~ Colin ~
“Bring her in,” I tell Marie after she announces Paige’s arrival. It’s exactly seven o’clock. Rudy informed me she was ready and waiting when he picked her up. I really like that about her.
“Looks like someone is eager to get started.” Snickering as Marie leaves to do my bidding, Eli Kent peruses and discards several weights displayed on the metal rack. “She won’t feel that way once I’m done with her.”
Though his back is to me, the large mirror dominating the entire wall reveals his amused expression. Like me, Eli is dressed in a casual, well-used T-shirt and workout shorts, but where mine is drenched in sweat, the sadistic fucker’s is softener fresh. We spent the last hour where Eli thought it was a good idea to whip my ass before my day began. It’s also known as every other morning.
“I’d say take it easy on her this first day, but I have a feeling she can handle herself.” The way she didn’t waver to dispute me on the new phone is a sure sign she isn’t shy about voicing her opinions. “What’ve you got planned for her?”
“Cardio for warm-up, then we’ll test her strength. I need to gauge where she’s at and her limitations before I create the most effective training plan.”
Wiping my runny face with a towel, I toss it aside in favor of a nice, cold sports drink. “Just make sure she doesn’t overdo it,” I say after guzzling half the bottle. “I don’t think she’s spent a lot of time at the gym lately. Or maybe ever. Not that she needs it, but good health should be the priority.”
Eli’s gaze zooms to mine in the reflection. “One minute you’re telling me not to take it easy on her, the next you’re lecturing me about not overdoing it with her.” His lips twist sardonically a second before he lets out a mocking snort. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you’re worried about the girl.”
“You just worry about doing your job.” I screen my scowl with the bottle and finish it off.
The personal trainer laughs good-naturedly.
Paige strolls in as I’m pitching the empty plastic into the recycle bin. In an oversized faded blue sweatshirt and black tights, she manages to look gorgeous and dazzling without the usual female arsenal of makeup and curve-enhancing clothes. Dark ponytail swinging behind her, she sets her bag down by the refreshment station before turning to me.
“Good morning,” she greets, her curious gaze darting over to the other man. “Hi.”
“You must be Paige.” Eli cuts the distance between them, hand outstretched. “I’m Elijah Kent. Colin asked me to work with you.”
Her small hand is swallowed whole by Eli’s much bigger and stronger grip. “Mr. Kent. Nice to meet you.”
“You’ll be taking that back soon enough.” He has his teasing, easy smile, the opposite of all that threatening sinew. “But I’ll make you crave it. Kettlebell and all.”
“Oh?” Paige returns his smile, and something like annoyance stomps on my comfortable mood. “Are you planning to put chocolate on it?”
He chuckles. “Chocolate only exists in my world as a protein shake flavor, Miss Paige.”
“Just Paige,” she corrects. “And I don’t mind a good workout, Mr. Kent.”
“Just Eli,” he parrots. Gaze big and bright, he leisurely, appreciatively takes in her outfit. “You do look pretty good already. I hope you have a T-shirt underneath, because my job is to make sure you want that sweatshirt off.”
What the fuck is this? Is Eli hitting on Paige?
Isn’t he gay? I was under the impression he was, which was why I thought he was the ideal trainer for Paige.
Now I have to kill him.
With a fucking chocolate-covered kettlebell.
“Colin?”
Paige’s questioning voice wrenches me out of my messy murder fantasy. Two pairs of eyes stare at me expectantly. Oh, now I exist? “What?”
“Eli asked if you were staying.”
I bestow to the man my homicidal glare. I shouldn’t. I’ve got a million things I need to do. The team might go into cardiac arrest if I take an hour off. “Yes.”
Behind Paige, the fucker has the nerve to bite back a cheeky grin.
“Don’t you have to work today?” Brows puckered, Paige blinks with puzzlement, oblivious to the death-follower behind her. “It’s Wednesday.”
Eli waves his hands out in an exaggerated shooing motion.
“Are you trying to get rid of me?”
I was talking to Eli, but Paige falls back a step, wary palms up to pacify. “Not at all. It’s your life.”
Pursing his lips, Eli taps a thoughtful finger on his chin. “Didn’t you tell me you have an important meeting? You’ll need to get going if you’re going to make it on time.”
The Suddenly Straight trainer is just making shit up as he goes. I’m pretty sure he’s deliberately fucking with me, but I can’t count on it.
“I told you no such thing.” With Paige now looking over her shoulder at him, I use a finger too. The extra long one. “You’re having a senile moment again, Kent. We should reschedule the session until you’ve regained your mind.”
It’s when I catch Paige’s huge eyes and stiff lips in the mirror that I realize she’s staring at my one-digit salute to Eli.
Only it looks like I’m flipping her off as soon as she turned away from me. I immediately drop my hand.
She’s not pleased. “Eli’s right,” she says decisively to me. “It’s best if you get to work.”
“Paige—”
“Thanks for reassuring me your hand is fine, Colin,” Eli interjects before I could come up with the lamest excuse the gym has ever heard. “He, um, dropped the kettlebell on his fingers earlier,” he tells Paige’s frown. “I thought he might’ve broken it, but it’s apparent he’s fine.”
That’s followed by a used car salesman smile. All pearly teeth.
For the love of all those white teeth, stop grinning like a besotted idiot!
Normally big eyes narrow with suspicion. “How in the world did he manage that?” she probes incredulously, then promptly flicks out flippant fingers. “You know what? I don’t want to know.”
She’s not shy about glowering at me and Eli. The message is there without her having to utter it. She thinks we’re Dumb One and The Sequel.
With an enthusiastic clap, Eli announces, “Let’s get this show started.”
An hour later, I’m cursing at that fucker for an entirely different reason.
“Five more,” Eli snaps. “Come on, Paige! You’re slowing. Four. Three. That a girl. Two. That’s it. Good!”
Her entire abused, deflated body falls back on the machine. Her chest pumps fiercely in attempts to hoard in deprived oxygen. With the sweat streaming off of her, she might very well slide right off it. “Fuck off, Kent.”
I bark out a laugh and immediately regret it when my abs contract painfully. “That’s the worst you can do?”
Eli had her on the treadmill at unimaginable speed… as a warmup. Two minutes into it, Paige was already falling over. He kept her at it, relentless, ferocious, all the while shouting encouragement at her. How to breathe, where to carry her weight. Her power center. That was just to start.
Since I couldn’t very well stand there with my Dumb One hat on, and I refuse to be the even worse sequel, I decided to hop on the rower to convince her I wasn’t hanging around just to referee between them. A good workout first thing in the morning pumps up my energy for the rest of the day, helps me focus sharply and channel the coursing adrenaline well into the night when the entire vast office is gone and I’m left alone in the only lit space. That’s why I subject myself to Eli’s gleeful torture on the regular, but this wasn’t a good workout.
Fifteen minutes later and my body was shrieking for a drink. Only Eli’s grating, knowing smirk kept my throbbing, wobbly arms and legs pumping.
They moved on to free weights where Paige learned, in detailed loathing, all about kettle-hell.
Then the reformer. That’s what she’s currently dying on now. Top and second layer of clothing gone, perspiration soaks the mint tank top clinging deliciously to her dewy skin. The frantic siphoning of air sends the soft, sexy flesh underneath quivering. And my tongue lolling.
If Eli is under the demented impression this is taking it easy on her, he’s been snorting protein powder again.
“Don’t have… the energy… to get… creative… right now,” she retorts in between hectic breaths seesawing out of her mouth. “But fuck off… covered it.”
My kind of girl.
Wincing as I roll slash fall sideways off the leg press and nearly go crashing on my knees, I gingerly heft myself up, grateful Paige is too busy hyperventilating to notice the shameful parade of emasculation. Each step I gain I’m wishing I can go back to traveling basics: crawling.
“You all right there, Colin?”
Just peachy, asshole.
Ignoring Eli, I cautiously alternate between limping and hobbling until I’m peering down at Paige. Her upper body is toppled over onto the mat, while half of her adorable ass is still stubbornly stuck on the machine. Her normally pale cheeks are flushed, with tendrils of slick hair plastered to her moist skin. I’d worry about her if she weren’t skinning me alive with her brutal glare.
Daring my own possible demise, I hold out a hand to her.
She glares at that too.
“Give me your hand.” My punctured ego inflates at the influence of my clear voice.
Slow, painstaking, one dainty hand lifts from the mat.
The middle finger swings up.
Her lips stretch into a mocking smirk. “I dropped the kettlebell on my hand earlier.”
Don’t laugh... hurts the abs too much. “Hate when that happens.” I wiggle my fingers in reminder. “Come on. Eli is fixing us his famous protein shake, guaranteed to have hair growing out of your throat.”
Pert nose wrinkles as her hand drops back. “I think I’ll pass.”
“Comes in chocolate flavor.”
“Well, since you put it that way.”
That’s when her palm slides into mine. The innocent gesture has an uproar of excited commotion erupting, but I forcefully tamp it down. For fuck’s sake, I’m not a teenager anymore. It’s clammy joining sweaty and calloused. Not a big deal.
A rapid shot of adrenaline bounces in my chest as I assist Paige to her feet. It’s lingering from the two-hour workout, I’m sure. Nothing more. It’s certainly not because of a woman, and positively not because of this one, someone I’m paying to be here.
The vague, distant whirling from the mixer can’t keep me from noticing the faint yet steady sound of her breathing. I want to lay my fingers there, right where her puffy lips are slightly parted, gently catching her exhales.
Would she press her lips against them, caress them with her feminine softness? Slowly draw them into her mouth, one finger at a time?
I would watch her delicate mouth work me, suck and taste them, her small tongue flicking out to test the saltiness, the texture of my rough skin.
That tongue darts out now over pale pink lips, nervously moistening them. I can’t rip my eyes away. Paige is enthralling. A man’s fantasy.
Leisurely, my gaze cruises up. The cute nose. The dewy, rosy cheeks. Magnificent bronze eyes slay me, watching me watch her while I etch her to memory.
Does she see it? This unreasonable want between us? Or is she questioning it, struggling to pretend it’s momentary?
“Chocolate and matcha,” interrupts an oblivious male voice. “Got to feed those muscle tissues.”
The beautiful face twists with disgust without warning. “Matcha?”
“It’s good. You ought to try it.”
She’s biting back a snarky grin. “You’re not paying me enough for that.”