achieve a balance between clinical and luxurious. Half examining room, half spa, with softer lighting than one would expect from a medical office, and nice touches like fresh flowers courtesy of Bonnie Blooms, a CD player for music and a light scent she sprayed on the bedding, floral for women, spice for men. “You know the routine. As many clothes off as you’re comfortable with, under the sheet on your stomach. If you need help getting on the table, yell and I’ll come in.”
“Right.”
She smiled and left the room, waiting outside the door, knowing he wouldn’t call even if he was in agony. Honestly. What an ego. Risking serious injury to avoid asking for help? Crazy. But he wasn’t the first and wouldn’t be the last. She’d gotten used to people’s peculiarities. Women who hated being touched, men who liked it way too much …
“Ready,” he called. Sooner than she’d expected.
