Page 63 of Rebel Hawke

“The fuck?” My hard cock pinned between us jumps at her words, and I tug my head back. “You’re joking.”

She shakes her head, determination in her gaze. “No. You need to focus on getting better. Channel all your energy into that. Not other…activities.”

“Bloody hell, Wren.” I kiss the corner of her mouth, then down to that love mark on her collarbone. “No fucking way. You can’t give yourself over to me like you did last night and then lay down a rule like this.”

“I just did.” She shoves gently at my chest, and I pull back to meet her gaze. “I’m offering you my help to try to save your career. Either you take it with its conditions, or you continue on the path you have been, which seems to be a dead fucking end.”

“Fuck.”

She’s serious.

That bullet didn’t kill me, but Wren might with this rule.

Still, two can play her game.

“Fine, but I have a rule, too.”

Her brows rise again. “Oh, really?”

I dip my head and run my tongue along her neck to that spot behind her ear that I discovered last night makes her entire body twitch. “Yep. I’ll agree to no sex until you say so, but you’re moving in with me.”

She jerks back with wide eyes. “What? No! I can’t—”

Taking her face in my hands, I hold her steady. “Youcan, and youwill.I saw your apartment this morning, Wren, and you arenotstaying there. Not only is it a dump that probably has asbestos and lead paint, but you aren’t safe there, not from the likes of Satriano.” I brush my mouth across hers, breathing her in, pressing my body against hers and letting her feel howserious I am about this. “You will move into my place, sleep in my bed every night, be there when I wake up every morning, and you’re not going anywhere without me, Bishop, or some other type of security with you at all times. That’s the deal. Non-negotiable.”

Need burns across her gaze, but I see the resignation there, along with the resolve to stand her ground despite anything I throw at her.

She knows I won’t budge, and I know she won’t, either.

10

WREN

Idig my thumb along Atlas’ deltoid and across his trapezius, directly over his surgery scars, trying to help release them from the lock they seem to be in.

He tenses and flinches under my touch, whipping his head to the side to cast an icy glare at me. “Fuck, Wren.”

“I’m sorry.” I don’t stop, though, kneading my fingers into his flesh, trying to work out the rock-hard tension there. “I have to do this, Atlas.”

He hisses through the pain. “You don’t have to enjoy it so much.”

I smirk at him. “You think I’m enjoying hurting you?”

He huffs out a half laugh mixed with a groan. “Sure fucking seems like it the way you’ve been going at me for the last half an hour.”

For a moment, my heart aches for him, and I am tempted to stop, to give him a break from the deep-tissue massage that I am going to have to do daily if we have any hope of helping ease hisdiscomfort. But I can’t stop. I can’t give in to my sympathy for him.

Stay strong, Wren.

“I already explained this to you. Based on my examination of your MRIs and the medical records from your doctors and previous physical therapists, it looks like when they rebuilt your shoulder, the tendon was attached too tightly, which means all the muscles around it are overcompensating, tensing up. That’s why you’re not able to move it without pain.”

“And what is this masochistic massage going to do?”

I release a heavy breath. “Well, theoretically, deep-tissue massage and working the muscles on the opposite side, combined with weights and other machine usage like the reformer, will help rebuild and compensate for the tension on the tendon side.”

Atlas’ lips twist into a scowl. “I’m pretty sure that’s what my old therapist already tried.”

I keep kneading his skin, his tattoos moving under my fingers in a mesmerizing swirl. “He did. But…”

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