Page 10

CHAPTER TEN

Rook

“Oh, fuck,” I grumbled as I tried to sit up after a night of tossing and turning on the couch. ‘Tried’ being the operative word.

I fell back as an electrical current shot up my lower back, stealing my breath for a moment, and leaving me lying there taking a few steadying breaths.

“Need a hand?” Tessa called, making me turn my head on the cushion to find her standing in the kitchen, cradling a coffee mug in her hands. She didn’t have to say it; the slightly raised brows were screaming I told you so .

“I’m good,” I said, grabbing the back of the couch to try to pull myself up, but having no luck with that either.

After another colorful string of words, Tessa put down her mug with a quiet click, then moved to the side of the couch. “Don’t be a hero,” she said, offering me two hands.

Not having a real choice in the matter, I reached for her hands, trying to ignore the way the touch sent a sizzle across my skin.

“Slow,” I demanded as Tessa started to pull.

I swear every single bone in my back popped as I folded up.

“You sound like Rice Krispies,” Tessa said, getting a choked laugh out of me that had another white-hot bolt of pain shooting down my lower back, ass, and leg.

Tessa’s hands flexed in mine as I jolted at the pain. “Want me to lower you back down?”

“No, no. Almost up now. I think I pinched a nerve or something,” I said, pulling against her hold until my spine was in a full C, but I was upright. “Thanks, babe.” I released her hands and took a few deep breaths. “Feeling real fucking old right about now.”

“Can I get you an icepack?”

“You could. If I had one,” I said, turning to lean back against the cushions, even though the firm couch underneath me was making the pain keep shooting down my leg. “I’m alright.”

“You’re kind of red. Um… how about some painkillers? I saw some in the bathroom cabinet.”

“That, I’ll take,” I agreed.

She was quick to rush away. And I’m not proud of how my gaze followed, liking how short her pajama shorts were.

Honestly, I might have gotten more sleep the night before if I hadn’t been dealing with a hard-on that didn’t want to go away. Ever since I heard her go in and run a bath, filling my mind with the mental image of her peeling off her clothes, of her sliding into the water, of her tits pressing out, just begging to be touched, licked, sucked…

“Christ,” I sighed as my cock stirred to life again. And the damn sleep pants weren’t going to do much to hide the situation.

I heard the rattle of pills in the bottle as Tessa set them back in the cabinet. She came back out, stopping in the kitchen to make me a coffee, then came over to hand over the pills.

“Hopefully this helps. I will pick up an icepack when I do one of my jobs today,” she told me. “And maybe a heating pad. Sometimes that helps more.”

I wanted to tell her not to fuss. But I kind of needed an icepack if this was going to continue.

Or, you know, a new couch.

I’d held off because Nancy scrutinized every small addition to my place, asking me how I fit it into my budget, likely suspecting that I’d come into the money in a shady way.

Now, though, I had the excuse that Tessa could have bought something.

“I’d appreciate it,” I told Tessa as she went back to retrieve her own mug.

“Have you always had back issues?”

“Just since prison. I tweaked it once sleeping, and it’s acted up here or there ever since.”

Everything about her posture was screaming This is why I wanted you to take the bed . But she didn’t actually say the words.

“Do you want me to see if I can rub it out?” she asked. Then, just as my mind went somewhere absolutely filthy, her eyes went huge, realizing what she’d said. “Like, the knot. If it’s a knot,” she rushed to add.

It wasn’t a knot.

But if a woman was offering me a back rub, I wasn’t going to turn that down.

“We could give that a try,” I said, scooting forward and turning so she could move in behind me.

The feel of her damn knee touching my lower back was enough to have my cock springing back to attention.

But thanks to being taller than her, she couldn’t see the problem as her hands went to my shoulders.

“I’m going to start up here and work my way down.”

Christ.

I knew she meant it in an innocent way, but there was no telling that to the need that was spreading through my system.

“Sounds good,” I said, hoping she didn’t hear the way my voice had gone thick.

“Tell me if I’m hurting you.”

Then her fingers were sweeping, pressing. There were knots and tension that were tender to the touch, but she quickly worked it out and it wasn’t long before my chin was lolling to my chest and my eyes were drifting closed.

As her thumbs worked their way up from the tops of my shoulders to the base of my skull, a strange rumbling sound vibrated through me.

Spurred on by my response, Tessa inched closer, one of her legs going around the back of the couch and my body to get it out of her way as she reached.

And as she reached, her fucking tits teased over my back.

My hips shifted, making my cock rub hard against the material of my pants, dragging a groan out of me.

“You’re full of knots,” Tessa said in response to that sound.

Yeah.

Knots.

That was the problem.

I could feel the way my cock was wetting the material of my pajamas. And maybe I shifted my hips another time, creating a friction my body was crying out for.

It took superhuman self-control not to reach down and start stroking myself as Tessa’s hands kept moving over me.

I just sat there, deep breathing, trying to think of anything but pulling her around me, yanking those silky pajamas and panties to the side, and slipping deep inside of her.

I was pretty sure that would get rid of my damn backache.

But all I could do was sit there and let her work out my knots.

“Any better?” she asked what felt like an hour later.

“Yeah,” I said, my voice just as thick as a few moments before, since my cock felt even harder, my balls fuller than before. “Thanks, babe,” I said, wondering how the fuck I could hide my erection once she stood up.

“Anytime,” she said, sounding like she meant it as I bent forward when she stood. “I’m gonna go see if I have the little heat pads I keep for when I have my…”

“Period,” I filled in when she didn’t finish. “You can say period.”

“Right. Well, that. I’ll be right back.”

With that, she walked into the bedroom.

I took two seconds to watch her ass before hauling myself off the couch and rushing toward the bathroom.

I’d barely managed to close and lean back against the door before my hand was sliding down and closing around my aching cock.

My head slammed back into the door as my breath hissed out of me.

I was so wild with need that my hips bucked up into my own damn grip as I stroked, every muscle in my body tense as I fucked my hand. My breath was fast and ragged, huffing out of my nose as I kept my lips pressed together, trying to keep any groans or curses in. Even if, in a sick way, the idea of Tessa out there hearing me jerking off only made me harder, needier for release.

It was a slippery slope to let my mind imagine Tessa. Especially since it was important that things stay uncomplicated and amicable between us for the foreseeable future.

But there was no stopping it when my eyes slid closed.

I was seeing her there, her hand in place of my own, stroking with one hand as her fingers teased my balls with the other.

Then, as I got harder, as my need dripped down my shaft, going down on her knees and sucking me into her mouth with a needy little whimper—like there was nothing else in the world she wanted to taste but me.

I let myself imagine grabbing the back of her neck, encouraging her to take me deeper, those pretty eyes on me the whole time as she let me fuck her throat.

I came hard, vision going white, a loud curse escaping me at the idea of my come sliding down her throat, of her greedily taking me in.

“Did you tweak your back again?” Tessa called, her voice full of genuine concern.

I imagined she wouldn’t be quite as worried if she knew I’d been thinking about her going down on me while she was just a few feet away, concerned about my well-being.

“No. No, I just… tripped,” I lied as I went over to the shower. “I’m just gonna take a quick shower,” I told her.

“Okay. I have the patch to stick on you when you come out.”

With that, I heard her walking away, so I stripped and climbed in the shower, cleaning up, then washing off.

Despite the killer back rub, pain was still radiating from my lower back, down my ass and the back of my leg.

Maybe I would have to give Coach’s yoga a try, see if some stretching might help ease the pain until I could fix the sleep situation.

I climbed out of the tub, realizing I hadn’t grabbed anything fresh to wear. Not willing to put on the pajamas with my fluids on them, I wrapped a towel low on my hips after brushing my teeth and hair, then made my way out of the bathroom.

Tessa had taken the opportunity to change too. She stood in the kitchen in a pair of gray leggings that clung in all the right ways and a simple black tee.

“Let me put—oh,” she trailed off when she turned and saw me.

Tessa’s gaze immediately dipped from my face, going down, taking in all of my exposed skin.

I’d like to claim I didn’t take some pleasure in the way she swallowed hard as her gaze followed the cuts of my Adonis belt.

But I absolutely did.

“Yeah, babe.”

“Yeah… what?” she asked, head whipping back up, brows pinched.

“Yeah, I’ll take the patch,” I said, fighting to keep my lips from curving up.

I shouldn’t have enjoyed her reaction so much. Life would be a lot easier if the attraction was one-sided, if I didn’t have to worry that she had desire or feelings as well.

“Oh, right. Yeah. Here,” she said, picking up a little package off the counter. “Turn.”

I did, and she put the patch on my back, then pressed it down with a fingertip before moving several feet away.

“I’m, uh, done in the bedroom if you want to go get changed.”

With that, I did, the little patch warming up the whole way and, yeah, actually relieving some of the pain.

“So… what do you do all day?” Tessa asked when I came back out.

“I’m usually down in the studio,” I told her.

“On the computer?”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

“Do you still do, like, freelance hacking?”

“Not really, no. I do some work for our club or the other clubs here and there.”

“Can I ask what kind of work?”

“Mostly background checks for prospects. I do a really deep dive, making sure there is no trace of them in shady places on the dark web or anything like that. Baby mamas they haven’t disclosed, connections to other crews they don’t want anyone to know about.”

“Are there a lot of sister chapters?”

“There’s the mother chapter in Navesink Bank. That’s Jersey,” I told her at her blank look. “The next club was opened in Golden Glades, Florida. Then there’s us. And there’s a new one in Texas now too. But we haven’t crossed paths with them much yet. That president already had his own crew in mind to patch-in, so he hasn’t needed me yet.

“Besides, most of my work is for this club. Since we’re still in the growing stage.”

“Yeah, you’re a pretty small crew.”

“Slash is really selective. It’s important that we all get along. And everything is a little more complicated because a bunch of us end up being on parole.”

“Do all of you come from the prison?”

“The original crew, no. But me, Judge, Coach, and Colter all came from there. Slash keeps an eye on who is getting out when, then runs the file by the rest of the club to see if we all agree on anyone.”

“What is the decision based on?”

“Part of it is skill set. Obviously, a hacker is valuable. And Colter was ex-military, so he’s someone who knows his way around weapons, can fight, can follow orders, and knows a thing or two about loyalty and brotherhood. Judge worked for an organized crime crew before he got locked up. That kind of thing.

“But we also just go with people who we think we can chill with. And we give a shit about what crimes they’ve committed. No drugs, no crimes against women or children, that sort of thing.”

“The club cares about that?” Tessa asked, seeming almost confused by that fact.

“Yeah. I mean, if someone has been clean for a long time, that’s different. But addiction would be… problematic for many reasons.”

“I meant the… crimes against women thing.”

“Of course we care about that.”

“That’s not, you know, common with clubs. At least, it doesn’t seem that way.”

“It’s common with our clubs. Goes back two generations with the mother chapter. That place is full of badass women. Paramilitary leaders, bomb experts, all that kind of shit.”

“Kind of like Murphy and Morgaine?”

“Exactly. All our girls are badasses in their own way too. And we all respect the fuck out of them.”

“Doesn’t that kind of clash with the whole… clubwh—club girl thing?”

“Not really, no. We’re not abusing the club girls. We’re not taking advantage of them or promising anything to them. We all know we are just having fun. We all want that. That’s all it is.”

“But don’t the club girls get jealous or possessive? Their hierarchy has to be—”

“What hierarchy?”

“The club girl hierarchy.”

“They have no hierarchy. The club girls are only around when we have a party going on. They’re not just hanging about all the time.”

“Oh.”

This wasn’t the first time I wondered about her life before, about the clubs she’d been around, about the men and women there.

From what I’d heard so far, it sounded like everything and everyone was toxic. Which made sense with the knee-jerk trauma responses I’d seen from her already a few times.

Maybe, eventually, she’d feel comfortable telling me more about it.

But that day was not today.

“You’re planning on working today?” I asked.

“Oh, uh, yeah. I like having something to do. But I will make sure I’m done around five or six, just so I can be here if Nancy shows up again.”

“Sounds good. We can order in.”

“Is this town even big enough for take-out?”

“Well, we have… the diner.”

“Do they have curly fries?”

“They do.”

“Then I’m in,” she said, shooting me a smile before making her way to the door.

The weird thing was that I was sad to see her go.

And excited for her to return.

That seemed like it could get sticky quickly.

But it was too late to turn back now.