Unforgettable Summer: Wild Crush, Book 1 (5 page)

Ty glanced down at her hands where they rested on the clipboard. What he saw—or
didn’t
see—made him still. “You’re not wearing a ring.”

She froze in the middle of writing something on his sheet, her left hand curling up and disappearing beneath the clipboard. The reaction gave away a lot more than her words, which were flat and, to Ty’s ear, evasive. “I work with oils, so I don’t wear jewelry at work. Why don’t you start by taking off your shirt?”

She continued to stare at the clipboard, not even sliding a glance toward him as he stood and began undoing the buttons on his shirt. “There are towels if you’re cold,” she said, still not looking at him. “Lie face down on the table, and I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

She was gone before he could respond. Before he could prompt her any further on her wedding ring and why she didn’t wear it. He had the distinct feeling she was hiding something from him, and wondered if Summer wasn’t as unavailable as he’d assumed.

Chapter Three

Determined to treat Ty Butler no differently than she would Mr. Freshwater, the sixty-one-year-old vegetarian who occasionally came to her for relief from his arthritis, Summer walked back into the treatment room. Her resolve faltered as she caught sight of the expanse of tanned musculature laid out on her massage table. With the towel covering the lower half of his body, Summer could almost imagine Ty was naked beneath it. Well, she could definitely imagine it.

Mr. Freshwater did
not
inspire her to think naked thoughts.

Ignoring the way her pulse sped up in a most aggravating manner, Summer walked to the cupboard where she stored her supplies and poured some sandalwood oil onto her hands. She warmed it between her palms, feeling it slide between her ringless fingers. She wondered why she hadn’t confessed the real reason she wore no wedding band. Perhaps she hadn’t wanted him to think she was telegraphing her availability by admitting it.

Not that she’d expect him to do anything about it if she did.

The first contact between Ty’s back and her fingers almost made her start in surprise at the sizzle of heat. Summer spread the oil over Ty’s shoulders before moving down his spine. She worked it into the dip at the small of his back, kneading the muscles gently. In her experience the lower back carried a lot of tension and pain that sometimes the client wasn’t even aware of until they came to see her.

Summer used her thumbs on the oblique muscles bracketing his lower spine, moving them in circular motions. Ty moaned. Summer’s thumbs slipped, causing her fingers to dip beneath the waistband of his board shorts. For an instant she felt hot, hard flesh, saw the line where his tanned skin became pale and realized she was closer to touching his butt than she ought to be.

Straightening, Summer quickly returned her attention to his shoulder. On his right arm, there was a full-color tattoo of the Looney Tunes Tasmanian Devil riding a wave. Briefly, Summer ran her palm over it, trying not to notice how rock hard the muscle beneath the cartoon depiction was. “That’s some interesting artwork.”

“Just something I did for fun.”

“You permanently marked your body for fun?” Summer shook her head. “You’re as bad as Jasmine. She has two tattoos.”

“I have three.”

Summer couldn’t help flicking her gaze over his back and what she could see of his legs below the towel. Then she gave herself a mental kick for being curious about where those tattoos were.

“How is Jasmine?” he asked. “Still causing trouble?”

“More than likely.”

“You don’t know?”

Explaining her complicated relationship with Jasmine in the context of small talk was a skill Summer had never managed to master. As usual, she tried her best. “She lives on the Gold Coast these days, but has bumped around a lot. I only see her once or twice a year.”

“That’s too bad.”

“It’s…” …
inevitable
, Summer almost said. She stopped herself because such a word choice was bound to lead to more personal territory. Instead she finished, “It is what it is. How’s this feel?”

Summer worked her thumb a little harder into Ty’s shoulder, increasing the pressure until he groaned. “Hurts. In a good way.”

“Lovely.”

Ty chuckled. “Are you a sadist, Summer?”

Summer laughed as well. “No.”

She might just be a masochist for agreeing to treat Ty, though. Because of the short notice she could have easily fobbed him off. But she hadn’t wanted to confess that the casual offer of help she’d made had been an empty one. Nor had she wanted him to think she was afraid to touch him.

She might have been better off suffering that momentary embarrassment than this. Touching him had an effect on her, one she didn’t want it to have. Merely seeing him again had had her recalling too vividly that night she’d almost given him her virginity—would have if they hadn’t been caught. She didn’t want to think about what kind of impact stroking her hands over him was going to have on her sleep tonight.

Summer continued to work on him in silence, doing her best to tamp down the unwelcome physical responses. But the more Ty moaned his approval of her massaging hands, the more he told her how good she made him feel, the more she imagined making him feel good in other ways—thoroughly unprofessional ways. Ways that would lead her to discover where exactly those two other tattoos of his were located.

Mortified to find her nipples puckering, Summer pulled her hands away from Ty’s body before she would have called her job done.
Arousal during a consult? Real professional, Summer.
“That ought to hold you for a while.”

Bad choice of words. They reminded Summer no one had held her for a long, long time. As for sexual contact with a man, she didn’t want to calculate how long it had been. The small consolation that deprivation most likely had a lot to do with her response to treating Ty didn’t make her feel much better about her body’s traitorous behavior.

When Ty began to rise from his prone position, Summer turned away. “I’ll give you some privacy.”

“Sum, wait.”

Summer froze, tingles moving through her at the shortened version of her name. He used to call her that long ago, when they’d been friends—or at least pretending to be friends while they had secretly desired so much more.

What on earth was going on with her? She hadn’t seen him in a decade. She’d thought the power of those memories had well and truly diminished. Pasting on a blank expression, Summer turned back to face him.

He’d thrown his shirt over his shoulders, but hadn’t yet buttoned it. The seams lay open, exposing a strip of smooth brown skin and defined abdominals. On his left pectoral she saw a glimpse of red ink poking out from the edge of the shirt. That answered the question about where one of his other tattoos was. From the miniscule section of the design visible, Summer couldn’t make out
what
it was. As he walked forward until he stood within touching distance, she was assailed by the thought that it would be so easy to move the fabric aside and find out.

They stood in silence for a moment while Summer’s heart beat a rapid cadence. She forced her eyes to return to his face, but from the heated knowledge in his gaze, she figured she might have already given some of her thoughts away. At length, he said, “Thanks for this. I know I kind of pushed my way in here.”

“Kind of?”

He merely smiled at her sarcasm. “Your disapproval is worth it. My shoulder feels a lot better.”

“It was my pleasure.” Summer flushed.
Again with the poor choice of words.
Once more she turned to leave. “I’ll see you out.”

He shot out a hand to encircle her wrist, and before Summer could even register what he was up to, he had pulled her against the solid wall of his chest. Summer gasped, and Ty swooped, slanting his mouth over hers.

Summer was so stunned that at first she did nothing. Nothing to encourage or stop Ty as he cupped the back of her head with his free hand and worked her mouth open. His tongue swept inside, touching upon hers with a persuasive stroke that made something within Summer light up, like a switch being flipped. She made a sound in the back of her throat and allowed her tongue to dance with Ty’s, tilting her head back to grant him greater access.

He groaned and released her wrist, bringing his other hand up so he was cupping both sides of her face, holding her still while he plundered her mouth. That’s what it was, really. Not a gentle exploration but an invasion. There was nothing sweet or romantic about the kiss, and the thought came to Summer that he was acting like a man trying to prove a point.

And she was responding like a woman deprived. Which was what she was, something Ty would surely figure out from the breathy moans she emitted and the wanton way she opened herself and let him inside.

Somehow finding a modicum of her pride, Summer placed her hands flat against his chest and shoved. He released her immediately. In fact, he jumped back almost as quickly as she did, his chest heaving like hers, his face mirroring her shock.

Before she could catch her breath enough to demand to know what the hell he’d been thinking, Ty spoke, his tone accusatory. “You’re not married.”

Summer stared at him, aghast. “Was that your way of asking my marital status?”

“I already tried to ask. You didn’t seem to want to tell me. But you wouldn’t have kissed me like that if you were married. Not you, not loyal-to-a-fault Summer Campbell.”

“I didn’t kiss you.
You
kissed
me.
”

His faint smile was arrogant. “But you let me.”

Summer wanted to deny it, but her mind cast back to the way she’d so easily succumbed, and she had to quash the words. Even now her blood hummed through her veins like it had been shot through with some kind of stimulant. “I was surprised,” she finally said by way of explanation.

“Yeah, me too.” His eyes raked over her face, that unapologetic smile still playing with his mouth. “You taste the same.”

Summer refused to think about how Ty had tasted, nor about how little her response to him had changed in the years apart. She straightened her spine. “And you’ve changed. You never used to frighten me.”

He blanched, glancing around the treatment room as though suddenly remembering where they were. With sharp jerks, he began doing up the buttons of his shirt. “You think I’d try to hurt you?”

Summer’s throat burned, and she swallowed past the hot ball of unnamed emotion. She hadn’t meant it like that, but was hardly going to admit she was more frightened of her own body than his. “We don’t know each other anymore, Ty.”

He held her gaze, a glimmer of that irrepressible smile returning. “Then have dinner with me so we can get reacquainted.”

Summer’s heart skipped a beat. “I can’t.”

He raised a brow. “Then you are still married? Seeing someone?”

Summer was forced to admit it. “I’m divorced, have been for a while, and I’m not seeing anyone. I just don’t think dinner with you is such a good idea.”

“All the more reason to do it.”

“Spoken like a man who has no awareness of consequences.”

“What possible consequences could there be? Two old friends getting together to share a meal. Sounds fairly harmless.”

Maybe for him. Perhaps Ty saw it exactly that way while she was the only one frightened out of her mind.

There was that word again. Frightened. What on earth was she so scared of?

The bell on the outer door jingled. Probably Penny coming back from lunch. Summer shook off her thoughts and stood straighter. “I think you ought to leave now.”

“Okay.” Ty sighed and reached into his back pocket. “How much do I owe you?”

Summer held up a hand. “Nothing, please. It wasn’t a full session and then…”
Then you kissed me.
Nothing about the past half an hour had seemed like a professional exchange of services, so Summer didn’t feel right taking money for it.

Ty left his wallet where it was. “Then you have to let me buy you dinner.”

Summer moved to the door and slid it open, using the dimmer switch to turn the lights up as she did. “Try not to overdo it with that shoulder again.”

Ty took the hint and headed for the door. He stopped before stepping out of the room to look down at her. Summer held her breath while he lifted a hand and pushed a stray tendril of her hair behind her ear. His voice was husky. “Thanks for your help. I’m sorry I scared you.”

“It’s not you,” Summer said before she thought better of it. “It’s me.”

Ty let out a rueful chuckle and dropped his hand. “I’ve never actually heard that one. First time for everything. I’ll let myself out.”

After he left, the temperature in the room seemed to drop. Summer reached up and stroked the strand of hair Ty had touched. She could still feel the imprint of his lips on hers, the slight scrape of his stubble on her chin. And her heart continued to skip erratically in her chest.

“Oh my God.” Penny stuck her head around the door, her eyes wide. “Was that who I think it was?”

Not trusting herself to speak, Summer nodded.

“Wow. I recognized him from that sunglasses ad, and I almost tripped over my feet. I’ve never seen a billboard come to life before. It’s kind of weird.”

At last finding her voice, Summer drawled, “Tell me about it.”