Page 89 of Rebel Hawke

Given how we’ve spent almost every moment of our last month together either in the gym, with her performing some sort of treatment on me, or exhausted from all of it, I haven’t even been able to take her on a proper date.

And while this isn’t what I would choose, seeing her in this feathered gown, the way the mask matches it and her dark hair so perfectly I can almost pretend we’re alone somewhere.

Maybe Paris or some other romantic city not filled with all the turmoil that always seems to swirl around New Orleans and the Hawkes.

I lead her out onto the dance floor, surrounded by other couples enjoying the music played by the full orchestra.

Tugging her up against me, I wrap my arm around her waist, burying my face in her neck and inhaling her natural scent mixed with the light perfume she sprayed on before we left the condo.

We sway to the beat of the music like two teenagers at a high school dance, and while I should pull out the formal dance moves, I can’t bring myself to release her in order to do that.

This woman has become my world.

My days consist of two things—training and Wren.

And I still can’t get enough of her.

Of feeling her against me like this.

Even if it’s absolute torture, given her staunch insistence that we maintain her one damned little rule.

I kiss my way up her neck to her ear. “Can I make a confession?”

“Of course.” Her hands play with the hair at my nape. “I never want you to keep anything from me.”

That’s the promise I made when we started down this path.

One hundred percent honesty.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you look more beautiful than you do tonight.”

She sucks in a little sharp breath and tugs her head back. “Well, you clean up pretty good yourself, Atlas. The tux is”—her eyes travel down to the bow tie at my neck, and she pulls back even further to examine me—“pretty fucking hot.”

I raise my brows. “Oh, really?”

“Mm-hmm.” She nods, allowing me to pull her up against me again. The song continues, and she feathers her lips against my neck. “I have to say, seeing you come out of the bedroom in this tonight made me reconsider my rule.”

No fucking way.

I’ve waited over four damn weeks for her to say those words, and I freeze and look down at her, issuing a low growled warning. “Don’t play with me like that, Wren.”

She laughs, giving me a coy look from under thick, dark lashes. “I said it made meconsiderit, not that I have made that decision.”

More torture…

Because I can’t make love to her like I want to, but also because of the wicked things she’s been doing with her hands and the exercises she’s put me through on the reformer, trying to stretch out my mangled muscle and break up all the scar tissue the surgery caused.

The pain in my shoulder has changed already, though.

It’s different now.

Not the same as it was before she came and brought a glimmer of hope with her. The improvements in the gym seem to confirm it’s helping, despite being more exhausted than I’ve ever been in my entire life.

Jenkins is putting me through the paces, and so is my Little Bird…who seems to want to toy with me tonight.

I grasp her hand and spin her away from me. She laughs as I whirl her back in and catch her, dipping her toward the shiny dance floor. I tug her back up and hold her close.

She gives me an impressed look. “Where’d you learn to move like that?”

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