impressed if every street walker in South Dallas couldn’t make the same boast.”
Seeing Portia’s claws extend, I took a little step to the side and triggered the doors once more. If she was going to have one of her infamous hissy fits, she was going to have it with an audience. Surprising me, she gave a disdainful shrug.
“Like your opinion matters. You’re fat. No one would even talk to you if you weren’t Brandon Rice’s daughter.” She flipped a wedge of auburn hair over her shoulder, dismissing me with the same gesture and heading for her neon green Dodge Charger.
She was right — mostly. Not everyone in Dallas was as shallow as Portia Philips, just the majority. I couldn’t get through the grocery store without someone staring at my cart in judgment.
Feeling about two inches tall, and twenty feet wide, I stepped inside and ducked behind a column to wait for Portia to clear the parking lot. After that, I would leave. What in Hades had I been thinking letting Melinda pressure me into coming here!
I slumped against the cool marble column. I hadn’t been thinking, that was the problem. Frustrated and desperate, my brain had been on vacation. I would remedy that with a call canceling the appointment once I was safely in my car.
Leaving the comfort of my hiding spot, I headed for the door. A white-haired woman with a clipboard intercepted me. She cupped a hand that looked frail but felt like steel around my elbow and steered me deeper into the building.
“Reception is over here, dear.” She talked as fast as she walked, which was slower than tree sap in February. “Do you have an appointment?”
“No…I mean yes, but I’m…”
Before I could finish, my guide handed me off to a middle-aged woman seated behind a polished wooden counter. “Got a fresh one for you, Cora.”
I pushed my signature blue sunglasses up into my blonde curls. “Yes, I have an appointment with Samantha Pepin that I need to can-.”
The receptionist looked at me like I’d just parked a UFO in the waiting area and had sparkly antennae growing out of my head. “Who?”
“Samantha,” I repeated just as I had rehearsed at least a dozen times in the last two days to appear ignorant of Mr. Pepin’s special services. It didn’t matter if I was intent on canceling the appointment. I still didn’t want anyone suspecting I was here for anything more than a legitimate massage. “Or does she go by Sam?”
“You mean Samuel.” The woman enunciated his name very carefully, her scowl disappearing before she slid into the last syllable. “She is a he, honey. That a problem for you?”
“Oh, dear!” I tried my best to sound distressed, which wasn’t a complete sham. I really was distressed, my stomach twisted in knots. I studied my watch for a long second before replying. “I don’t suppose there’s anyone-”
“Sorry, sugar, all booked up.” She clicked her mouse and then peered at her computer screen. “I have an hour free for next Thursday with Rachel.”
I shook my head, half turning for the door. Through the floor-to-ceiling windows that fronted the building, I saw that Portia hadn’t left yet. She stood next to her car, one manicured nail pressed lightly against the expansive chest of a male. One of the window’s intersecting steel support beams blocked his face, but he was dressed in a business suit and had an athletic build. Knowing Portia, his suit was silk and she’d caught sight of a Rolex on his wrist or some equally expensive brand.
His body language told me he was equally interested in Portia. He stepped closer to her, his torso leaning in. She pressed her whole palm against his chest and coyly turned her head. Watching them, a slow burning need started to heat low in my belly. I looked at the receptionist again, my gaze pleading with her to give me a reason to stay.
She reached along the counter and gave my hand a soft pat. “Sam’s a real professional, honey. Five minutes with him and you’ll forget it’s a man that’s got his hands on you.”
That wasn’t at all what I was hoping for, but I nodded. Reaching into my purse, I pulled out my bankcard. Seeing the hundred dollar bill tucked to the side and so precisely folded, I blushed as I handed her the bit of plastic. I waited, cheeks growing hotter, as she processed the payment and then I followed her through a door and into a closed hallway with two chairs on opposite sides of a small water fountain.
“Have a seat and I’ll tell Sam you’re ready.”
I sat down and immediately started fidgeting once the woman was out of sight. I tucked my legs along one side of the chair before I realized I was subconsciously posing. Straightening them, I looked down and saw the swell of my stomach. I winced, folded my hands over it then decided that only drew attention to its size.
I had just tucked my legs along the side of the chair again when I heard a very deep, masculine voice call my name.
“Miss Rice?”
He was standing behind me and to my left. I looked over my shoulder and froze.
Samuel Pepin made one hell of a first impression. He was tall, at least six-two. Deliciously broad-shouldered. The white polo shirt with the center’s logo on it showed off his thick biceps and deep tan. Beige Dockers hugged his narrow hips and fought to contain what promised to be very muscular thighs — not that I’d ever see them uncovered.
As magnificent as it was, his body finished a close second to his face. It was only two in the afternoon, but his six-o’clock shadow was out in full force, darkening his expression and contouring his cheeks. The thick black eyebrows and heavy lashes made his emerald-colored eyes pop. A firm-set mouth and square jaw ensured the overall effect was ferociously masculine.
Sam repeated my name, his mouth quirking up in a smile that softened his features. I nodded, realized my jaw was about two inches away from touching the floor and pressed my lips together. Standing, I cast my gaze at the door that led to the reception area and a very lonely sense of safety — at least until I got to the parking lot and had to watch some jerk drooling over Little Miss Satan.
A warm, strong hand closed around my elbow. “Oh no, Hollywood. You’re coming with me.”
Coming? Certainly I was close — at least I thought I was. If I knew whether I really was close, I wouldn’t have been there at all. But the juncture of my thighs had never felt so electric. Muscles I’d never felt before were starting to dance and squeeze and something inside me gave a little roll that turned my knees to rubber.
Feeling lightheaded, I closed my eyes. When I opened them, he was staring down at my face, his gaze hooded by his thick lashes.
“Are you feeling okay?” His other hand wrapped around my opposite shoulder to steady me.
Realizing I was about to nod again like the complete dolt I was, I gathered what little composure I had left and lightly brushed his hand from me. “I’m fine, Mr. Pepin. Why did you call me Hollywood?”
The grin came back, my nipples instantly puckering in response. Like the rest of him, his smile was sexy as sin.
“Because of these.” His hands, surprisingly gentle for their size, reached up, parted my blonde curls, and lifted my sunglasses off. “And call me Sam.”
Carefully folding the glasses, he hooked one of their metallic blue arms inside the collar of his polo shirt. His hands took possession of me once more and guided me into the treatment room. Stopping in front of a padded chair, he picked up a remote and started pushing buttons.
The chair straightened and lifted until it looked like a tall, narrow table with over-sized cushions. He folded the arms down, turned to a standing cabinet and pulled out a lightweight terry robe. He offered the robe to me, but didn’t let go when I reached to take it.
“What kind of music relaxes you?”
I shrugged. There was no way I was going to relax with him in the same room with me. His rich, warm voice lapped at my thighs and the way his scent curled around my senses struck a very real fear that I would do something embarrassing if he got any closer.
His smiling gaze turned impish. “When you’re in the tub, the water all warm and bubbly…don’t you have any music playing?”
I blushed, embarrassed that I was incapable of even taking a bath like a normal woman. “Hymns, mostly.”
