Page 51 of The Cowgirl's Secret Love
The whole situation with his family flashed to mind, but no way in hell was he was up to that conversation right now.
But Bruce?
He leaned back in his chair and stared out the window as he considered. “One of the biggest things that happened was meeting the man who mentored Zach and I. Bruce Travers. Damn good man, creative and innovative. A bit of a risk-taker, but very down-to-earth and kind.”
She leaned on her elbows. “Mentored you how?”
“He taught us about business. How to invest, what chances were worth taking, when it was better to fold and try something new.” Finn sipped his drink as he considered. “Imagine someone who knows pretty much everything about horses offering you a chance to come work with them for a few years. You don’t even know what you don’t know, but as time passes, you start to understand that it’s more than a list of dos and don’ts. It’s like a poem or a song, with a rhythm and a rhyme, when you’re making a business better or convincing others that what you have in mind is brilliant.”
“Sounds as if he was more than a business teacher.”
Finn nodded. “He was a friend. Helped me deal with a lot. Taught me a lot. Zach too.”
He could talk about Bruce for hours and never finish singing the man’s praises, but that would have to happen another time. As sweet as it was to just sit and share with her, he had reached his limit.
“Karen? Do me a favour?”
“Hmmm?”
Stupid how hard this was. “Can you grab me a painkiller?”
“No problem.” She slipped past him and headed to the back of the house, trailing her fingers over his shoulder as she went.
She was back a minute later, the pill in the palm of her hand and a bottle of baby oil in the other.
“I don’t think that’s a good combination,” Finn drawled.
Laughter trickled from her as he took the pill and washed it down with the rest of his juice. “You need a rubdown, and I don’t have any massage oil. Not unless you want wintergreen foot cream on your chest and arms.”
His brain was too numb to think straight. Did this mean what he thought it meant? Dear God, to have her hands on his body—
He went for casual. “Skip the wintergreen. I’ll take the baby oil.”
She grabbed the towel off her shoulder, motioning him forward in his chair. “Take off your shirt. I’ll put this behind you so when you want to lean back, you’ve got something soft between you and the wood.”
Just the thought of her touching him was creating other kinds of wood.
Slowly adjusting position so he didn’t cut off blood flow to his groin meant he wasn’t undoing the buttons fast enough for her. Either that or she was eager to get him partly naked, because she pushed his hands away. A moment later, competent fingers moved down the placket of his shirt.
He moved obediently as she pushed the flannel off his shoulders, peeling it off his arms. He reached over his head to grab the shirt he had on underneath, pulling it forward and off in one motion.
“Dammit, Finn.” She pulled her chair closer, fingers drifting over the bruises on his torso. Over the long line where a jagged board had scratched through everything and left an angry welt, red edges flaring into mottled green and blue.
It was heaven and hell, her touching him with slow, cautious strokes. She put oil on the palms of her hands, rubbed them together, then placed them on his biceps.
Softly at first then with more pressure as she found the knots, Karen massaged his arms, his shoulders, his neck. Long whisper-light drags of skin-to-skin contact followed by pleasure-pain sensations as she dug her thumbs into his abused muscles.
All of it felt spectacular, even the bits that hurt. And how fucked up was that? He didn’t care that he was groaning nonstop, he just wanted her to keep touching him.
“You’re killing me,” he whispered.
“You’ve had a hard week,” Karen informed him. “It’s okay to let someone take care of you.”
He didn’t want to screw this up, but he wanted to be honest. “I want to take care of you. In every way. Makes me feel as if I’m falling down on the job to need so much help.”
“We went over this before. If you’re still lazing around on your ass three weeks from now, we’ll have a talk. Right now, the bruises are still there, and you’re doped up to the gills. Give yourself a break,” she said sternly.
“Not enough,” he repeated. He needed to stop arguing because obviously Karen and Zach had gone to the same school of stubbornness. “Three weeks from now, if I’m still a broken-down mess, kick my ass out of here.”
