Forty-five minutes later, he was back, as promised. ‘Maddy?’ he murmured.
She opened her eyes and squeezed them shut again as she felt the mattress sink under his weight. Maybe if she lay very still he’d go away?
‘Madeline,’ he repeated, switching on the bedside lamp.
If her head hadn’t felt like it was about to fall off her shoulders, she would have yelled at him to go. But she just wasn’t capable of anything that excessive. She opened an eye and looked at him disparagingly.
Even in the dim light Marcus once again noted how dull her eyes were. Gone was the brilliant green of a highly polished emerald. Now they reminded him of the dull raw stone just plucked from the earth. He held up a bottle of oil that had just the right blend to restore their usual brilliance. ‘I have the perfect thing for headaches.’
She eyed him dubiously. ‘If six Mersyndol haven’t helped, I doubt very much that what’s in that bottle can. I’ll pass.’
‘Oh, ye of little faith,’ he tutted.
‘What is it? Do I have to snort it, swallow it or inject it?’
He laughed. ‘None of the above. It’s massage oil. I apply it. Roll on your tummy,’ he ordered.
Even through her drug-induced, disorientated haze, Madeline had enough wits to know that she would be entering dangerous waters if she allowed him to do this. The strange pull she felt around him hadn’t been obliterated by the migraine, just buried a little.
And a massage in her bedroom, on her bed...
She stared at him and tried to fathom how he didn’t seem worried about the intimacy of the situation. Was she the only one that felt the weird energy between them? The...thing...that she’d felt from the moment she’d seen him on the skateboard?
‘I don’t think that’s a very good idea,’ she said huskily.
‘Come on, Maddy, I mixed a secret potion.’ He grinned. ‘I know you don’t believe in any of this but at least give it a go. It works. Really it does.’
So she was the only one that felt it?
He looked strictly professional. No indication that they were anything other than practitioner and client. Her head was too sore to try and figure it out. Thump, thump, thump. It pulsated with painful regularity. She doubted seriously whether a massage would help but...what if he was right?
‘OK,’ she agreed, desperate enough to try anything as she shifted gingerly onto her stomach.
‘I’ll look away while you take your shirt off,’ he said. ‘Use the sheet to cover up.’
Madeline raised herself on her elbows and looked back over her shoulder at him. ‘I don’t think so.’
Marcus sighed. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. I need full access to your neck and shoulders. I can’t give you a proper therapeutic massage through your shirt. I am one hundred per cent professional whether you think so or not. I don’t come on to women under the guise of my work and I certainly don’t come on to women who are engaged! Ever.’
Normally Madeline would have been mortified to have insulted anyone — she was just too polite. But the thought of him touching her was sending her hormones into a chaotic scramble. Marcus looked insulted that she had questioned his ethics but, seriously, the thought was as terrifying as it was irresistible.
He turned his back and she quickly divested herself of her shirt, pulling the sheet up around her, her feet sticking out either side.
‘Ready,’ she said.
Marcus turned back, still miffed that she would doubt his professional boundaries. Ok, this wasn’t a doctor-patient relationship, but there was a line you just didn’t cross in these situations.
Madeline lay stiffly, her breathing ragged, waiting for the touch of his fingers on her neck. She heard him rubbing the oil between his hands and her shoulders tensed, waiting for the incoming caress. So when he gently stroked her feet she almost leapt off the bed.
Energy arced through her, electrifying every cell in her body as if she’d just been plugged into a power point. Her body hummed with the intensity of a city grid.
How on earth was this going to help her headache?
‘Relax, Maddy, it’s OK,’ he crooned quietly. ‘I thought I’d start with a reflexology massage of your feet. Did you know there are certain pressure points on the soles of the feet that correspond to certain parts of the body?’
‘No hocus-pocus, you promised,’ she accused, her voice muffled from being buried in the pillow as she tried not to moan out loud.
He chuckled. ‘Such a sceptic. Okay — no attempts at conversion. Forget the science behind it. How about you just enjoy it because it feels fantastic?’
Well, she couldn’t argue with him there and she bit down on her lip to stop herself audibly groaning as his deft fingers probed and rubbed her feet. He seemed to linger and concentrate on some areas, particularly her big toes, but wherever his fingers roamed they left devastation of cyclonic proportions to her equilibrium. He lavished equal attention on both feet and although Madeline would never have admitted it, she could feel the intensity of the migraine beginning to ebb.
He stopped after twenty minutes and Madeline stifled a protest. It wouldn’t do at all to have him think she actually wanted him to continue.
‘Thank you, that was most kind,’ she said in a small prim voice, masking her inner turmoil as she dragged her scattered wits together and tried to withdraw her leg from his grasp.
He chuckled and placed a stilling hand on her calf. ‘The best is yet to come.’
Madeline shook her head, alarmed that he was going to wreak further havoc on her equilibrium. ‘No, it’s all right. I’m feeling better now.’ She turned her head to look over her shoulder at him. ‘I just need to sleep it off
