Rowe by Jessica Gadziala

CHAPTER FIVE

Billie

I swear he looked at me as though I’d electrocuted him.

I’d just been trying to lighten the mood with the naked comment.

He just looked so… wrecked.

A lot of things came up in my various business ventures. Yoga and energy work and even massage could be surprisingly emotional for people who typically had a tight grip on their feelings. It was one of the reasons I loved my jobs so much. I liked watching people get the release they need. Whether that being shoulder and neck pain eased by massage or acupressure, or pent-up emotional pain released with proper breath work and gentle stretching. Hell, even the tantric sex workshops could help heal strained sexual relationships between couples.

I loved being a part of that.

My heart always went out to the clients and their various situations.

But I would be lying if I said my heart didn’t go out just a little bit more to Rowe. Despite knowing my heart being anywhere near him was the most dangerous position for it to be in. He’d already shown me what he did to it when it was close enough for him to stomp all over it.

Still, it wasn’t like I could help myself.

I cared about him despite my better judgment.

On top of that, the man was going through something really traumatic, even if he didn’t want to admit that aloud, or even to himself.

It hurts, Billie. It fucking hurts.

God, he nearly cracked my heart in half with those words, with the raw emotion in them.

Strong men like him, they never wanted to admit they were in pain. Not emotional pain, or even physical pain. I’d grown up around dozens of steady, stalwart, stiff-upper-lip men; they would tell you they were absolutely fine with half a limb hanging off. For better or worse—and in my personal opinion, it was always for the worse—that was how they were built.

So Rowe admitting that to me with only a little bit of prompting told me just how bad he was feeling.

I guess I was a safe person to talk to. I was part of the Henchmen family, sure. But because of my avoidance of him, and therefore the clubhouse as a whole, I wasn’t as much in the inner circle as I used to be. I was low risk for him.

He never would have told me if I was a part of his life. Or if he wanted me to be a part of his life.

I pretended to ignore the ache in my chest at that as I waited for Rowe to move the chair away from the table.

He reached to set his brakes, making me hold up a hand. “You can use the chair, Rowe,” I told him. “The doorways are plenty wide enough,” I added, waving toward the doorway into my bedroom where I had my massage table set up.

“I’m supposed to walk,” he said, but even as he put his feet down on the floor, he was gritting his teeth. By the time he got his weight onto his feet, and his back mostly upright, sweat had beaded up in his hairline and on his brows.

“Fuck,” he hissed after taking only three steps, just coming to the edge of the counter.

“Okay, enough of that macho man bullshit,” I declared, moving forward, lifting his arm, and wrapping it around my shoulders as I reached around him to grab his other hip.

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not,” I corrected. “Lying isn’t going to help.”

“I thought you were all about affirmations and manifestation and shit,” he grumbled.

“I am. But I am also all about people being their authentic selves and feeling their feelings instead of repressing them. I once had a client who had nearly lifelong hip pain until she worked through the trauma she’d suppressed from being an assault survivor. We can repress emotions, but our bodies hold onto them. So you’re only hurting yourself to push that shit down.”

He had nothing to say to that. And I noticed he pressed a fair amount of his weight down on my shoulders as we started to move across my apartment.

“Did you not get a back brace?” I asked.

“I have one,” he admitted, a little out of breath from the short walk to my bedroom, a testament to just how much he was hurting. “It hurts.”

“Well, it hurts without it too, doesn’t it?” I asked, turning him, and sitting him off the side of my massage table, facing the window.

“And I can’t get it on and off myself,” he added, head ducked, having difficulty admitting he needed help.

“Tell you what? I can help you put it on. And no one has to know,” I told him.

“You can’t—“

“Sure I can,” I corrected. “I pass the clubhouse several times a day. I can pop in and help you get it off. Then back on after a shower if that is when you are taking it off.”

“Everyone will—“

“Be told that I am doing quick massages for pain relief like we will tell them,” I supplied.

“You don’t have—“

“I want to,” I cut him off.

“I don’t remember you interrupting me so much,” he said, letting out a humorless snort.

“I don’t remember you being so wrong before,” I shot back, getting a ghost of a smile from him. “Can you lift your arms?” I asked.

“Why do I need to lift my arms?”

“So we can take your shirt off,” I told him.

“I’m not taking off my shirt.”

“If you want me to attempt a massage or put the salve on, yes, you are.”

“I don’t think any of—“

“Your preconceived notions about what I do are completely accurate,” I cut him off again, brow arching.

I was used to people doubting me. It came with the territory in modern society. Anyone who practiced alternative forms of healthcare were considered quacks.

I got less resistance for yoga and for massage, things our culture has accepted as common and if not effective, then at least harmless.

The salves, teas, acupressure, meditation, tantra, reiki, and crystals? Well, most people weren’t down with that. Most of my own family wasn’t. That was fine. They still respected me and my practices, so it didn’t matter.

But I was a firm believer of “don’t knock it ’til you try it” when it came to just about everything in life. So I could get a little testy and firm about it when I thought I could help someone, and they were being obstinate just because they were being exposed to something new.

“I don’t mean to insult you.”

Except when you practically call me pathetic.

Ugh. Damnit. No.

I had to get a grip with that.

I had to learn to let it go.

A little voice whispered that if I hadn’t been able to after all this time, that maybe I never would.

I went ahead and ignored that.

“Wouldn’t it be easier to experience it for yourself and come to your own conclusions before you judge it?” I suggested, moving forward, and reaching outward, grabbing the hem of his tee.

“Billie…”

“I need to see your back, Rowe,” I said, shrugging. “If you’re feeling insecure about it, I can take off my shirt too,” I teased. My body didn’t quite accept that I was teasing, though, and a flush moved over my chest, making a warm feeling swirl in my belly at the idea of slipping out of my dress, of his gaze on me, of his hands on me. Like I’d fantasized about more times than I was willing to admit. Yes, even after his rejection.

I didn’t expect, though, for Rowe’s gaze to heat at my suggestion.

Wait.

No.

They didn’t heat.

That couldn’t have been right.

And it was gone before I could analyze the look properly.

Damnit.

He was making me second-guess myself.

As if he hadn’t done enough damage already.

“Easy,” I said when he tried to whip his arms up quickly, leaving him to hiss at the pain in his back and shoulder. “We have time, you don’t need to try to rush through everything,” I added, voice soothing. It was the same voice I would use in any of my classes or private sessions. Calm, patient, and reassuring.

With that, his arms went up, and I was lifting his tee.

I would love to claim that I was the consummate professional right then.

Just like I’d told Vi about all cocks being good cocks, all bodies were good bodies. I saw clothed and fully bare bodies of every shape and size in the past. I never felt the need to sexualize a body outside of a sexual situation.

That said, when my gaze moved over Rowe’s body, the thoughts weren’t anywhere near as detached as I would have liked them to be.

See, all bodies might have been good bodies, but Rowe’s body was a perfect body. At least, perfect to my eyes right then. Better, even, than I’d fantasized about all those long, lonely nights when I would wake up aching for him.

Rowe was fit in a way that didn’t look like he was trying too hard. I knew from Malc that he’d been a lifelong biker and runner and hiker. He liked activities in nature that felt good, not being chained to some metal and plastic monstrosity at the gym for hours and hours. As such, he had a flat stomach and the hints of muscles, but not an outright six-pack.

His skin was golden, sun-kissed, and I couldn’t help but picture him taking a morning run with his shirt off, sweat glistening on his skin.

His chest and arms had slightly more defined muscles, evidence of some other sort of manual activity that I didn’t know about. Maybe he chopped wood like Malc did in the fall, stocking up his wood stores for the fireplace all winter long.

If you were wondering, yes, that did conjure up images of him splitting wood. And there was absolutely some primal pleasure at the idea of him doing that sort of manual labor to prepare for the winter.

Whether we liked it or not, there was still some instinctual part of us that were drawn to men who could hunt and gather and keep us warm and safe.

Rowe, apparently, could do all that.

“Oh, ouch,” I said, wincing at the stitches in his neck. From a bullet that had lodged in him. It looked rough then, I couldn’t imagine how awful it had looked when it was really fresh still. It would likely heal to a smooth, pink circle. Growing up in the family I had, old bullet wound scars were not entirely out of place or foreign to me.

“It’s not that bad,” he said. “It pulls because of the stitches, but it’s fine otherwise.”

“It’s a little pink,” I told him, pressing carefully at the sides to feel for warmth, a telltale sign of infection. “Make sure you’re keeping it clean. And don’t use anything like peroxide on it. It eats away at the healing skin. I can give you a little natural rinse, but use it sparingly until the stitches are out.”

“Sure, I’ll take it,” he agreed, sounding less than enthused, but I figured that he would at least use it once, which might be enough to get the worrisome pink to go away.

“Alright, your back,” I said, just barely resisting the urge to let my hand drift over his shoulder, then his arm, and around to his back as I moved behind him. “Oh, honey,” I said, my heart aching at the bruises covering his wide, strong back. They were almost in the shape of wings, but were in deep, awful shades of purple and blue with a little green and yellow at the edges.

I couldn’t seem to keep my hands to myself when I saw them, reaching out with gentle fingertips to glide over his skin.

And I swear a tremble moved through him at the touch.

“Ticklish?” I asked, having dealt with hundreds of people who squirmed when I first touched them until they relaxed enough for their heightened nerves to settle down.

“No.”

No.

Just no.

If I wasn’t completely mistaken, there had been a bit of a rough edge to his voice as well.

Almost like there would be if he was turned on.

No.

Nope.

I couldn’t let my mind go there. If it went there, I was going to get hopeful. There was nothing to be hopeful about.

Arousal was a common, impersonal reaction to physical touch for many people. Especially so for men. Hell, half of my massage clients got a chub when they got a massage. It was just a biological response.

I needed to focus.

Taking a slow, deep breath, I flattened my palm, gliding it down his spine, feeling the swelling at the small of it where he likely had his fractures.

“Have you been icing?” I asked.

“Here and there.”

“Can I put a salve on?”

“Sure. Is it one of your concoctions?” he asked.

“It is,” I told him. “You can buy a lot of natural-based ones in the store. And they work. But I think mine is just a little bit better.”

“What’s in it?”

“Well, a lot of things. It has heating ingredients like cinnamon, pepper, and ginger. Then it has cooling ingredients like menthol, peppermint, and camphor. So don’t be freaked out if it is hot or cool when it is applied, or if it jumps around with those sensations. On top of that, there is arnica and magnesium. And, finally, the little cherry on the pie of it all… there is some CBD. And I would be remiss if I didn’t suggest that if your pain meds aren’t working, you could consider smoking. Or edibles. If Dezi can’t get you some—and I can guarantee he can—then I can.”

“You have a card?” he asked, sounding surprised. Which was weird because it wasn’t like it wasn’t common knowledge that I believed plant medicine—whether it be pot or mushrooms or ayahuasca—could and should not only be legal, but used more widely for common physical or mental health issues.

“Until it is fully legal here, yeah. Alright, here we go,” I said, scooping up a bit of the cream, and starting to slather it onto Rowe’s skin.

“Christ,” he hissed.

“A little warm?” I asked.

“A little?” he snorted.

“Move a little,” I suggested, moving around the table to look at his face. As I did, Rowe pressed his weight onto his soles and started to stand.

“No shit,” he said, gaze shooting to me, his brows pinched in disbelief.

“Told you I know what I’m doing,” I said, giving him a little smile. “The downfall is, it will likely only last an hour or so. And you can only put it on three or four times a day.”

“Babe, that is three or more hours of no pain that I don’t have now,” he said, eyes looking raw, vulnerable. Because a part of him was convinced there would be nothing that could help the pain.

Hell, I felt tears stinging at my eyes for him.

“The best time to put it on will be after your shower. Which is probably when you need it most. It will absorb better. So, shower, salve, and brace. I will come over in the mornings to help you with that. And don’t start to object. I don’t mind. It is ten minutes out of my day.”

“I appreciate it, Billie,” he said, his gaze going to mine, soft, relieved.

“After my morning classes, I can stop by again sometime around lunch to do a second treatment. After that, I have several clients usually, so I could pop over around dinner.”

“That’s too much.”

“It’s not,” I insisted. “You just have to promise me something.”

“What’s that?”

“That you’re going to go to your physical therapy sessions. At least once a week. You can always stop by here on your way back for some more salve or tea too.”

“I don’t know how to thank you for all of this. Especially since—“

“You don’t need to thank me,” I cut him off. Partly because I felt that way. And partly because I didn’t want him to finish that sentence, because I wasn’t sure I was good enough at hiding my feelings if we started talking about that. And for the first time in my life, I wasn’t comfortable feeling vulnerable.

He did that to me.

He made me scared to be myself.

I wasn’t sure how I could even begin to process that.

Or fully forgive him for it.

“Come on, you need to choke down some of that tea.”

But I figured forcing some pretty nasty herbal remedies down his throat would make me feel at least a teensy bit better about the whole situation.