“A short one.”
“Right.” She smiled and walked over to the treadmill.
She was two miles in when her back spasmed. She pulled the cord to shut off the machine and leaned over with her hands on her knees.
“You okay?” Mantis asked, stopping his treadmill.
“My back,” she grunted through the pain.
“Come with me. Can you climb up on the table?” he asked, leading her over to an empty massage room.
She gingerly twisted until she was close enough that she could get her bottom on the table. Once there, she rolled to her side, and then onto her stomach.
“Where’s your scar,” he asked, raising the back of her shirt. “Okay,” he murmured, putting it back down and laying his big hands across her waist and gently kneading her flesh with his fingers.
“God, that feels good,” she murmured after he worked her muscles a few more minutes.
“If I remember right, I learned this from you.” He moved to her bottom, again kneading to loosen the tightness that had caused the spasm.
Alegria felt light-headed. If only she could change position enough to close her legs a little bit before Mantis noticed the effect he was having on her.
He switched sides, his hands once again way too close for comfort. She gasped when he made his way down her thigh and his fingers touched the inside of her leg. She held her breath, willing him to move, but praying he wouldn’t. All too soon, his magical touch was working her calves, but that didn’t lessen her body’s response.
“Does that feel good?” he murmured and she almost orgasmed.
His hands moved to her feet. Her weakness, and he knew it.
“Can you feel this?” he asked, shattering the shell of the warm cocoon she’d been blanketed in.
“No,” she answered, stifling a cry. She knew he was tapping the bottom of her right foot, but she couldn’t feel it.
Mantis moved up her body, running his hand as he went, until it rested on her shoulder.
“Soon you will. I promise.”
They met back out front after they’d both showered and changed.
“What’s next?” she asked.
“How about a drive?”
“Where?”
“Tilley Ponds? It’s cold, but we don’t have to get out of the car.”
“Sounds perfect.” They’d taken walks around the cluster of ponds that were filled with lily pads in the spring, and ice skated on them when they were frozen. However, it probably wouldn’t be a good idea for her to try to ice skate.
“No skating, though.” He winked and smiled.
Had he read her mind? If so, had he known what she was thinking when he had his hands all over her body?
As he drove, her eyes drifted closed, and not because she was sleepy. Those hands, the sound of his voice, the way he’d hummed as he kneaded her flesh, never realizing he did it—made her lose her damn mind with memories of all the times it hadn’t ended with just a simple massage.
“Manon,” he whispered. “Look at me, baby.”
Could she even open her eyes? Mantis had just ravaged her body again and again and again, bringing her to one mind-blowing orgasm after another.
As she lay there, trying to catch her breath, trying to put the fires out in all the cells of her body that felt like there were still fireworks going off inside of them, Mantis ran his fingers over every inch of her body.