Emma Darcy - The Ultimate Choice

Kelly felt a nerve-tingling sense of familiarity, as if she had seen him somewhere before. But that wasn't possible. There had been no photograph with the fulsome biography which had been printed in the local newspaper. He had been a business leader in Sydney for the last fourteen years. Prior to that, he had lived on the vast and prosperous St John sheep property in Victoria. In his youth he had been a polo player of international standard-one of the very few with a top ten-goal handicap-until an accident had disabled him. Kelly had never moved in polo-playing circles.

However, one question was now answered. She understood why his orders were obeyed to the letter. Few men would have the nerve to stand up to him. He exuded a raw power that challenged anything and anyone, asserting by nature that victory would be his. Other people's lives might be determined by forces outside themselves, but Kelly felt certain that this man would always determine his own fate.

For one weak moment she quailed at the prospect of taking him to task for what he had done, but a fiery sense of righteousness burned up her spine, stiffening her backbone and tilting her chin with stubborn pride. No way was she going to bend her head to his might! He might beat her, but she was not going to be cowed by him. Never!

Kelly wasn't aware of the signals emanating from her-the aggressive lift of her chin, the perceptible tightening of her full, sensual lips, the slight flush that marked her delicate cheekbones, the sudden glitter of battle-readiness in the darkly fringed green eyes-but every nerve in her body bristled as Justin St John's mouth took on a sardonic twist.

'I wasn't expecting a girl. I've never had one before.'

Kelly burned at the condescension, and fiercely resented the strong sexuality he exuded. He was not young. She judged him to be in his mid-thirties. But that only made him appear more dangerous. He was too knowing and experienced, and far too self-assured to be attackable from any angle. Nevertheless, she couldn't resist one gibe.

'You're lucky to get anyone, Mr St John. You're too much of a newcomer for your name to carry any weight around here. And your money isn't the answer to everything,' she said acidly.

Kelly rued the rash words the moment they were out. They seemed to hang in the air between them for endless seconds, and her pulse did a panicky jig at the sharpened glint of speculation in his eyes. With slow deliberation he shook his head, as if he was mocking her or himself.

'You are very young,' he said flatly. 'But you're obviously qualified or you wouldn't be here.'

'Don't worry!' she shot back. 'You'll get the treatment you need.' And deserve, Kelly added privately. 'Can you manage to get up on the table by yourself?'

His face stiffened at her taunt. 'I'll manage,' he asserted grimly.

But it obviously pained him to walk. He moved his left leg stiffly, cautiously, and when he finally settled himself on the table he breathed a sigh of relief. Quite clearly he had favoured one leg for years. It was not so powerfully muscled as the other.

'You'd better tell me the whole story, so I don't get anything wrong,' Kelly said matter-of-factly.

'My left side was smashed from the waist down. The bones didn't knit properly. There's a lot of pain in the joints. The problem area just now is between hip and thigh.'

Kelly grimaced to herself. She didn't like feeling any sympathy for the enemy, but she could not bring herself to completely ignore his suffering. She had to do something about it.

'I'll start with the ultrasound,' she decided.

He nodded.

Delicately she moved his underwear away from the joint and spread oil over his taut flesh. The touch of him was oddly disturbing. Repugnant, she told herself, but knew she was shading the truth. His body was that of a superb athlete and, despite his disablement, he was in sleek condition. Her touch seemed to disturb him, too. She could feel his flesh flinching under her hand.

'Is that hurting?'

'No,' he growled.

'How did you get smashed up?' she asked, covering her unease with ordinary curiosity.

'That's irrelevant,' he answered curtly.

Kelly tried to repress her irritation over his rudeness. She turned away, using unnecessary vigour in wiping the oil from her hand with tissues before plugging in the ultrasound and switching it on. The small machine was shaped much like a Philips electric razor and about the same size. She began to move it over the joint and muscles.

'If you feel any heat, tell me,' she instructed.

'Get on with it,' he growled impatiently.

Kelly threw him a venomous look. Fortunately his eyes were closed. His whole face had a closed, tight look. Kelly decided to give him ten minutes with the ultrasound.

She couldn't remember ever seeing a more… interesting male body.

He made no sound.

She worked on in silence until the automatic timer clicked off. Then, having wiped the oil from his skin with a few tissues, she fixed the suction cups on to his body: two red, two blue. 'I'm going to switch the interferential on now. Tell me when the pins and needles start.'

'Give it to me full blast.'

You'll get it full blast, Kelly silently promised him… after she had finished the job. She turned the dials.

He made no sound.

She saw the muscles around his hip joint start to contract. 'That's far enough,' she said.

He grunted.

Ten minutes would be long enough for the first treatment, she thought. It would probably also be the last… from her!

It seemed to be only justice that some defect had been inflicted on him. Something to cut his superiority down!

Kelly took grim satisfaction in imagining him as the self-centred type who would never give enough of himself to make a relationship work. A sexy body was all he would ever offer. And he'd consider that the woman who shared a bed with him for a while was positively privileged to have the honour.

Kelly had experienced that before. When she had been at Cumberland College she had been naive enough to fall for a handsome face. But once bitten, twice shy. The sexiest guys were always egotistic and self-centred and didn't care how they hurt you. The nice guys were totally unexciting. How on earth was a girl to find someone just right?

She stared resentfully at the body stretched out in front of her. It certainly wasn't fair for Justin St John to have everything: looks and wealth and Marian Park and her horses and Grandpa's land!

Kelly's rage boiled up again. She switched off the interferential and removed the suction cups. She didn't feel like going on with the treatment, but she had principles to live up to even if Justin St John didn't!

'I'm going to do mobilisations on the hip-joint,' she informed him. 'Tell me when the pain gets bad.'

'How do you measure pain?' he rumbled.

'Imagine a scale from one to ten. How does this feel?' She pushed into the warm flesh of his left buttock, finding the top of the femur.

He grunted. 'One!'

She pushed down harder.

'You've just zoomed up to five,' he gasped.

She eased back a little. The inclination to throw her whole weight on to him was almost irresistible. 'How's that?' she bit out, thinking of her grandfather's misery and her bitter frustration over the horses.

'Better!' he croaked.

But the temptation to push on was a malevolent cloud on her mind. She pressed down a bit harder. He groaned. It was then that Kelly knew she couldn't go on. She really did want to hurt him. Horrified at her own driven urge to cruelty, she snatched her hands away from him.

He looked back at her in surprise.

'I can't! I just can't!' she cried, appalled and distressed that she could be tempted into taking such a dreadful advantage of anyone, no matter how vengeful she felt. 'That's the end of it!' she snapped, all the more angry with him because she was so upset with herself. 'If it wasn't against my own personal ethics, I'd give you every measure of pain there was, Justin St John! You deserve every bit you get. But I'm not as callous as you, so you can just go on suffering by yourself.'