A Dream Christmas. Кэрол Мортимер

      He reached out to take her hand, and she pulled away. “What?” he asked.

      “I—I shouldn’t.”

      “Clint?” he asked.

      “Kind of.”

      “Just hands,” he said, and he didn’t know why he felt compelled to convince her of that. Didn’t know why he felt the need to talk her into letting him touch her.

      “Just hands,” she said, extending hers.

      He wove his fingers through hers, the shock of her skin on his not lessening since the last time he’d touched her. This whole thing with her was much more problematic than he’d anticipated.

      They walked out of the tram terminal and into the lodge again, heading up the stairs that led to the spa.

      It was all exactly what he wanted to see as a potential buyer. Very little needed to be done to the property to make it perfect. The same rustic elegance that was evidenced in the rest of the place carried through, craftsman-style details, beautiful inlaid wood and exposed beams.

      And at the center was a giant Christmas tree, white lights glittering against the deep green.

      With the right marketing, this resort could be much bigger than it was. He didn’t see why it wasn’t yet on the radar of celebrities looking for a place to stay and ski. In his mind it was well suited to that. All it needed was a bit of rebranding.

      A woman greeted them at the front and ushered them into a small room that had a wall entirely made of glass, which overlooked the broad expanse of wilderness at the back of the resort. There was utter privacy, with a sense of openness.

      Yes, this could be a very popular destination.

      Amelia looked pointedly at the two white robes, hanging on the little room divider.

      “I take it that’s what we’re supposed to wear?” she asked.

      “I think so. You can get behind the shade if you like.”

      He felt as if they were potentially playing with fire. In fact, he knew he was. He knew that this had gone somewhere beyond simply playing the part of happy couple, and assessing the value of the resort. Frankly, he could have donned a suit, walked in here and told Don Fleischer he was prepared to offer and that he wanted to inspect the facilities, and yet he hadn’t.

      And he wasn’t going to. Not when … not when this was happening. Not when, for the first time in his memory he felt a rush of excitement and the thought of what might happen.

      Sex was a certainty for him—dry spell aside—when he went out, if he wanted sex, he got it. Women were always willing. The combination of money, power and looks was his ticket into many bedrooms. And there was no thrill. There was no tightening in his stomach, no rush of anticipation. No sense of the unique or unknown.

      Sex was a known quantity. How could anything about it be suspenseful? It was simply arousing, and then, satisfying.

      This wasn’t even sex. This was just the anticipation of being near her while she was dressed in nothing more than a robe. This was just the desire to see a bit more skin than she’d shown while in her dress.

      The desire to be in this intimate setting with her.

      It wasn’t about release. It wasn’t about getting naked and getting it done as quickly as possible. He wouldn’t even touch her. It was just about the moment.

      For some reason the moment had become everything.

      Amelia disappeared behind the divider and he turned toward it, undoing the top button on his shirt. He could hear her rustling around behind the screen, hear her clothes being removed.

      And he could imagine it.

      Every whisper of fabric over skin had his imagination on overdrive, until his body ached. Until he was so hard he couldn’t talk himself down.

      He put on his robe quickly and sat on the massage table, his hands in his lap.

      A moment later, Amelia emerged, her cheeks the color of ripe strawberries. Which were fresh on his mind for several reasons.

      She sat on the massage table across from him, forcing a smile. “So now we wait?”

      “Yes,” he said, unable to stop himself from taking a visual tour of her body. The robes were thin, the room warmed by a fireplace in the corner.

      The V of pale skin than ran from her elegant neck down to the curve of her breasts was enticing. Begging for touch. Begging, at least, for him to sit there and appreciate her.

      She took a deep breath that jarred his heart and sent a kick of heat through his veins. The thin fabric of her robe molding tightly over her breasts, revealing the outline of her nipples.

       Mon dieu.

      He needed to get a grip. Preferably in private and on himself.

      He was a thirty-five-year-old man, not some horny teenager. It was his own fault for putting off sex as long as he had.

      She took a breath, her lips parting as if she was about to say something when the door opened. Two massage therapists came in, smiling and greeting them both, before turning on some sort of wooden flute music.

      That he could do without. He wasn’t a meditation sort of guy.

      “Go ahead and lay down on your stomach,” his masseuse said. “We can lower the robe down past your shoulders and work on your back.”

      He looked over at Amelia, who scrambled to lay facedown on the table before turning her head away from him and shimmying her shoulders, working the top of her robe down, baring her back, her breasts covered by her position.

      He looked away from her and did the same.

      And for the next several minutes tried not to die of extreme overarousal.

      It wasn’t the touch of the woman working on his muscles. He barely felt that. It was the sounds Amelia was making. Amelia didn’t do anything quietly, so he didn’t know why he should be so surprised that, when being massaged, Amelia sounded as though she was eating very good chocolate, or having very good sex.

      “You’re very tense, Mr. Chevalier,” his masseuse said, right about the time Amelia moaned, long and low into the table.

      Yes, he was. And he had a feeling he was going to leave this appointment with more knots in his back than when he’d come in.

      “Mmm … yessssss.”

       Merde.

      She was actually going to kill him. There was no point even denying it now, as he lay facedown on the massage table trying to fight the hard-on from hell. He wanted her. He wanted her naked and under him, and over him.

      His assistant. A woman with a ring on her finger.

      He was, in that moment, everything he hated and still wanting her was stronger than the shame.

      The half-hour session seemed as though it lasted four times as long. When they put hot rocks along the line of his spine, and hers, he was ready to beg to be thrown in a snowbank. She liked the hot rocks very much, and she was not shy about voicing her approval.

      Finally, it was over. Amelia’s moan of completion and disappointment sent one final lick of flame over his skin.

      “That ends the session. Now we’ll leave you two to get dressed. If you need anything else during your stay, we’re here to see to your needs.”

      No they were here to ignite impossible needs, he thought bitterly as he sat up, his robe pooling around his waist.

      Amelia sat up when the door closed, her dark brown hair tumbled over one shoulder, her cheeks flushed, her robe clutched tightly in her fists, closed snugly over her breasts.

      She looked like a woman who’d just been tumbled. Or, rather she