Worth the Trouble (11 page)

With her experience limited to one
wrong man, and one time with Ethan, Rocky had no idea what the right notes on a man were, or even where to start to make a man moan with pleasure like that. 

But she was paying attention
. 

The desire
to push Tara aside and explore Ethan's body with her own hands again was strong inside of her.  When Ethan moaned louder, lust slammed into her and Rocky had to shut her eyes for a second to get control of her breathing and galloping heart. 

"Your hands are magic,
Tara," he slurred, then she moved her hands to his upper thighs and began kneading.  Briefly, Tara stopped to reach for a bottle on the side table.  She squeezed oil into her hands, then rubbed them together. 

Slowly
spreading the oil over his long legs, Tara rubbed it in starting at his upper thighs before working her way down to his calves, then his ankles.  Moving up again, she stopped to massage his calves for a second, then slid her hands up the back of his thighs to start kneading again below his buttocks.

"Can you feel this?" she asked softy as she kneaded deeply into the back of his thighs.
  He might not be able to, but Rocky sure could, she felt every squeeze of the woman's hand as if it were on her own body.

"More every da
y, because of you," he mumbled into the cushion where his face rested.

"Good,"
Tara said and Rocky saw her smile softly.  "Massage is the best thing to stimulate your circulation and restore sensation to your muscles," she informed. 

Rocky was sure of one thing, what
Tara was doing to him was definitely affecting
her
circulation and causing all kinds of sensations in her body.

"Are you working out like you're supposed to?"
  Tara asked him.

Ethan
chuckled.  "You think Terri is going to let me do otherwise?"

"Your sister is trying to help you,"
Tara told him quietly.

"Between her and
Rocky, I'm going to be running marathons soon," he mumbled.

"Rocky?"
Tara asked curiously.  "Isn't she a horse trainer?"

Hearing her name, Rocky stopped
breathing again and her hearing perked up.

"Yeah, Terri
asked her to do equine therapy with me," he said with another chuckle.

"
Interesting," Tara said moving her hands a little lower on his thighs where she punched him lightly with her small fist.

Rocky saw his muscles tense, then he asked, "What's that supposed to mean?" 

The same question that was running through her own mind.

"Nothing...
just relax."  Tara told him and patted his thigh then started kneading.

Ethan didn't respond for a long time, then he said, "
I'm working hard in the gym with a new trainer, but Terri thought it would help if I worked with Rocky too."  There was a note of defensiveness in his voice.

Tara
snickered then replied, "Yeah, I bet she did."

Ethan tensed up again and Rocky watched as he pushed up on his arms and twisted
his body to look at Tara.  Rocky quickly pulled her hand away from the curtain, and almost squeaked when she saw it sway, before it settled back into place. 

"If you have something
you want to say, say it," Ethan told Tara a little gruffly.

"Forget it, I didn't mean anything.  Now, relax so I can finish," Rocky heard her say with a short laugh.
  "Just suffice it to say your sister has your best interests in mind, but the way she goes about things is a little unusual."

Ethan huffed out a breath, and Rocky figured he must've complied, because she didn't hear anything else.
  Unable to help herself, she leaned forward again and pushed the curtain aside to look at him again.

The door opened behind her and
Rocky gasped then spun around guiltily. 

Terri walked inside with towels stacked in her arms.  Their eyes met and a puzzled look came over her face, then she lifted an eyebrow and it was comical when she realized what Rocky
had been doing.

Heat surged up
Rocky's neck and set her face on fire.  Desperately, she tossed around a few lies in her mind to explain what she was doing.  Nothing sounded right to her, so she settled for the truth.  "I came to find you, I have a favor to ask," she squeaked then added quickly to explain her presence outside of the massage room, "And I wanted to tell Ethan something."

"Oh yeah?" Terri said in a sing song voice as if she didn't believe a word of it and knew exactly what Rocky had been doing.  She walked to the curtain and pushed it aside.  "Looks like you found
me, just give me a sec," she said with a wide grin and a wink, then went inside the room.  "I brought you some more towels Tara."

Walking over to the table at the head of the massage bed,
Terri knelt to put the towels into the warming cabinet, then spoke to Ethan. "Baby brother, I think Rocky is looking for you."

Looking
at
you, is what that came out sounding like, which is exactly what Rocky
had
been doing.  When Ethan turned over on the table to prop up on his elbows and stare at her, the sheet slid off so that it just barely covered his hips.  Rocky's mouth went dry and other parts of her moistened.  His green eyes met hers and sparkled devilishly in the candlelight.

Mouth flapping a few times, she wrestled with her tongue, until she finally
said in a squeaky high-pitched voice, "I came to tell you I think Leigh Ann will be leaving in a few days, so we can start your riding lessons then," like she hadn't just told him that less than two hours ago.  Terri didn't know that though, and she hoped Ethan wouldn't point it out.

He didn't,
but his pleased-as-punch smirk turned into a sexy knowing grin.

Ethan
put his hands behind his head to rest on them, making no effort to cover himself when the sheet slipped even farther down, exposing more of his oil-slicked skin to her view. Muscles flexed rock hard then, tattoos stretched and desire shot through Rocky like a ricocheting bullet.  Her mind went into overdrive as she imagined how good it would feel to slide her body against his with all that oil on him.

It was obvious this man knew exactly what he was doing to her too
, they probably all knew it.  Heart lurching in her chest, in a low voice she didn't even recognize as her own, Rocky said, "Terri, I'll be out at the barn when you have a few minutes to talk." 

More embarrassed than she'd ever been in her life, Rocky spun on her heel and power walked out of the spa.  She was going back to the barn where she belonged, and she was staying there.  If and when Ethan wanted a riding less
on, the arrogant man could come and find her. 

"How long was she out there?" Ethan asked Terri who looked like she was holding back laughter.

"I have no idea, but she wasn't just listening
," Terri informed him and put her tongue in her cheek.  "What's this about riding lessons?" she asked.

Ethan stretched then sat up on the table and pulled the sheet across his lap, but
didn't respond.  He wasn't getting into an argument with Terri, and that's where he was afraid he'd wind up if he told her what he planned.

"Ethan Wayne Cassidy, you better tell me what you're up to," Terri said and put her hand on her hip, looking a lot like his mother when she wasn't about to let go of the bone she'd found.
  The use of his middle name was also a maternal clue he'd better come clean.

Evidently
Tara picked up on the tension flowing in the room, because after casting him a sympathetic look on the way out the door, she disappeared into the dimly lit outer room. 

Ethan huffed out a breath and shrugged.  "I'm joining an equine search and rescue team.  The vet that Rocky went out with
the other night invited her to join the group and I want to join too," he told her.

"So you're going to kill yourself because you
're
jealous
?"  Terri asked incredulously.

"I'm not going to kill myself
, and I'm not joining because I'm jealous...I need this, Terri," Ethan replied defensively. 

Guilt took wings inside his chest
seeing her twisted lips and narrowed her eyes.  How many times had he told both Terri and his mother the same in the past, and yet here he sat half-paralyzed, because of the stupid chances he'd taken with his life.  But Ethan had learned some hard life lessons from this experience, like how precious it was and not to take it for granted anymore.

Wiggling his toes,
Ethan looked down at them.  Half-paralyzed meant he was making progress though.  Feeling was coming back in his legs in hit-and-miss spurts, but it exciting nonetheless.  The workouts and massages
had
been helping, especially since he'd ramped them up now, and was putting in more effort. 

A
s much as he hated admitting Terri was right, he did want to get back on his feet, no matter if he ever got back to the level of mobility he was before the accident.  Being in that damned wheelchair for two months had about killed him.  Staying there
would
have killed him, mentally at least, if she hadn't cared enough to come after him and drag him here.

"How many times have I heard
that
?  Have you forgotten you can't even
walk
?  I was talking about you riding
slowly
in an enclosed area for
exercise
, not traipsing through the woods looking for adventure with a search and rescue team," she told him, then added, waving her hands for emphasis, "Trust me when I tell you trail riding is not for the faint of heart."  Terri huffed out a frustrated sigh then finished with, "You don't even know how to ride a horse!  Have you ever even
been
on a horse?"

His sister was more worked up than he'd seen her in a long time, and cute as hell.

"Nope," he told her with a big grin.  "I'm going to double up in the gym and work harder, so get that new trainer you hired jacked up to torture me, and I
am
going to learn to ride.  Rocky is going to teach me."

"If she lets you off with that stunt you just pulled
she might.  Otherwise, you might be learning on the horse I learned on.  If she says 'meet Cason' and tries to put you on a horse the size of a Chevy, run, don't walk your ass out of that barn.  Roxanne Baker is not a woman to be trifled with, I'm warning you."

"What stunt?" he asked batt
ing his eyes innocently.

"Embarrassing her by showing off.  I saw what you did
."

"She wanted a good look, I just gave her one,"
Ethan replied with a laugh.

"And she's going to pay you back, have no doubt...just be ready."

"I can handle her," he told Terri confidently.

He wanted to handle Roxanne Baker al
l right, he wanted his hands all over that beautiful body of hers.  He wanted to run them over her long smooth legs, her pert breasts, and he wanted to explore that cherry-flavored mouth of hers again.  And he would. 

Whether her mama liked it or not, whether the damned vet who evidently had the hots for her liked it or not,
Ethan was going to have Roxanne Baker again.  Since she'd basically been caught red handed playing Peeping Thomasina outside the massage room door, he had hope that might be exactly where she wanted to be. 

She had put the quietus on
that for now though.  To get her to stay with the program and teach him to ride, to get the vet to let him on the team, he knew he was going to have to keep his hands off of her somehow.  That didn't mean he couldn't make
her
want  his hands on her though.

Kissing her
, making love to her again, was secondary to learning to ride a damned horse, however.  Learning to ride was his ticket to making himself useful again, and protecting her while she did something she was not trained to do.  Her joining that search and rescue team with no training was just ridiculous.  It could get her hurt...even if she rode a damned horse like a centaur, and shot a gun like Annie Oakley. 

Sometimes those operations involved tracking bad people who
also had guns.  People who would have no qualms about shooting or hurting her to get away.  She could get lost in the damned woods herself, without survival skills or knowledge of how to find her way back to civilization.  Any number of nightmare scenarios had replayed like a broken record in his mind since she told him what she planned.

That meant he was going to double up in the gym and get his legs back under him, while learning to ride a damned horse at the same time.  A daunting
task, but doable if he was committed.  And he was.  Ethan was all in now to make it happen.

"Can you order me some crutches?" he asked Terri suddenly.  If he wanted to get back on his feet, he needed to stay on them, build his muscles up and get his balance back.