Never Underestimate a Caffarelli Read online

  ‘You can’t go straight back to what you were lifting before. You could end up with even more damage to your spine. You have to start slowly and gradually build up.’

  His jaw locked down stubbornly. ‘This is ridiculous. I’m going to kill my brother for this.’

  She put one hand on her hip, the other hand holding the weight out to him. ‘You can kill him later. Right now, you do as I say.’

  He opened his hand resignedly and she dropped the weight into it. His fingers closed over it and with a little roll of his eyes he started on the repetitions. ‘How am I doing?’ His tone was unmistakably sarcastic. ‘Can you see my biceps bulging?’

  Lily was trying not to notice anything about his body, especially his biceps. She was having trouble accessing the professional therapist inside her head. In her place was a young woman who had not been this close to a physically gorgeous man for five years. It was hard to think of clinical specifics when a man as well-built as Raoul Caffarelli was sitting within arm’s reach. She could even smell him—a hint of spice, grace note of lemon and lime, and a sexy understory of a man in his prime.

  ‘Not so fast,’ she said, hoping she didn’t sound as breathless as she felt. ‘You need to concentrate on the release as much if not more than the contraction.’

  Those sinful eyes glinted as they tethered hers. ‘I always concentrate on the release.’

  Lily adopted a prim and haughty manner. ‘Right; well, then, let’s get working on your deep abdominal stabilisers. They switch off in the presence of back pain or injury. It takes a lot of work to switch them on again. You can feel them if you press a finger to your abdomen—like this.’ She put two fingers to her own abdomen covered by her tracksuit. ‘You pull them in like you were drawing your belly button back towards your spine.’

  ‘I’m not sure I know how to do that.’

  She let out an uneven breath. She didn’t trust that guileless look for a second. ‘It’s not exactly rocket science. You contract those muscles all the time.’

  ‘Doing what?’

  Lily couldn’t hold his gaze. He knew exactly what activity activated those muscles. He had probably overused them in his marathon bedroom sessions over the years. ‘Let’s try some leg lifts. Have you any movement at all?’

  ‘A bit.’

  ‘Show me.’

  He lifted his right leg an inch off the floor but it trembled as he did it. It was even worse on the left side. He could barely lift it at all. ‘I guess I won’t be running a marathon any time soon.’

  Lily heard the faint hint of despair behind the quip. He was a man used to relying on his body strength. To have it taken away from him, or even reduced marginally, struck at the very heart of what he believed being a man entailed. ‘Let’s concentrate on getting you standing and then walking before we even think about running. Can you circle your ankles at all?’

  He circled his right ankle easily enough but again his left was slow to respond. A look of frustration tightened his features. ‘This is pointless. I can’t do this. I don’t want to do this.’

  ‘You have to be patient,’ Lily said. ‘You can’t expect instant results. This could take months or even years.’

  His dark brows snapped together. ‘Is that how you make your money? Stringing people along for years on end with a vague hope of a cure?’

  ‘I try to be honest with all of my clients.’

  ‘How about you start being honest with me?’ He flashed his diamond-hard gaze at her. ‘What are my chances? You can shoot from the hip. You don’t need to sugar coat it. I can take it like a man.’

  Lily ran her tongue over her sandstone-dry mouth. ‘I think it’s going to be a long and hard struggle to regain your full mobility.’

  ‘Are you saying I’m never going to regain it?’

  No one wanted to hear the bad news. That was part of the agony of rehabilitation. No one ever wanted to accept what fate and circumstances had dished out. Life was incredibly cruel at times. Bad things happened to good people. There was no way of getting around it.

  ‘I think it’s too early to say,’ she said, taking the safe middle ground.

  His eyes burned with acrid bitterness. ‘You would say that, wouldn’t you? It gives you a safety net in case things don’t go according to plan. You get your money either way, don’t you, Miss Archer? You’ve made sure of that.’

  Lily bitterly resented his summation of her character. She was the very last person who would exploit another’s vulnerability. She’d had her vulnerability exploited in the worst way imaginable. The memory of that night was like a cancer inside her head. She tried to radiate it with distractions, she tried to poison it with activity, but still it festered there, waiting for another chance to destroy her.

  ‘I’ve had to put off several other clients in order to come here,’ she said. ‘Some financial compensation for that is not unreasonable.’

  His green-brown eyes measured hers for a pulsing moment. ‘Then we’d best get my brother’s money’s worth, hadn’t we?’

  Lily handed him a heavier weight, taking great care not to encounter his fingers in the exchange. ‘Yes. We’d better.’

  He cooperated for a while but she could see his impatience simmering inside him. She knew it must be humiliating for someone so used to being in control to have so much of it taken away. But patience was exactly what he needed right now. There was no point going at things like a bull at a gate. Slowly but surely was the best way of managing any crisis.

  She was living proof of that.

  ‘I think that’s enough for today,’ she said, after he worked through a couple more exercises.

  He frowned at her. ‘Are you joking?’

  ‘No.’ Lily picked up the weight he’d left on the floor and took it over to the rack, trying not to notice the warmth of where his fingers had been. ‘You’ve been sitting for more than ten minutes. Didn’t your neurosurgeon advise you to limit sitting at this stage?’

  ‘But I’ve done nothing.’ His frown turned into a glare. ‘You’ve done nothing.’

  ‘On the contrary, I’ve been observing you the whole time you were doing the reps. I was noting your posture and the activity of your muscles. You have a lot of tension in your neck and shoulders. Your left side is much worse than your right. It’s probably a knock-on effect of the injury to your lower discs and, of course, your broken arm.’

  ‘So what’s the plan?’

  Lily didn’t care for the gleam that had so quickly switched places with his glare. ‘Um...plan?’

  ‘Are you going to massage me?’

  A swooping sensation passed through her stomach. Stop acting like an idiot. You’ve massaged hundreds of clients.

  Yes, but none of them have been male!

  The conversation went back and forth inside her head until she realised Raoul was looking at her quizzically. ‘Is everything all right?’ he asked.

  ‘Of course...’ She forced herself to meet his gaze. ‘I’d need to hire a massage table. I didn’t bring one with me. It might take a few days to get one. I should’ve thought, but it was all such a rush and I—’

  ‘I have one.’

  Lily gulped. ‘You...you do?’ But of course he would. A man who had everything money could buy would have a massage table. He probably had one for every day of the week. He probably had one in every room of his château. They were probably lined with gold or dripping with diamonds or something.

  ‘It’s in the room next to the sauna and Jacuzzi.’

  ‘But of course,’ she mumbled, not quite under her breath.

  He hooked one brow upwards. ‘You find my wealth something to mock, Miss Archer?’

  Lily felt the scorch of his gaze as it held hers. ‘No... I was just thinking out loud.’

  ‘Then please refrain from doing so in my presence
.’

  Don’t look away. Don’t let him win this. He’s trying to intimidate you. She held his steely gaze as each throbbing second passed. It was a battle of wills and she knew she was seriously, woefully outmatched but she didn’t care. He was looking for a chance to wield some of the power he had lost. It was a game to him. She was a game, a toy to be played with until he got tired of pressing her buttons.

  And he was pressing her buttons. Big time. Buttons that hadn’t been pressed in a very long time—new buttons that had never been pressed before.

  Like the one that was deep in her core. It felt like a shot of electricity went through it every time he looked at her with that dark, satirical gaze. Those glinting, knowing eyes were seeing much more than she wanted them to see.

  She wasn’t that wilful, reckless girl any more.

  She was sensible and stable now.

  She had her head screwed on tightly.

  She had her emotions under control.

  ‘What time would you like your massage?’ Had she really said that? Lily heard the words but they seemed to have come from someone else’s mouth. The new girl would never offer to massage a full-blooded man, certainly not one as dangerously attractive as Raoul Caffarelli. Her stomach nosedived as she waited for him to answer. The silence seemed to thrum with an extra layer of tension.

  Sexual tension.

  Lily smothered an involuntary gasp. Desire was something other girls felt. The new girl didn’t have any place for such primal urges. She was literally dead from the waist down.

  Or she had been until now...

  ‘Shall we say eleven?’ he said. ‘I have some things to see to in my study first.’

  ‘Fine. Perfect. I’ll go and get set up. Don’t rush if you get caught up with work or phone calls or texts or emails or anything. If you need to cancel, then we can always do it later.’ Much, much later. Or what about not at all?

  ‘I’ll see you at eleven, Miss Archer.’ A glitter of devilry entered his gaze. ‘I’ll look forward to a bit of hands-on therapy from you.’

  Lily let out a flustered breath once he had left. Could this farce get any worse?

  CHAPTER FIVE

  LILY’S STOMACH WAS a frenzied hive of nerves by the time Raoul arrived at the door of the massage room. She could barely look him in the eye in case he saw how on edge she was. ‘I’ll leave you to get undress—I mean, ready.’ She tucked a strand of her hair that had come loose back behind her ear and chanced a glance at him. ‘Do you need help getting on the table?’

  His expression was inscrutable. ‘I’ll call you if I need you.’

  ‘Right.’ She darted out of the room to leave him to it, her heart flapping like a sheet in a tornado inside her chest.

  She came back in a few minutes later to find him lying face down on the massage table. She had left a towel for him to drape over his buttocks but due to his mobility issues he hadn’t been able to position it correctly. It was a little skewed, giving her a good view of his tan line and the taut curve of his right buttock.

  He is totally naked underneath that towel!

  ‘Are you comfortable?’ Her voice came out like a squeak as she carefully draped the towel back over him.

  ‘Yes.’

  Lily looked at the scar over his L5S1 and L4S2 discs. It was still red and slightly puckered from where his neurosurgeon had operated to decompress the spinal cord but it would eventually fade to white.

  She cast her eyes over the rest of him. He had an amazing physique—broad-shouldered, lean-hipped and well-muscled without being over the top. She could have stood there drinking in the sight of him for hours. It was so long since she had looked at a man—properly looked. He was like a sculptor’s model, so beautifully put together it was almost painful to look at him knowing he was unable to walk or stand.

  ‘I must be a whole lot worse than I thought,’ he drawled. ‘I can’t feel a thing.’

  Lily felt a reluctant smile pull at her mouth. ‘I haven’t touched you yet.’

  ‘What’s taking you so long?’

  ‘Nothing. I’m just...um...getting to it.’

  She drew in a little breath and pumped some oil from the dispenser into her palms to warm it. She put her hands on his feet to begin with—it was an anchoring touch she had used hundreds of times with clients. But never before had she felt such a high voltage surge of electricity from touching someone. It made her palms and fingers tingle as soon as she came into contact with his skin. She felt him flinch as if he had felt the same shock of contact. Then, taking another steadying breath, she moved her hands to his right leg, moving up his calf, working on loosening the tight, stringy muscles there. He flinched again and she heard him smother a curse. ‘You can feel that?’ she asked.

  ‘Your thumbs feel like corkscrews.’

  ‘Your muscles feel like concrete.’

  He grunted. ‘You should feel it from my side.’

  Lily’s mouth curved again. ‘Stop whining and relax.’

  She continued working on his legs, going up to his thigh and massaging with long, strong movements. She switched to his other leg and did the same. He was hard, hairy, warm and intensely male. His legs were powerfully made, strongly muscled and yet lean, without an ounce of fat on him anywhere.

  She carefully lowered the towel from his buttocks so she could work on his attachment muscles. They were incredibly ropy and tight but after a while she felt them start to give a bit under her touch.

  His body seemed to take a deep breath and then release it. She felt him relax into the table; his breathing gradually becoming slow and even.

  Lily moved up his spine, careful to leave his damaged discs alone, working instead on the muscles and ligaments that supported them. He was tight in the neck and shoulders as she had observed earlier, but again after a while his muscles seemed to let go. His skin was smooth and warm, scented by the oil she was using and his own particular smell. It was a heady combination that stirred her sleeping senses.

  She looked at the thick, black glossy hair on his head as she worked on his shoulders. Her fingers itched to feel it, to comb it, to tidy it. He had a tousled, couldn’t-be-bothered-with-grooming look about him. She could see the traces of a style that was distinctly European—parted in the middle but long enough to sweep back over his forehead if the mood took him, the back long enough to curl beyond his collar.

  Without even knowing she was doing it until she was actually doing it, Lily trailed her fingers lightly through the thickness of his hair. It felt springy, silky, soft and smelt like fresh apples.

  ‘Do I have muscles there?’ His deep voice was muffled from relaxation and from being pressed face down on the table.

  Lily was glad he wasn’t face up for he would have seen her fiery blush. ‘No, but your scalp does.’ She moved her fingers over the crown of his head, stroking and kneading to release the tension she could feel residing there. ‘Do you get tension or cluster headaches?’

  ‘Occasionally.’

  ‘Migraine?’

  ‘Once or twice.’

  ‘What do you do to relax?’ she asked.

  ‘Is that a trick question?’

  She felt that little smile tug at her mouth again. ‘I’m serious. What do you do to unwind?’

  There was a little silence.

  ‘If you’d asked me that a month ago, I would have said sex.’

  Lily removed her hands from his head and wiped them roughly on a towel. She didn’t know what to say so said nothing. It seemed easier than making a fool of herself.

  He turned his head so one eye could fix itself on her. ‘Don’t you find sex relaxing, Miss Archer?’

  What could she say? That it was the most unrelaxing thing she could think of? He would no doubt laugh at her, make her feel silly, gauche and unsophisticated.<
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  But then, if she told him the reason why she felt that way, she would have to confront her shame all over again. Stir up all those ghastly memories, set off a chain of nightmares that took months to go away.

  Instead she snatched on the lifeline he’d inadvertently handed her. ‘Does that mean you can no longer...?’ She left the sentence hanging. It was devastating for anyone to lose sexual function but for a young man in his prime it was surely the most shattering blow of all.

  ‘I have yet to find out.’ He pulled himself up into a sitting position. ‘The doctors seem to think things will be OK in that department.’

  Lily was completely tongue-tied. She felt a fool just standing there staring at him. She could feel her face glowing with heat as the silence stretched and stretched.

  ‘Don’t look so shocked, Miss Archer,’ he said dryly. ‘I’m not asking you to rehabilitate me.’

  ‘I wouldn’t agree to it if you did,’ she threw back quickly.

  A glint of something indefinable entered his gaze as it tussled with hers. The massage room seemed suddenly smaller. The air thinner and tighter. Her breathing faster and more uneven. More audible.

  She couldn’t stop her gaze from drifting to his mouth. It was quite possibly the most sensual-looking mouth she had ever laid eyes on. She hadn’t been kissed in years. She had almost forgotten what it felt like to have a man’s mouth moving on hers.

  Raoul Caffarelli’s mouth looked like it knew how to kiss. A fuller lower lip hinted at the sensual power at his command; the slightly thinner top one spoke of a man who liked his own way and made no apologies for going out and getting it.

  ‘Find what you’re looking for?’ His deep voice jolted her out of her stasis.

  Her eyes met his briefly before falling away. ‘I’ll just leave you to—’

  Before Lily could bolt he caught her loosely by the wrist. The Taser-like shock of his touch sent tingles down her spine. She looked at his darkly tanned fingers overlapping the slender bones of her wrist. If he so much as pushed up her sleeve an inch he would see the crisscross map of her shame.