Annie sat down at the edge of the bed, poking at her wrapped ankle. The local medical office had bound her up appropriately, but it didn't feel quite right, some inner figure eight was too tight. Eyal noticed her trying to adjust it. "Wrapped too tight?"

"A little. It's okay."

"Here. Let me."

"It's all right…"

"Don't want you to lose a pretty little toe to gangrene," Eyal said, already undoing the clasps and unwinding her.

"Let me guess, Mossad gives you full medical training too."

"Something like that." He very efficiently freed her of the bandage. She flexed her foot experimentally but it was still wince-worthy. "You've got quite a bit of swelling. I can reduce some of that edema for you." He got up and went to the tiny bathroom and washed his hands. On his way back, he grabbed the bottle of olive oil off the dresser where Annie had left it, opened it up, and poured a bit of it into his hands.

"Eyal, this is totally unnecessary. I'm fine. Just wrap me back up. I don't need you to ….oh god, that feels good." He'd grabbed her "good" foot , propped it against his thigh and was now kneading it with his fingers.

"Olive oil has natural healing properties as well. Of course, the best olive oil comes from the ancient trees of Israel, but this Cretan stuff, it's okay."

"I know, I know, everything's better from Israel … I don't know about the oil but I may concede the point on the masseur…" Annie struggled to sit up. Without even thinking about it she'd collapsed back against the pillows, and now, apparently inspired by thirty seconds of foot-rubbing, she was paying him an unsolicited compliment, exactly what this already annoyingly over-confident man did not need to hear.

"Thank you. Knew you'd come around eventually," he responded, smiling broadly, accepting his due. "But the angle is better if you lie back down. Helps fluids flow back toward the heart." Of course, he would have a therapeutically-correct reason for her lie back down. But she didn't protest. It did feel better that way. She relaxed while he finished her good foot and began to work on her bad one. Though he was working deeply, he didn't hurt her, somehow knowing exactly where she was tender. She sighed and sank more deeply into the feather pillow. Then she opened her eyes more widely – she'd actually fallen asleep. Which was probably why his hands were now above her knee and approaching her inner thigh.

"Excuse me, I don't think wrapping an ankle requires going up to the neck. You're not going to make a mummy out of me. "

"Well, certainly not until after the wedding. We want to avoid scandal." He unwound the last couple of feet of bandage, grinning at his joke, and taped up her foot properly. It felt much better. He reached back to her uninjured foot and worked it a bit more, adding more oil to his hands. "Oops," he announced, not a word that she'd ever heard him use, or need to use. "I still have plenty of oil on my hands. It's a sin to waste olive oil, you know. Want me to do your back?"

"No way, Eyal."

"How do your feet feel?"

"That's not fair…" Her feet felt marvelous, even the injured one.

"Think of me as a trained therapist. I will absolutely respect your boundaries, however inconvenient, unnecessary, and capricious they may appear to me."

"Just like you're a trained agent who absolutely violates every boundary that even gets near to being in your way." He shrugged, not disagreeing.

"Really, Annie. It is bad luck to waste olive oil."

Her feet did feel awfully good. "All right. No peeking!" She twisted away from him and pulled up her top, and flattened herself against the bed, reaching back to undo her bra herself. This is so not a good idea, she thought. Who knew I'm such a massage slut? And who knew he was so damn good at it? It wasn't too late to back out – yes it was. She felt his hands move aside her hair and grip across the top of her shoulders, and she gasped, it felt so good. "When you take a tumble like that, everything gets knocked out of place and strained," he said, softly, as his fingers found pockets of tension she knew must have been there for years, left over from old strains and wounds. When was the last time she'd had a really good massage? Oh dear. Sri Lanka, seaside locals offering it on the beach. When she was with … The space for his name was filled with Eyal finding a particularly powerful pressure point, driving out whatever knot of energy had been tied right there. For a second she couldn't even remember. "Ben," she finally said aloud, softly.

"What?"

"It's been a long time…" He made her gasp again. "Since I've had a massage so good."

"You had only to ask, Neshema…. I'm fully ready to meet all your needs." He probed around her neck. "Your neck's out of place. Trust me enough to release that? Sit up." She complied, felt his fingers press against her neck and skull. She had seen him once kill this way, saving her life at the farmhouse outside of Paris; for an instant she felt a frisson of fear, but he expertly maneuvered her head, gave it a sudden light, not deadly, twist, and she felt the vertebrae slide into their proper places with a crackle. Then he worked her neck for a time before she slumped back onto the bed and felt his hands seeking other places of tension along her spine. She'd clutched her blouse to her chest but let it drop too.

That was not a small puddle of drool on her pillow pressing against her face. Except it did feel like exactly that, and cool, so it had been there a while. She didn't like it but couldn't gather the energy to move. Every bit of her felt utterly relaxed and soothed and content, like the aftermath of really astounding sex. Wait, what? She opened her eyes. She could see Eyal reflected in the mirror in the small bathroom, steam rising from the hot water tap, just finishing washing his hands. He had his shirt off. Um, so did she. And somewhere along the line she had lost her other clothing. How long had she been lying there naked? Had – what had happened, exactly? She could feel a light layer of oil all over her skin – no, wait, not all over. There were several key areas that were perfectly oil-free. Eyal came back into the room, pulling on his shirt but leaving it unbuttoned. "Have a good nap?" he asked innocently.

"It seems like when I fell asleep I had a few more items of clothing still on than I do now?"

"They got in the way," he answered, simply. "And I didn't want to get them oily. But in my defense, if you check, you will find that there is a large margin of safety – oil-free areas – around various sensitive areas of your anatomy. And, frankly, if anything untoward had occurred, I can assure you would not have slept through it. By the way, you snore very cute. Also the drooling, very enticing."

I must be angry and outraged at this… I think. If only I didn't feel so good, Annie thought. She stared at him. She wasn't silly enough to rank such things, but his massage of her – without sex – she'd have to put in her top ten sensual experiences ever. Top nine. Eight. Hm. Maybe top two.

"How did you get so good at this?"

"Mossad's usual thorough training…"

"I don't believe that."

"Really. Sent me to school. Diplomat's wife had a favorite spa and a thing for new staff members…. I mastered all types of body work. Ah, you might want to … um…unless you don't want to, of course." Sheesh. She was so out of it she was sitting there completely ineffectually covering herself with her blouse, both breasts peeking out the sides as she kept only her sternum covered. She rearranged the blouse more modestly.

"Thanks."

"My pleasure."

Author's Note: As always, reviews are welcomed and really make my day!