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CHAPTER ELEVEN

Tessa

It was three nights and three mornings of Rook tossing and turning, then waking up aching and grumbling before, finally, he found himself called across the street to talk to one of the guys, allowing me the chance to grab my stuff and get on the couch before him.

I was feeling pretty victorious until my own body tried to adjust to the hard cushions that made my hips, knees, and shoulders almost immediately start to ache.

But, hey, it was my turn to suffer.

At least I didn’t have a trick back to worry about.

I had no idea how long I tossed and turned before sleep finally claimed me.

But the next thing I knew, I was dreaming of being lifted into someone’s strong, but gentle arms, being hugged against their firm chest that smelled a lot like Rook’s spicy cologne that always—

My eyes shot open.

And I was looking right into his eyes.

“Nice try, babe,” he said, maneuvering around the coffee table.

“Put me back down,” I demanded, wondering how he wasn’t doubled over in pain while carrying my extra weight.

“I will. On the bed. Where we agreed you would be sleeping.”

“You agreed. I wanted us to rotate.”

“Sometimes, we don’t get what we want.”

“Rook, your back has been killing you every morning.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re going to cause some sort of serious damage.”

“Don’t worry about me—,” he started as he folded forward to lower me down.

It was right then that his back decided to give out.

I dropped down.

Then he fell on top of me.

Both of us let out a grunt.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Rook growled, his breath panting out of him.

This was another of those ‘I told you so’ moments. But the man was clearly in a lot of pain. I wasn’t going to rub it in.

“Don’t move,” I told him, even if his weight was crushing me, making it hard to pull in a full breath. “Just give it a minute,” I added, even as I suddenly started to notice a lot of things I really had no business noticing when he was incapacitated.

“Fuck, I’m sorry.”

“Stop moving,” I demanded when he tried to press up, but his face went so red that I worried he might pass out.

So I did the only thing I could do.

I wrapped my arms and legs around him, holding him against me, so he couldn’t move.

“Just let it pass,” I said, my fingers going to the back of his neck, fingers massaging the tight muscles there.

Finally giving up, he relaxed down on me, his breath warm on my neck, his heartbeat hammering against my breast.

That wasn’t all I felt, either.

Because to hold him in place, I’d needed to spread my legs around his hips, opening me up to him.

And while he was in too much pain to be hard, that didn’t stop my mind from getting all sorts of ideas. Based on memories. Because, well, every night or morning when I needed to creep past him to use the bathroom, I would find him hard, straining against the barely-there material of his sleep pants.

It was embarrassing how much some part of me wanted to go right over there, free him from his pants, and suck him into my mouth.

I actually felt myself getting dripping wet at the idea of going down on him. And that, well, was an entirely new feeling for me.

I guess, in the past, oral sex was an expectation, something that ‘had’ to be done, not necessarily something I ever instigated or wanted.

Because of that revelation—and those new desires—I’d been refusing to let myself relieve the pressure of my desire.

Which meant that I was practically ready to combust with the weight of Rook pressed down on me, the way our bodies were acting out part of the desires I’d been waking up tangled in the sheets after dreaming about.

Rook sucked in a deep breath.

And my damn thighs clamped around him.

My hips may have even… done a small little circling motion.

At least I could comfort myself with the idea that Rook was still likely in too much pain to notice what my traitorous little body was doing.

“Any better?” I asked as my fingers went from rubbing his neck to doing little circles across his scalp. “I’ll take that as a no,” I said when he let out a huff of a breath.

“No, it’s… starting to ease,” he said. But I was a little too distracted by the way his words rumbled in his chest and vibrated into mine to be happy with what he was saying.

Rook took another moment before sliding his arms onto the mattress and starting to press up.

“Fuck.” His face twisted up, but he was too stubborn to move back down.

“Maybe you’d be better on your back.”

“Yeah,” he said, but his eyes were squeezed closed. Sweat was starting to dampen his brow.

“You can’t move?” I asked.

“No.”

“How about I move you?”

The answer to that was a snort.

And, sure, he was bigger than me. But when I hooked him a little tighter and threw my weight, he effortlessly rolled under me and onto his back.

There was one moment where we were chest to chest, where his hands had slipped onto my ass.

But the way my belly swooped had me shooting up and looking down at him.

“Better?” I asked as he looked up at me, his eyes unreadable.

“Yeah.” His voice was a low caress, and I just barely managed to keep a shiver from racking my system.

“Good,” I said, attempting an exaggerated nod, but it made my whole body kind of move.

Meaning… move on his lap.

He was clearly no longer in debilitating pain.

In fact, he seemed to be feeling something else entirely.

His cock was thickening under me, a firm pressure against my cleft. And at the feel, my thighs clenched on the sides of his hips as I sucked in my breath.

And then— oh, God —my hips did a tiny wiggle, dragging a little whimpering sound out of me.

Humiliated by my reaction, I flew off his side so quickly that I misjudged how close I was to the side of the bed. And promptly toppled off the bed.

I fell hard on my side, making pain shoot up my hip.

“Jesus,” Rook gasped, trying to fold up to look, but he fell back with another curse. “You okay?”

“Yep. Fine.”

I was not.

I mean, physically, I was just a little bumped. Maybe bruised. Mentally and emotionally, though, were a whole other story.

But I jumped up to my feet, turning away from him to hide my face.

“But now you are in the bed. And I’m on the couch. So, um, I win this round,” I said, shuffling out of the bedroom area and dropping down onto the couch face-first into my pillow.

“Ughhh,” I groaned.

Well, that was… not how I saw the night going.

And now any chance of sleep was crushed. Because I was going to lay there, going over and over the whole thing until I had a stomachache.

Because while, objectively, I knew that Rook was not like the men I’d known in my past life, there was no stopping those automatic worries and fears.

Was he going to be angry?

That I’d disobeyed his order?

That I’d forced him to hurt his back by doing so?

That my decision to move to straddle him had made him get hard?

That I hadn’t relieved him of that frustrated desire?

I tossed and turned, my thigh aching, my stomach twisting into knots, the overthinking bringing on a headache.

I was hyper-aware of Rook in the other room.

For the first hour or so, he was still dealing with pain, judging by his labored breathing and occasional quiet curses as he—I imagined—tried to shift his position.

But, eventually, he went silent and I knew he was asleep.

I folded up, staring blankly at the old black-and-white cop drama playing on the TV.

Some part of me just wanted to tiptoe around the apartment, gathering my things in my arms, then rushing down to my car, throwing everything in, and driving out of town.

But I couldn’t do that.

There was too much riding on this working out.

Money.

And the security that came with that.

But also… protection.

I couldn’t screw this up.

I had to get control over myself and take this job seriously. Because that’s exactly what it was. A job. A role I was playing.

None of this was real.

At that thought, though, my sex clenched, reminding me that while the relationship was indeed fake, the interest my body felt was quite real.

I couldn’t say how long I sat there, trying to reason with my body, listing all the reasons I had to make this work.

Eventually, though, I must have fallen asleep sitting up, because that was how I woke up, curled up against the back cushion, knees to my chest, blanket pulled up to my chin.

“Ow,” I grumbled when a sharp pain shot up the back of my neck.

“Should have stayed in the bed,” Rook said from the kitchen as I lowered myself flat on the cushions, doing a long cat stretch until some of the zaps and zings from sleeping in a cramped position eased.

It was from flat on my back that I smelled something. Something eggy and cheesy and mapley.

“Are you cooking?” I asked, angling my head back to glance over at him.

He stood in the kitchen wearing nothing but those damn pajama pants. They seemed lower slung than usual, revealing his long, toned torso. He wasn’t damn near a bodybuilder like Detroit was. But Rook had that deceptive skinny, gamer guy physique that actually had a whole, but subtle, six-pack.

And those little lines that disappeared into his waistband? Criminal.

“Yep. We have a long day ahead of us.”

“We do?” I asked. I’d just been planning to pick up more delivery jobs.

“We’re getting engaged today,” he informed me.

“Oh, wow, look at us,” I said, folding up. “Moving right along.”

“Yeah. I figured it had to be something kind of grand. But to do that, I think we need some fuel.”

“Why do I feel like I should be worried?”

“Well, that depends.”

“On?”

“How you feel about a little hike.”

“A hike.”

“In the Death Valley mountains.”

“Why there?” I asked, thinking of the range that glowered down on Shady Valley.

“You can’t really tell from this side, but if you get in there, the rocks actually come in shades of pink, blue, green, and gold. It’s pretty as fuck. Seemed like a great place for a photo op. I bought a tripod and everything.”

“Oh, okay. Well. I’m not a hiker. So I reserve the right to complain a solid thirty percent of the time.”

To that, Rook shot me a warm smile. “Me either. So I’ll likely be bitching the other seventy. But we gotta make it look good for Nancy.”

“True,” I agreed. “So how far into the mountains are the pretty rocks?”

“My best gauge is about five to six miles in.”

I was relatively sure I didn’t walk five or six miles in a month, let alone a day. “Okay. How long does that take?”

“If it was flat, maybe only an hour or an hour and a half. But given the terrain, maybe two and a half hours.”

“Each way.”

“Yeah. Hence the big breakfast bribe,” he said, waving toward the stove.

I moved closer, seeing cheesy scrambled eggs, sausage links, and breakfast potatoes with onions.

“This… and maybe a quick stop at the clubhouse for a coffee might take my complaints down to only twenty percent of the time.”

“I think that’s more than a fair deal.” He reached up for plates, then started to load them up.

“Should I be finding something cute to wear?” Not that I really had anything.

“I think normal clothes are smart. It will make it seem like we were just engaging in our mutual hiking hobby,” he said, shooting me a smirk, “and I sprang the proposal on you.”

“Sounds like a plan,” I said, turning and making my way to the bathroom.

By the time I came back out, Rook had our plates on the dreaded couch.

“How’s your back feeling?” I asked as I sat down, careful to keep several safe inches between us.

“Better today.”

“Good enough for a hike?”

“I think so. I might pay for it tomorrow, but we need to get this step over with.”

“I’ll pick up a bunch of wedding magazines at the grocery store to throw around the apartment next time I pick up a job. That’s something a newly engaged woman would do. Oh my God,” I said, eyes closing as I finally took my first bite.

“Good?” Rook asked, shooting me a tentative smile, like maybe he was worried it was gross.

“Really good,” I told him as I forked more food to shovel into my mouth.

So good, in fact, that I forgot all about the hike for a while.

Until Rook started to clean up.

And it was time for me to get dressed for it.

About an hour later, we were in my car parked outside of the Death Valley range.

“Ready to get engaged?”

God, no.

“Yep.”

With that, we climbed out of the car.