Snippet Sunday – The Massage Part 2

It’s Snippet Sunday time again. If you’ve found this page on accident and don’t know what Snippet Sunday’s all about, feel free to click the link below and check us out! I’ll just say that I look forward to this event every week and there are some amazing authors who participate.

This week, I’m continuing with Swashbuckler, my contemporary romance that’s out on submission. We continue just where we left off last week: Rachel and Rodger are about to get a couple’s massage during a romantic weekend get-away. She’d just gotten a view of his nakedness and, quite frankly, liked what she saw. 😉 I hope you enjoy what comes next. Please feel free to comment and catch any typos!

Unable to hide her grin and the bubble of nervous excitement rising in her chest, Rachel put her head back down into the hole in the head rest of the massage table. Her cheeks squished together, forcing her lips to pucker. The bare feet of the massage therapist came into view, the toe nails painted a siren red with highlights of delicate, white flowers.

“You better not be laughing at me,” she heard Rodger say.

Twisting her neck to the side, she watched him climb up onto his own massage table and try to maneuver his long body under the cover sheet. He was all knees and elbows, barely fitting on the narrow, thin cushions. As he made it to his stomach, the sheet slid off his back and onto the floor, leaving his perfectly shaped ass in profile. 

“I’m pleading the 5th.” Rachel suppressed a snicker. Just then, warm oil dripped on her back, followed by warm, soft hands that began to massage it in.

Here’s that promised link to the Snippet Sunday Facebook group >

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Swashbuckler

Is their love real or fiction?

Rachel Shepherd knows she is a victim of a practical joke. After all, why would Roger Conrad, the hunky, A-list actor of her dreams, be calling her? But when they meet, sparks fly, and Rachel’s reality is turned upside down. Can she trust this is real? Or will he leave her hanging just like every other man in her life has done?

Rachel is a teacher who’s picked up the pieces of her life following a horrible marriage. She’d thought her ex-husband was the man of her dreams. He wasn’t. She’s moved on by writing a sizzling romance novel that’s been picked up by Hollywood.
Roger is an actor who doesn’t trust women. He’s made bad choices in his past that have come to haunt him in the present, especially the choice that came packaged with blond hair, large breasts, and a marriage that was doomed from the start. He doubts there is a woman alive who can love him for who he is, and not for his fame or for the fantasy he presents to the world.

Rachel is convinced that she’s only fallen for the fantasy of Roger Conrad—after all, the hero in her book was based on Roger. Just thinking about his green eyes, dark curls, and broad shoulders was enough to put her in a swoon even before she had met him face-to-face. After she spends an evening, then a night, then months of communicating with him by email, she begins to trust that this sexy, romantic, complex man is the real deal and not just a figment of her imagination.

Roger quickly recognizes the feelings he has for Rachel go deeper than physical attraction. He is cautious but thrilled to have found a woman who is sexy, intelligent, and seems more interested in books than in movies. The challenge is convincing her that he is not the womanizer the media has portrayed him to be. Finally, he breaks through her walls and allows himself to dream of a future with her.

Unfortunately, Roger is not the only one who makes mistakes with the media. Rachel, under the pressure of the new limelight and a few too many drinks, admits to something that turns all of Roger’s assumptions of her upside down, triggering his own fears of trusting women. He severs the budding relationship without telling Rachel why, abandoning her to her vicious imagination, and playing to her fears that Roger Conrad was just a fantasy.

Can Rachel and Rodger ever trust that reality is sweeter than fantasy?