Never Underestimate a Caffarelli (Those Scandalous Caffarellis 2)

oks, all the while luring her into his invisible web.

Lily turned when she heard the sound of his chair coming through the door. ‘You have an impressive set of equipment,’ she said without thinking.

His hazel eyes glinted. ‘Yes, so I’ve been told many, many times.’

She felt her blush travel to the roots of her hair. ‘Um...we should probably get started...’ She hastily summoned her clinical professional self but she had never felt more flustered. Was he doing it on purpose, playing his double-entendre game so she would blush like a schoolgirl? All she seemed to do was blush around him. It was mortifying.

‘Do you want me in or out of the chair?’

‘Maybe we could have you sit on the weight bench,’ Lily said. ‘We can do some light weights and resistance work.’ She swallowed tightly as he motored to the bench. ‘Do you need help getting out of your—?’

‘No.’

Relief flooded her momentarily. She’d been psyching herself up to touch him. She had lain awake the night before wondering what it would feel like to have those hard muscles under her hands.

She watched as he lifted himself out of the chair close to the weight bench. The muscles in his left arm contracted as he balanced himself. She could see the struggle playing out on his face. His mouth was set in a tight line, his forehead creased in fierce concentration as if he was willing every damaged nerve inside his body to respond. He finally sat down on the weight bench and visibly winced as he dragged his legs in front of his body.

‘Are you in any pain?’ Lily asked.

‘I can handle it.’

‘You don’t have to be a martyr. Taking properly prescribed pain relief is not a crime.’

His hard gaze collided with hers. ‘Can we quit it with the pharmacy lesson and get on with this?’

Lily let out a breath and held out a light dumbbell. ‘Thirty reps, in three lots of ten.’

He gave the weight a scornful look as if it was nothing more than a dust bunny. ‘Are you serious?’

‘You can’t go straight back to what you were lifting before. You could end up with even more damage to your spine. You have to start slowly and gradually build up.’

His jaw locked down stubbornly. ‘This is ridiculous. I’m going to kill my brother for this.’

She put one hand on her hip, the other hand holding the weight out to him. ‘You can kill him later. Right now, you do as I say.’

He opened his hand resignedly and she dropped the weight into it. His fingers closed over it and with a little roll of his eyes he started on the repetitions. ‘How am I doing?’ His tone was unmistakably sarcastic. ‘Can you see my biceps bulging?’

Lily was trying not to notice anything about his body, especially his biceps. She was having trouble accessing the professional therapist inside her head. In her place was a young woman who had not been this close to a physically gorgeous man for five years. It was hard to think of clinical specifics when a man as well-built as Raoul Caffarelli was sitting within arm’s reach. She could even smell him—a hint of spice, grace note of lemon and lime, and a sexy understory of a man in his prime.

‘Not so fast,’ she said, hoping she didn’t sound as breathless as she felt. ‘You need to concentrate on the release as much if not more than the contraction.’

Those sinful eyes glinted as they tethered hers. ‘I always concentrate on the release.’

Lily adopted a prim and haughty manner. ‘Right; well, then, let’s get working on your deep abdominal stabilisers. They switch off in the presence of back pain or injury. It takes a lot of work to switch them on again. You can feel them if you press a finger to your abdomen—like this.’ She put two fingers to her own abdomen covered by her tracksuit. ‘You pull them in like you were drawing your belly button back towards your spine.’

‘I’m not sure I know how to do that.’

She let out an uneven breath. She didn’t trust that guileless look for a second. ‘It’s not exactly rocket science. You contract those muscles all the time.’

‘Doing what?’

Lily couldn’t hold his gaze. He knew exactly what activity activated those muscles. He had probably overused them in his marathon bedroom sessions over the years. ‘Let’s try some leg lifts. Have you any movement at all?’

‘A bit.’

‘Show me.’

He lifted his right leg an inch off the floor but it trembled as he did it. It was even worse on the left side. He could barely lift it at all. ‘I guess I won’t be running a marathon any time soon.’