Free Hawke: A Bad Boy Fighter Romance (With bonus book Sons of Flame MC) by Ashley Rhodes Page B

somethin’?”
    “No, Jack,” Naomi chuckled. “You don’t get a cake for getting better, you get quality of life. It’s priceless. Alright, we’re done with all that.”
    It had gone quicker than before. I glanced at the clock. Still half an hour left. “Cuttin’ me short? What am I payin’ for in this joint?”
    “No, no,” she said, “I mean we’re doing something new today. You’ve been in that bed too long, we need to start making sure you stay limber all around. Leg works from here on out, in addition to the other stuff, and I’m going to leave you with a few exercises to do on your own. It’s third phase stuff; you’re on your way out soon enough.”
    “And out of your hair?” I asked.
    She set her jaw, and swept that lock of hair behind her ear. “Well, that depends on whether you’ve given my suggestion from before any serious thought.”
    “What suggestion was that?” I asked. The woman just didn’t stop, did she?
    She didn’t believe I’d forgotten. Smart. “About rehousing to somewhere safe, Jack.” She sighed again, looked like she might say something else, but must’ve shelved it because she waved at the blanket and sheet over my legs and hips. “First part’s on the bed. You’ve got something on under there, I hope?”
    “Do you?” I asked. I grinned, and slowly drew the coverings down.
    Naomi watched my face, defiant and challenging for a good ten seconds, until at the last her eyes flickered down. I got a little triumphant tickle and chuckled at her.
    I was in my boxers, of course. I had to walk back and forth to the bathroom and wasn’t about to do it bare-ass naked with a cougar like that Yvonne woman stalkin’ the hospital rooms lookin’ for a meal.
    “God, you’re the worst,” Naomi groaned. “Kick them off, all the way down.”
    I tucked my thumb under the band of my boxers.
    “No, Jack,” Naomi said. She giggled. “The blankets, Romeo.”
    I had to reorient myself. The plan was to discourage her, not make it worse, fuck-face. Come on, get your head in the game. Wait, no; out of the game.
    Once my legs were out in the open, Naomi came to the bedside and dropped the rail on the side that was conveniently there to keep me from rolling out of it or something. She put her hands on my shin bone, and rolled my leg a little, looking for something; too tight, too loose, falling off. Some secret PT bullshit, she didn’t tell me.
    She rolled my ankles, tugged on my leg, had me push against her hand with the ball of my foot, bend my knee, and then lift the whole leg and hold it there for several seconds. A lot like what I did with my arms when she worked those.
    Each time she did, though, she touched me somewhere. Differently than before. First, when I’d seen her right after I came in, she’d been clinical, methodical, even rough. Not gonna lie, it hurt; but it was kinda hot, too.
    She’d changed, though. A bit at a time, and now her fingers didn’t just rest lightly here or there; when they moved from one place to another her fingers trailed half the time and left tingling traces behind that snuck up the skin of my leg and made other things tingle. I kept up a mask of plain, stone-dead expressionless nothing on my face because every time she did it I wanted to grab her hand and put it somewhere else; somewhere I’d appreciate that touch a lot more.
    Not that I had any doubts, but when she asked me to pull against her hands with my thigh, like I was closin’ my legs—which I thought was ironic—her lower hand was on my knee but the other was higher up, almost at the lower hem of my boxers.
    I watched her hand. Maybe, I thought, she had just decided she wanted a bang. Free and clear, no strings. Maybe she was trying to tease me, turn the tables after I gave her a hard time early on. Maybe I was reading into all of it and way off base. I didn’t think so, though. Signals were signals; you didn’t see ‘em, you felt ‘em.
    The way I saw it, there were two ways