Michael's Discovery - By Sherryl Woods Page 0,45
week? Out of the blue? After knowing this Moira for how long?”
“A while,” she conceded.
“And the inspiration to matchmake never struck you before?”
“Not exactly.”
“Then I have to ask again, why now?”
She frowned at him. “I sort of owe her.”
“For?”
“Keeping her mouth shut about something,” she told him grudgingly.
Suddenly it all became perfectly clear to him. “Moira’s the woman who runs the rehab clinic where you work part-time, isn’t she? And she found out about the two of us.”
He didn’t have to see the telltale flush in Kelly’s cheeks to know he’d hit the nail on the head. He would have known it by the way she suddenly found a million little things to do to avoid meeting his gaze. When she started lining up her selection of free weights according to size, he shook his head.
“You can’t avoid answering me forever,” he said.
“Sure I can,” she said with obvious bravado.
“So, the price of Moira’s silence is a date with your brother,” he said, drawing his own conclusions. “And this is a woman you want me to trick him into spending an evening with?”
She scowled at that. “You make it sound so sleazy. It’s not that way at all. Moira is a terrific woman. She’s just a little shy. She gets all tongue-tied when Bryan is around. And just so we’re very clear, this was my idea, not hers.”
“But she went along with it,” he reminded her.
“Reluctantly. Come on, Michael, what’s the harm?”
“There are so many possibilities, I can hardly list them all,” he responded.
“Name one.”
“Your brother could be furious.”
Kelly shrugged. “It won’t be the first time or the last. Brothers and sisters are always at each other’s throats.”
“He could be furious at me,” Michael corrected. “And that would be a first. I’m at a disadvantage, you know. Under normal conditions, I’d be a more than even match for him, but right now I’d prefer to pick fights I can win with words.”
“So you’ll smooth things over, if it comes to that,” she said, clearly not taking his fears seriously. “It won’t. I’m telling you, he’s going to thank you. And I will certainly find some inventive way to demonstrate my gratitude.”
Michael choked at the immediate image that slammed through him. “Inventive, huh?”
She grinned, clearly sensing victory. “Absolutely.”
“Care to give me a small sample, just a little incentive offered in good faith?”
“Roll over,” she ordered.
Michael cast one last, lingering look into her suddenly smoldering eyes and did as she’d asked. The sheet fell away. He wasn’t entirely sure what he expected, maybe some new, exotically scented oil that would drive him wild. Maybe the light skim of her fingers just a little too high on the back of his thigh.
What he absolutely, positively had not expected was the light brush of her lips against the back of his calf, the back of his knee, the back of his thigh. If it hadn’t been for one small, but very strong hand placed squarely in the small of his back, he would have jolted off the massage table and dragged Kelly straight into his arms and then onto his bed without giving propriety a second thought.
When she finally finished her little demonstration, his breathing was ragged and his resolve in tatters. He sighed heavily and tilted his head to meet her gaze.
“Bring me the phone.”
She grinned, a cat content with its expected reward of cream.
“And don’t look so damned smug,” he added.
“Aye, aye, sir,” she said cheerfully as she handed him the phone.
“I know I’m going to regret this,” Michael muttered as he dialed Bryan’s number.
Then he thought of the way Kelly’s clever mouth had felt against his skin and concluded that even if her scheme blew up in their faces, he still might die a happy man.
Chapter Ten
Her brother truly was the biggest dolt on the planet, Kelly concluded as she watched him all but ignore Moira, who was seated next to him. And if sparks didn’t start to fly soon, Michael was never going to let her forget it.
In fact, he chose that precise moment to lean in close and whisper, “It’s going well, don’t you think?” The edge of sarcasm in his voice was unmistakable.
“Well, do something,” she snapped back.
His eyes widened. “Me? This was your idea.”
“I’ll make it worth your while,” she offered.
He had the audacity to laugh at that. “Promises, promises.”
One advantage of being with a man in a wheelchair was that his attention could be refocused in a heartbeat. Kelly snagged the handles on his chair and