Harlequin - Jennifer Greene by Hot Touch (read full novel txt) 📕

inspire another jolt of testosterone. Her bare feet were dirty, and she was wearing what he called Saturday clothes, sweats, shorts and a big old voluminous shirt that completely concealed her body.

She held a mug of something steaming in one hand, a book in the other. He vaguely remembered her hair all pinned up and out of the way, but she’d let it loose at some point, because now those long red strands shimmied down her back like a gush of water, catching claret and cinnamon and tea and amber colors in the sunlight. The freckles on her nose were naked.

He wished she were.

He’d never met a more sensual woman. In looks, in touch, in everything. He felt both defensive and suspicious about that weird magic thing when she touched him. He just didn’t get it…how she could possibly induce so much feeling in a guy whodidn’t feel, didn’t talk, had cut himself off from life for months now—and wanted it that way.

But none of that aggravation seemed to dent his fascination for her. Fox conceded that the issue might be a lot simpler than he was making it. Probably any man’d have to be dead not to respond to a two hundred percent handful of a woman like her.

She startled, as if suddenly realizing something was different in the room. When she turned her head and saw he was awake, she immediately plunked down her mug.

“What time is it?” he asked her.

“Almost three.”

Couldn’t be. “You’renot telling me I’ve been here all day.”

“You were sleeping so soundly that I didn’t want to wake you. And there was no need. I was just puttering around here. No clients on a Saturday.”

“I’ll pay you for the time I was here.”

“Yeah, you will,” she agreed. “But if you feel up to it, I’d like to ask you some questions.” She pushed out of the rocking chair, came closer.

“What kind of questions?” he asked suspiciously.

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“A massage shouldn’t be able to dent the kind of serious headaches you’re getting, Fergus. Migraines and cluster headaches and stuff that bad…they’re medical. Physiological.”

“Yeah, so I’ve been told.” She was close enough to see the tent in the sheet, but she seemed to be looking straight in his eyes. He willed the mountain to wilt, but damned if it didn’t seem to be getting harder instead of softer.

“It just doesn’t make sense. That I’ve been able to help you with headaches as bad as you get them. Do you have any idea at all about what brings them on?”

He closed his eyes, opened them again. “The docs said, after ruling out a bunch of medical reasons, that the headaches had to be some kind of stress response.”

“Stress I can work with you on.”

“Work with me,” he echoed.

“I mentioned it earlier. I’ll work up a program, then send it over to you and your family, so you can look at it on your own time, see if you’re willing to give it a shot. The thing is, what we’re doing now is shutting the barn door after the horse is already loose. Trying to beat pain when it’s already sucked you under is like trying to reason with an enemy who’s already won. What you want, ideally, is to get power over the pain ahead of time. Before it’s gotten bad.”

“Okay. Makes sense.” He was unsure why she sounded so tentative and wary. He hadn’t been very nice to her, no. But there was something in her voice, her face, as if she were braced for him to dismiss anything she said.

Again she said carefully, “That’s all I can really do. Teach you some techniques to work with stress and pain. I can also give you some strength- and stamina-building exercises, both to help give you some ammunition against the pain and to help you sleep better.”

“That’s a joke. I don’t sleep.” He also wasn’t usually this chatty, but damn it, the more she looked at him with those big, soft, blue eyes, the more his hormones felt giddy with wonder. Goofy, but there it was.

To slap some reality into his head, he tried to move. She didn’t leap to help him, just watched him struggle to push himself into a sitting position. It took forever, which royally ticked him off. He’d had it with the recovery business in every way. Eventually, keeping the sheet bunched around his waist, he managed to angle his long hairy legs over the side and sit up straight.

“Fox,” she said quietly, “could you give me a bigger picture here? Your life isn’t my business, I realize, but it’d still help if I understood more about what you normally do, what you want to do. Your brothers filled me in a little. They said that you left a full-time job to join the military. That you got a military discharge from the service—so that’s off the table now. That you’re only temporarily living in the bachelor house, close to family, until you’re fully recovered.”

“So far you’re dealing aces.”

“Okay, but what’s the rest of the story? Are you planning on living in Gold River long-term? Planning on going back to work soon, and if so, what kind of work? What kind of physical activities or hobbies do you normally do or want to do?”

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He scraped a hand through his hair. There was a smell on his skin, in his hair, all around him. A softness.

That lemon balm scent thing. It wasn’t exactly girly, but it sure as hell didn’t go with hairy legs and a torso full of jagged scars.

“Before I joined the service, I was a teacher. A history teacher.” At her look of surprise, he said, “Yeah, I get that same look from everyone. My brothers chose businesses that make money hand over fist, and somehow I elected for the do-gooder career. Anyway. I taught middle school. The hellion ages, when the kids are all dripping hormones and getting big mouths and