Midnight Oil. Karen Kendall

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СКАЧАТЬ a landscape architect,” she continued, “and I don’t have any desire to dig ditches…so here I am. I do this and also coach a powder-puff football team on the side.”

      Troy lifted his head. “You’re kidding—my twelve-year-old twin nieces are on a powder-puff team.”

      Her hands stopped. “Twins? Their names aren’t Danni and Laura, are they?”

      “Yes! Blond? Smart mouths?”

      “That’s them! I coach them Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday at the Woodward School. They’re really good, too.”

      “Yeah, don’t I know it. I’m the one who taught them to throw a ball. I used to play strong safety for the Jacksonville Jaguars.”

      Ugh. Football player, worst species of the genus Jock. She should have known. “Of course—that’s where I’ve heard your name,” Peg said politely. “Shirlie, our receptionist, was convinced that you were some celebrity…she’ll be so psyched that she was right.”

      “Celebrity? Nah.” But he looked pleased. “You tell her I’m just a broken-down old ball player.”

      He certainly didn’t look broken-down to Peggy. He didn’t feel broken-down, either, as she polished his body with the salt scrub and a loofah mitt. She was so close to him as she worked that she could smell the faint aftershave on his jaw and the essence of Dial soap on his skin.

      The gel she’d mixed with the salt had a sweet grapefruit scent. Imported from France, they’d just gotten it in last month and it was very popular. She smoothed it into his skin, exfoliating and massaging, and thought about the odd intimacy of her job. Most of the time, if anyone was uncomfortable, it was the client, unused to the touch of a stranger.

      But right now she herself was discomfited, and fighting the urge to…she didn’t know exactly. Rub her face against the smooth skin of his back, or even hike up her lab coat and skirt and sit astride him, feel him between her thighs.

      To distract herself from the renegade thoughts, she forced herself to focus on his nieces, white-blond Danni and dishwater-blond Laura.

      “Laura’s an amazing place kicker and Danni throws one of the tightest spirals I’ve ever seen,” she said, trying not to be fascinated with the corded muscle in Troy’s forearms. The man might have retired from the playing field, but he still worked out.

      “Yeah.” He chuckled. “Danni’s got quite an arm. And she’s fierce, too! Laura’s not as aggressive, but she’s all about precision. I started working with them on my visits when they were about six, I think. So how did you get into football? I know a lot of women who watch it, but not many who play it or coach it.”

      Peggy didn’t know exactly what to say. She had a love-hate relationship with football. How did she explain, without sounding pathetic, that she’d started learning it to get her father’s attention after he left? That she was so good that all the Little League teams had been thrilled to have her—until high school, when suddenly she was suspect.

      “Oh, I don’t know,” she said, working her way down to his lower back muscles and getting perilously close to the sheet covering his glutes. “I was a real tomboy, I guess, and used to play with the neighborhood kids. I worked at it. I was good. I watched it all the time on TV—thought it was a lot more interesting than making Barbie kiss Ken. And my dad was really into football.”

      She didn’t mention that she’d loved to tackle people, that it had helped with all the pent-up anger and frustration she’d felt over her parents’ divorce. At first she’d blamed her mom for not being nice to Dad, for making him want to leave. Then she’d found out why Mom wasn’t nice: Dad had a girlfriend on the side.

      “Yeah? So what’s your favorite team?” Troy asked, his voice trailing into something like a deep purr as she firmly massaged the muscles on either side of his spine.

      “Dolphins. Dan Marino was my hero.”

      “Yeah? Mine, too.” Troy turned his head toward her and smiled. “Watching the guy run with those bad knees was like seeing paint dry, but man, his passing game was incredible.”

      Peggy nodded. “Quick release, amazing accuracy, tight spirals. Good thing he had Mark Clayton and Mark Duper to pass to.”

      “I can see my nieces are in good hands. Speaking of which—” Peggy moved from his back to his thighs, and he edged them apart a bit “—so am I. They teach you how to do this in some special school?”

      “Yes.”

      “Well, I’ll bet you got all As.”

      “Let’s just say I did better at this than at trig and calculus.”

      His legs were covered in a light sprinkling of coarse hair, and his thighs were packed with muscle, as were the calves. She applied more scrub and worked it in over every inch that wasn’t private, right down to his feet and each toe.

      “Okay,” she said finally. “You can turn over now.”

      He rolled onto his back, holding the sheet in place over him.

      She did her very best not to look at that area, even though Shirlie’s questions came tumbling back into her mind. Do you have a camera phone? Can’t you just accidentally step on the sheet? You can text message me from the back….

      Peggy bit her lip to keep from laughing.

      “What’s the dimple for?” Troy asked, just as her humor vanished on seeing his chest and shoulders again.

      She turned away for another handful of the salt scrub. God, the man was gorgeous. And this—she applied the scrub to his skin, trying not to meet his eyes—this was even more intimate.

      “Dimple?” He had flat, coppery nipples, and she avoided them, not wanting the salt to irritate the more sensitive areas of his skin.

      “You get a dimple, only on the left, when you’re trying not to smile. It’s cute.”

      “Um, thanks.” She worked salt scrub into his left bicep and tricep groups, using both hands to span the muscles. She swallowed as she met his eyes, which were gray green like stormy seawater and set off by his tanned skin.

      His lips held a devilish curve as she bent over him and worked her way over his chest, across his rib cage, down his abdomen. He had an old scar there, she noticed, and as her fingers drew near it he murmured, “Appendicitis at fifteen.”

      “Painful,” she said.

      “Mmm.”

      She’d reached the limits of the sheet and couldn’t help looking right smack into the center of it. Not that she was sharing with Shirlie, but she didn’t need to accidentally step on the sheet to tell that there was nothing wrong with his personal equipment. Troy Barrington, she decided, had never been on steroids.

      4

      TROY RELAXED on the massage table, relieved that Peggy hadn’t connected him with the “stalker” in the parking lot.

      She’d been quite the little scrapper then, and he loved her hands on him now. They were small, white and soft, just like СКАЧАТЬ