Matthew’s hands landed on her shoulders and he began a soothing massage. “I’m sorry you’re so tense. I hate to think this campaign put those kinks in your muscles.”
“I’m managing.” She sipped from the fluted crystal, the fine vintage tickling her nose as surely as the bristly hair on Matthew’s chest teased her back.
“You’re more than managing.” He rested his chin on her head while continuing to knead her kinked muscles. “But you don’t care for the spotlight?”
Just what she needed, reminders of Brent Davis’s concerns that she could actually hurt Matthew’s chances of beating that Martin Stewart. She stayed silent, finishing her drink and splaying her fingers through the rose-scented bubbles.
Steam saturated her senses. The mirror may have fogged a while ago, but she still carried in her memory the reflected image of the two of them together in the gray-and-white marble tub.
His firm caress continued its seductive magic. “Not much longer and hopefully things will settle out.”
She couldn’t imagine how. Every scenario that played out in her mind—continuing this charade or walking away—spelled frustration.
Perhaps her best solution would be to avoid the whole subject altogether tonight and focus on the sensations of the here and now. “That feels amazing.”
His thumbs worked their way up her neck. “This Jacuzzi has eased a lot of tense muscles after working out with my brothers.”
“I was talking about your hands, but yeah, the hot tub is awesome, too.”
He circled the pressure points along her jaw. “I’m glad to hear you like my touch.”
“Very much.” Too much. This had been easier when he’d been the unattainable fantasy of a woman convinced he would never look twice at her.
She tapped her left shoulder, the one still slightly raised and blurted, “I had scoliosis as a girl.”
His massaging fingers tensed for a second, an understated indication he had heard her.
“I’m lucky Aunt Libby aggressively addressed the problem with my spine early.” She knew that now, although she’d hated the brace as a child. “For the most part it doesn’t affect the way I live anymore. Although I shy away from higher heels and standing for too long without moving can give me a headache.”
“Well, as I understand it, mega-high heels aren’t good for anybody’s back and standing still for an hour is highly overrated.”
His easy acceptance of the subject released more tension inside her than the massaging tub jets ever could. “No way did I just hear what I thought I heard.”
“What did I say?”
“A man actually dissed high heels for women?” She glanced over her shoulder and crinkled her nose at him. “No freaking way. I thought the whole male species stopped for a woman’s legs extended by spike heels.”
He cocked one eyebrow at her. “How un-PC of you. You make us sound very shallow.”
“You said it. Not me.”
“Ouch. Low blow, but well played. Perhaps you should stand in for me during the debates.” He slipped his arms around her, just below her br**sts. “Certainly everybody has physical traits that they’re attracted to.”
“Like legs?”
His hands slid up to cup her, his thumbs brushing against her n**ples. “Or br**sts.” His head dipped to her ear. “Or the soft feel of your skin.” He nuzzled her neck. “And there’s your amazing hair.”
“You’re quite a smooth talker.”
“I’m only being honest.” His hands stilled again, clasped over her stomach. “Why do you have such trouble accepting compliments?”
He’d been so understanding about the subject thus far, she allowed herself the risk of sharing more about the other hurts, the emotional kind, that the birth defect had brought her over the years. “Left-over issues from the scoliosis I imagine.”
“You’re blessedly healthy.” His eyes blazed with an unmistakable intensity and reminder of how much worse things could have been.
“Yes, and I’m grateful for the amazing doctors who helped me over the years.” She hesitated. “But you didn’t see me before. Achieving this posture wasn’t easy. Some people—my biological parents—didn’t want the financial and time-consuming strain I brought.”
Matthew’s muscles turned to Sheetrock against her back. She looked over her shoulder to find his eyes were equally as hard.
“They didn’t deserve you.” His words were gentle, but his body still rigid.
With indignation. Fury even. She read it all there in his eyes so gemstone sharp they could cut. He was angry for her.
People had been sympathetic, helpful, but she couldn’t recall anyone being flat-out mad for that ill-treated little girl she’d been.
Matthew touched her soul and wiped away years of pain. “Thank you.”
“No need to thank me, I’m just stating a fact.” He held her gaze. “And while I’m on the subject, you’re undoubtedly a tough lady.”
That felt good to hear, as well, especially after Brent’s scathing assessment of her character.
“I had to be. Children can be cruel to a kid who doesn’t look like the rest of them.” Even adults—her biological parents—
could be horribly unaccepting of their daughter’s twisted gait.
Matthew was right. They hadn’t deserved her. How mind-blowing that she’d never before considered that they simply weren’t cut out for parenthood.
Muscles she hadn’t even realized were still tensed eased at the new level of understanding. She’d talked about this with Aunt Libby and her sisters often over the years. Interesting—and a bit scary—that it had taken just one conversation with this man to help her see things with a different perspective.
Matthew skimmed a knuckle down her spine. “You wore a brace all the time?”
“Until college, then I only had to wear it at night.” She cast another quick glance over her shoulder. “That’s why I’m so addicted to silky fabrics now. They feel all the more fabulous on my skin.”
“You’re obviously a sensualist.” His hands glided back around her with a touch as light as any fabric.
“I’m an accountant.”
“So? People who like numbers can’t like sensations and even adventurous sex?”
“When you put it that way…” And touched her that way.
“You’re perfect the way you are.” His thumbs grazed the undersides of her br**sts while he dipped his head to tease along her collarbone. “All of that in the past made you into the sexy, smart woman you are today.”
His arousal throbbed an agreement against the base of her spine. She slid her hands under the churning water to caress his powerful legs, wriggling in his lap, her pulse already pounding in her ears as loudly as the blasts of water through the Jacuzzi jets.
He cupped her waist and lifted her slightly, urging her to turn around until she knelt, her damp legs on either side of his.
She leaned forward until the core of her pressed to the hard and ready length of him. Her br**sts teased his chest as she leaned forward to capture a kiss.
Tonight wasn’t over yet and she was determined to make the most of it.
She arched up until the heat of him nestled against her, then she slid down, slowly taking him inside her, tantalizingly so, torturously so. “FTW, Matthew. For the win.”
Nine
“F TW, brother.”
His brother’s ill-chosen words echoing in his ears, Matthew choked midway through his golf swing and shanked the ball into a water hazard near the clubhouse. Wading birds swooped upward and out of the way.
Matthew scowled over his shoulder at his middle brother who knew the no-speaking rule. “Thanks, Sebastian.”
He’d been looking forward to this afternoon of golf with his brothers, even if the event also happened to be a benefit tournament. However, if he kept playing like this, the foursome on the fairway behind them would have to stop for lunch before they could move ahead.
“No problem, bro. Always happy to cheer you on.” Their lawyer sibling did have impeccable timing. “Nice slice, by the way.”
The other two Landis brothers stood by the golf cart applauding with grins as smug as the one on the gator’s face as the reptile slid through the salt marsh. Nope, not gonna wade in after that ball. He would take the drop for a penalty stroke.
Matthew pointed his titanium driver at the youngest, Jonah, first and then at Kyle, the next to oldest. “Your turns are coming up soon enough, and I feel a coughing fit coming on.”
They’d all grown up competing with each other and nothing had changed now. He couldn’t fault them for it, and of course Sebastian had no way of knowing just what a kick in the gut his FTW would apply. He and Ashley had both won in a major way throughout the night.
Matthew reached into the tiny trash can on the side of his cart and scooped out a handful of the grass seed mixed with sand.
He leaned down to pack it into the divot he’d chunked out of the course when his swing had gone awry.
Thoughts of Ashley tended to send his brain off-kilter in much the same manner. He leaned on his club, images of her facing him in the hot tub threatening what little concentration he had left. They hadn’t gotten much sleep, but he wouldn’t change a minute of their night together.
He glanced at his watch, wondering how much longer until she would finish her meeting with her sisters to review insurance paperwork. Claire and Starr had driven down from Charleston to spend the day with her, which left him free to attend this benefit golf tournament and hang with his brothers. They were just finishing up the ninth hole, so he would be home before supper.
Sebastian clapped him on the back with a solid thud, the two of them the closest in height and build. “Are we going to play or are you going to laze around for the rest of the afternoon staring at your watch?”
The sun beat down unrelentingly on his head. Matthew shrugged his shoulders under his golf shirt, flexed his hand inside the leather glove, but still tension kinked through him. “Just gauging the course.”
Jonah chuckled low, his attention only half with them as he watched some college-aged girl in a designer sun visor driving the course’s drink cart around. “Yeah, right. We saw you say goodbye to your fiancée earlier,” he said, no doubt referring to the kiss still scorching Matthew’s veins. “What’s up with her, dude? Why didn’t you bring her by before? You wouldn’t let us get away with that.”
He hated lying to his family, but…Now he had this notion of letting things keep going as they were with Ashley. See where it led.
Keep enjoying what they did have.
Sebastian elbowed Jonah and pointed to the cluster of reporters gathering around the oceanside clubhouse in the distance.
“Shut your trap. There’s media everywhere.”
Jonah pulled his gaze off the bleached blond coed in the drink cart with obvious reluctance and checked out the press gathering. “Yeah, right.” He shoved a hand through his unruly curls in need of a hair cut. “Gotta keep up the good family name.”