The Wedding Party And Holiday Escapes Ultimate Collection. Кейт Хьюит

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СКАЧАТЬ for a couple of hours before declaring herself completely over the hotel-room experience and desperate to take a slow, relaxing walk through the hippodrome next to the Blue Mosque.

      ‘Is this a honeymoon thing?’ he asked suspiciously. Because it sounded like a honeymoon thing and he wanted to avoid those.

      ‘It’s a tourist thing.’

      ‘The doctor said you had to rest.’

      ‘And I have. Now I need to do something.’

      ‘The walking will tire you.’

      ‘How about a Turkish bath, then? Warm water. Relaxation. I hear they even throw in a massage.’

      ‘Water baby.’

      ‘I do recall a fondness for water. And doing a lot of leg rehab in it.’ Lena frowned. ‘You said I got shot in the line of duty. I still don’t remember a thing.’

      ‘Lucky you.’

      ‘Can you describe it to me?’

      ‘No.’

      She looked at him with far too penetrating a gaze and he thought she would push the issue, but then she shrugged and rifled through her suitcase and held up a brightly coloured swimsuit. ‘So...Turkish bath or unwanted interrogation? Which will it be?’

      Which was how they ended up at a Turkish bath house, with him being shepherded through a door to the left labelled men and Lena being pointed to the one on the right that said women.

      ‘Wait for me when you get out,’ he commanded gruffly.

      ‘Don’t I always?’

      Surprisingly, upon reflection, the answer was yes. He gave her a grin. ‘Rest and relaxation,’ he said. ‘Don’t forget.’

      ‘I’m on it.’

      Once through the man door, an attendant showed him to a shower cubicle and change room. ‘You must shower first,’ the attendant said. ‘And then this door will take you into the bathing area.’

      Trig nodded. There’d been pictures of the bath house on the waiting room walls. Rooms full of marble and cascading water. Huge stone slabs where bodies lay prone and masseuses worked their magic. Enough steam to make a belching dragon proud.

      Lena’s post-op physiotherapy programme had involved a lot of water-based stretching and exercises and whether she remembered those exercises or not, a warm bathing pool and massage would be good for her.

      Trig showered and stowed his wallet and clothing in the locker provided. He picked up a tiny square face cloth from a carefully folded pile of them sitting at the door to the bathing area. No swimwear required, apparently. It said so, right there on the instructions plaque hanging on the wall.

      The first thing his eyes were drawn to as he stepped into the room was the high domed and tiled ceiling. The second thing he saw was Lena entering through a door on the other side of the room.

      Why on earth would a bathing house have separate change-room areas when the bathing area was for males and females both?

      Like him, Lena had only one cloth.

      And she didn’t seem to know where to put it.

      Only half a dozen other people swam or lazed beneath the cascading water pouring from spouts in the wall. A few men. A few women. No one seemed to be paying much attention to anyone else.

      Didn’t matter. Lena stood butt naked with one tiny little cloth that she seemed to want to cover the worst of her scarring with. He crossed to her quickly and held out his cloth.

      ‘Here. Use it. Cover yourself up.’

      She seemed to find his glower amusing. ‘Which bits? Because these wash cloths? Really not that big.’

      ‘Get in the pool,’ he ordered. The pool would provide at least some protection against prying eyes. And they were drawing attention. He could feel eyes boring into his back. ‘You’d think they might have mentioned when we came in that this was a mixed bathing pool.’

      Lena was making her way slowly down the steps, holding fast to the hand rail. ‘Relax,’ she said. ‘This is working for me. Are you sure you don’t want your flannel back? Or mine as well, for that matter. Because, frankly, most of the women and some of the men in here are staring at you and salivating.’ Her lashes swept over her eyes and she scanned him from head to toe. ‘And why wouldn’t they? There’s a lot to love.’

      He followed her down into the water fast. He’d never considered himself body shy, but still... ‘Keep the flannels. Use the flannels. Why aren’t you freaking out?’

      ‘Too busy watching you,’ she said with a grin, and then slid into the water and struck out for the far side of the pool. ‘Oh, this is nice.’

      ‘Wouldn’t you be more comfortable if you were, oh, I don’t know...not buck naked?’

      ‘Adrian Sinclair.’ Her voice floated warm and teasing across the water. ‘Are you self-conscious?’

      ‘Apparently.’ The water was deliciously warm, bordering on hot. Lena would like it. ‘I’m also possessive—particularly where you’re concerned. And I’m on my honeymoon and all kinds of frustrated. You might want to keep this in mind should the masseur attempt to wash you down.’ The masseur was washing someone down on the marble block now, and there were suds, lots of suds, and a wet white towel that the masseur was scouring the skin with. He wasn’t being gentle. ‘Maybe you should give that experience a miss, because if he scrubs too hard and antagonises your scars I’ll have to relieve him of his arms.’

      ‘I’m sure he’ll adjust his ministrations accordingly.’

      Trig watched as the masseur fisted half the towel around his hands and proceeded to bring the free end of the towel down hard on the person’s back. He did it again and the towel landed lower this time. Again and again, all the way down to the toes. Every time the towel came down the body strung out on the slab twitched.

      ‘I might give the flagellation a miss,’ said Lena after a moment.

      The masseur had downed the towel and picked up a huge bucket full of water. For someone so small and wiry, the man had some serious body strength. Next minute, he’d thrown the entire contents of the bucket at the person lying on the slab.

      ‘Wasn’t expecting that,’ said Lena as the person sat up, a man, now that you could see past the suds. The front of him got slammed with another full bucket of water and then he stood up and headed towards a nearby waterfall of water and half disappeared under it. ‘You reckon that was cold water?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘Me too.’

      She had such a shameless grin. ‘You going to tell me how I got these scars now? Because I think I’m ready to hear it. It bothers me that I can’t remember if this happened because I did something wrong.’

      ‘You did nothing wrong.’

      ‘I don’t suppose you could СКАЧАТЬ