Sweet Release (A Bad Boy Mafia Romance) Read Free Page A

while he breathed through it. Tension fled, knots unwound, and trigger points released sending, I hoped, referral pain straight to his jaw. All true healing hurts a little before it feels good. Wisdom. Seriously, like, actual ancient Chinese wisdom.
     
    When I finally got to Rex’s quads, he was kind enough to spread his knees a little to make sure I had access to the upper muscle attachments, I’m sure. I glided my elbow through the mass of tough tissue, and made sure to work the tender, painful knots at the top, where his thigh blended into his hip.
     
    I had almost managed to get through the whole thing, and was reasonably certain that Rex had pretty much learned his lesson on the dangers of antagonizing his massage therapist. I was self-congratulatory on that count—civilizing the male half of the human race one jerk at a time; Ella Robinson, medicine woman.
     
    But, Rex had to ruin it.
     
    It wasn’t that he got an erection. The truth is, lots of guys get erections during a massage and throughout my practicals in school all of them had generally been embarrassed and even stopped the massage themselves. It had to do with tension, and nerves, and sympathetic-parasympathetic balances and probably humors to for all anyone really knew; just a fact of life for men and not something I shamed them for or paid any attention to.
     
    Not unless, that is, they drew attention to it on purpose in a particular way.
     
    Rex’s erection jumped a little. When I looked up at his face to get a read, he was smiling. I sighed. Here it came.
     
    “Hey, uh, I got another big knot,” he muttered. “I’ll tip you real good for a little extra work.”
     
    “Really, Rex?” I used my elbow to push myself up to standing, and he winced when I dug into his hip. Legit therapeutic benefit. For him, too.
     
    “What,” he said, “you a lesbian or something? It’s eight inches, honey; you don’t see that every day.”
     
    I rolled my eyes, and walked to the door. I opened it and stuck my head out. I didn’t have to say anything, I just caught the eye of one of the trainers, gave them an eye-roll and a politely begging smile, and off she went to fetch Jarome.
     
    Not everyone trained with Jarome directly, but they were all more or less officially his trainees. No one wanted to piss of Coach.
     
    “I’ll be quick,” Rex said. “Been a few days.” He really still thought it was his lucky day. Amazing. Just amazing.
     
    It wasn’t Jarome that came in a moment later though. Rex’s eyes snapped open, and he looked down his prone body at a man about twice his size, clean cut and stone faced. Unbelievably handsome.
     
    Well, Rex probably didn’t think that—though, for all I knew he did—but I certainly thought it. Jesus, where did Jarome dig this one up? I knew all the trainers and this wasn’t—
     
    Oh, wait.
     
    “Hi,” I said, “Mike, right?”
     
    Mike nodded. “Problem here?”
     
    “Nah, buddy,” Rex said. “No problem. All good. We was just finishing up. Right Ella?”
     
    “So you do remember my name,” I wondered out loud.
     
    Mike looked directly at Rex’s flagging but no less obvious erection, and was visibly disgusted. “It’s Rex, right?” He asked.
     
    Rex didn’t answer, just nodded. He was sitting up, gathering the sheet a little to hide his arousal from the new alpha in the room.
     
    “The rules are clear, Rex,” Mike said. “I saw you there when Jarome laid ‘em out. Up. Out. You’re done here.”
     
    “Come on, dude,” Rex complained. “I didn’t do anything. Tell him, Ella; I didn’t make a move, I didn’t touch you!”
     
    “No,” I said, “but you did way overestimate yourself. Good thing you’re not a carpenter. I recall you said it was eight inches? Your house must be real wobbly.”
     
    Mike’s face went much darker, and a vein on his temple showed his pulse visible getting faster.
     
    “Come on, Mike,” Rex said. “You know, I was just kidding around is