Ever After by Jude Deveraux Read Free Book Online Page A

to do. “This will be all right,” she said in a cheerful voice. “Want to lie back?”
    He was leaning on his hands, his arms rigid behind him. “This works for me.” That tone was still there.
    Smiling, she began to unfasten the Velcro bindings of the big brace. “Whatever you do, don’t move. I want to see how your leg is healing and I’m going to do some gentle massage. Okay?”
    He didn’t answer, and his face seemed to be settling into a deeper frown.
    His knee was very swollen, but worse, every one of the big muscles of his leg seemed to be tied into a knot. Hallie had long ago learned that a person’s body often told a different story from what could be seen on the outside. It looked like Jamie’s easygoing manner was hiding a great deal of stress.
    “Will I pass?” His voice had an edge to it, as though he were challenging her.
    She kept smiling. “I can’t answer that until I get my hands on you.” She picked up the bottle of oil. The thickness of his leg muscles meant they would take some work.
    “You’ve seen my leg, so that’s it,” he said. “I’ll do some leg extensions and we’ll be done.” He started to get off the table.
    She put her hand on his chest. “You move that leg with the brace off and I really will call…” She narrowed her eyes. “I will call your mother.”
    Jamie blinked a few times, then the frown left and he genuinely smiled. “And she’ll tell Dad. You do know how to terrify a man. All right. One leg and that’s it.”
    “You are kindness personified.”
    Hallie coated her hands in the oil, then set to work. She’d worked on a few bodybuilders and it took a lot to dig into their muscles, but Jamie was the worst she’d ever encountered. There was so much tension in his body that his muscles were the consistency of hard rubber tires. As her fingers dug deep, she thought she might be hurting him, but she could feel him beginning to relax, and finally, he lay back on the table.
    At his knee she moved the skin around gently, trying to get the blood and fluids to start to flow again. She attacked his thigh and calf, digging as deeply as she could manage.
    It took over an hour on his leg before she felt that she’d done as much as she could. As she refastened the brace, she wished she could get at the rest of his body, but since he had left most of his clothes on, it was covered. He didn’t move, just lay quietly on his back on the table, his eyes closed.
    Tentatively, she went to his left foot. It was bare so maybe he’d allow her to work on it. When he didn’t protest at her hands, she massaged pressure points in his feet, flexing his ankle back and forth. She thought he had fallen asleep, but when she slipped her hands under his sweatpants at the ankle, he immediately tensed and she withdrew.
    She massaged his hands. He had beautiful fingers, long and strongly made. From there she began on his head. The amount of tension he was holding in his neck was horrible to feel. There were lumps of lactic acid at the base of his trapezius muscles. She went over his head, feeling his short, dark hair. Her hands roamed over his face, massaging, caressing. Cheekbones, his nose, his lips. Her fingertips touched them all.
    She kept remembering the kiss of early this morning. Butfrom the way he’d greeted her, he didn’t seem to remember any of it.
    He had an extraordinarily beautiful body! As her hands slid over his skin, she remembered being held in his arms, kissing him.
    Maybe she was losing herself more than she realized in the pleasure of touching him because when she put her hands on his shoulders, she started to move down his shirt and over his chest. But Jamie caught her hands before she could pass his collarbone. He held on to her wrists for a moment, then released them. It looked like she wasn’t to touch the areas covered by his clothing.
    Embarrassed, Hallie stood up straight. “Sorry,” she murmured and stepped away from him. There was a water spigot nearby