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Jackson
ROSE WAS OFFICIALLY ten minutes past our start time. And I was getting antsy. I’d debated whether to go stand outside the bathroom and call out to her but didn’t want her running off on me like she had last time.
So there I stood like a complete ass, watching the clock as I flipped a basketball from one palm to the other.
She’d walked in with Daniel, and my stomach had flipped painfully hard to my knees. I’d figured after the weekend I’d turned her into something more than she actually was.
I’d been prepared for the letdown to be honest. To realize the phoenix was only a magpie after all.
But one look at her face and my skin had gone clammy, my stomach eating its way to my spine. It was impossible, but in just two days Rose had gotten... I don’t know, more. Just more.
She wasn’t in workout clothes when she walked in this time, but a long skirt and flowy shirt. There’d been a bit more in the way of a shape to her. And from what little I could see, I was shocked to note she actually had one.
Which sounded terrible, but I’d not been able to make out anything the last time.
“Hey.” Her sultry, smoky voice snapped me from my thoughts. She’d snuck up behind me.
Frowning, I turned, ready to say God only knows what until I got my first good look at her and words... What the fuck were words?
My gaze was hot and raking as I quickly looked her up and down. She wore a pair of tight black leggings that stopped at mid-calf and a fitted gray top that curved over her breasts like a fucking glove.
That was the moment I realized a few things.
Rose had great tits. Big, round, and fully capable of fitting a man’s hands just right. My pulse raced and blood rushed south, filling my cock and making me wonder what color her nipples were. Sweet and pink or dusky brown?
She had hips. Sexy fucking hips. The kind a man wanted to grab onto as he shoved in deep and made his woman scream his name. Legs for days, and curvy in just the right places.
And yeah, she had a slight tummy, but it was by no means fat.
My mouth went dry, my fingers twitched, and it dawned on me that Rose was the definition of thick. This woman had the kind of body that should never be hidden behind layers of clothes.
She tugged on the hem of her shirt, looking at me weirdly, and that’s when I realized I’d been staring.
Fuck me.
I cleared my throat. “Burpees. Ten of them.” I pointed at the ground, hoping she didn’t notice the scratchy quality of my voice or the way I was suddenly sweating like a virgin in a whorehouse. “You know what those are?”
“Yeah, I know what those are.” She gave me another are-you-okay-or-just-crazy stare before grinning, and my heart pounded like a drum in my chest. “Tell me, Just Jackson”—and I groaned, hating that nickname already—“this is payback, isn’t it? For making you wait. Do you hate me now? For I think I might die if I thought you did. Truly.” She fluttered her eyelashes like a Southern belle, affecting a Scarlett O’Hara accent as she clasped her hands to her chest and gave me a mocking grin.
After she’d hauled ass earlier, I’d expected her to come back to me all meek and mortified, and I’d been strangely let down by that prospect. But her fire hadn’t gone anywhere, and I’d be a liar if I said I hadn’t been waiting all day for this verbal foreplay.
Leaning forward until my lips just barely hovered an inch from the shell of her ear, I said, “Never make me wait again, cupcake.”
She shivered, and I couldn’t help it, I inhaled her. She smelled of lemons and flowers. The scent punched me straight in the chest, making me feel heady and drunk on her.
Rose laughed, shoving me away, forcing me back on my heels. Her pretty brown eyes danced, and before I knew what she was about, she flipped the basketball I’d been squeezing tight out of my hands before proceeding to do ten perfect burpees.
I grinned, liking the girl’s moxie.
That ass though. Round. Thick. Perfect.
“You’re doing great,” I choked out when she arched her spine to work out the kinks in her back, shoving that great ass up in the air and giving her hips a good wiggle before getting back to it. If she’d been anyone else, I would have known she’d done that on purpose, to get me to look exactly where I had.
But not Rose.
I wasn’t the only one to notice her bangin’ body either. I’d caught a few other guys looking. The woman had no fucking idea how hot she really was.
And that right there made her even hotter.
~*~
Rose
KILL ME.
Put me out of my misery.
Jackson was a taskmaster, his punishments brutal. Burpees had only been the beginning of the torture. Then there’d been wall squats. Planks. Russian ball twists. And then a truly devious form of torment called the dead cockroach.
I’d thought he was shitting me when he said it until he dropped onto his back, put his perfectly sculpted legs up in the air, and proceeded to do what could only be described as some ancient form of Chinese torture.
My abs were screaming, yelling at me, a big quivery puddle of Jell-O weeping inside me and promising retribution of the most foul kind for what I’d done to them.
He was grinning, leaning over me. “What’s the matter, cupcake? Does it hurt? Because we’re just getting started.”
He held out a hand to me as if waiting to help me up from the mat. But I wasn’t planning on leaving that spot. Right there. That was where I planned to die. Just close my eyes and do it. Any second now.
He laughed. The bastard. And I glowered at him, hating the fact that the prettiest man I’d laid eyes on for the past few months was seeing me in such a rumpled state.
Red faced. Grunting. Groaning. Moaning. Basically begging for my death. I was coated in sweat. Probably stank to high heaven, and I still had forty damn minutes left on the clock.
I slapped his hand away. “You’re a sadist, Just Jackson. Pure and simple.”
“Jackson.” He corrected and, bending over, grabbed my hand without waiting on me to take his and pulled.
And oh my God, I flew. He picked me up like it was nothing. I landed on my feet, clutching tight to his wrist as vertigo swamped me and my abs roared in fury.
“Shit.” I shook, not sure if I was more stunned by the fact that he’d manhandled me that way or the fact that he was laughing so hard it was drawing the attention of a few eyes around us.
I frowned, hating the looks, not wanting anyone to stare at me. I looked like a mess. Like a chubby freaking mess. But my belly was a quivery mass of butterflies. You looked at Jackson and you knew he was strong. You could see it in every finely sculpted line of his perfect body. But the strength of him, dear God, save me.
“C’mon, time to limber up. We got you warmed up. Now it’s time to really get into the meat of things.”
“Nah, I’m good. You go on ahead without me.” I flicked my wrist, making my voice as airy and light as possible even as my thighs trembled. I hadn’t even worked my thighs. Gah, I was in so much trouble. There was no way I would last an hour. No way.
But it seemed my tormentor was not one to be deterred. Taking my hand, he yanked me toward an emptier stretch of mats.
“What? Giving up already? Gotta say, I expected more out of you, cupcake.”
I glared at his laughing, smug, gorgeous face even as my heart stuttered. Like freaking literally paused at the touch of his callused hand on mine. His skin was hot. Smooth, but not soft. He squeezed my hand, letting go just a second later as he pointed to the mat.
“We’ll stretch out here.”
It was really effing hard to breathe. And not because he’d just pounded my ass into the ground. But his hand, it’d felt like getting branded with lightning.
I knew what this was. He was trying to comfort me. Jackson was an easygoing guy. No doubt he did this with everyone, and just because it’d knocked me for a friggin’ loop didn’t mean it’d meant one darn thing to him.
He got down on the floor and patted the space beside him. “I won’t bite, Rose. But we gotta stretch those muscles, otherwise they’ll swell with lactic acid and you’ll be cursing me up a blue streak tonight when you go to bed.”
Completely and thoroughly discombobulated, I plopped down beside him, not even trying to go for ladylike, and tossed him a virulent glare. “Thanks for sticking me in front of the mirror. Not like I didn’t already feel like a sweaty-ass clown, now I get to see that I look like one too.”
And I did. My hair was sticking to my neck, my forehead. My shirt, which was already tighter than I normally wore, was clinging like a baby monkey to its momma’s back. My under-boobs were sweaty, and I knew that because there were awesome sweat stains beneath them. Note the sarcasm.
His lips twitched. “Yeah, but you’re a cute-ass clown. Now stop whining and start stretching.”
And he proceeded to show me how to stretch out my body, flexing his arms as he leaned over his leg, causing his shirt to ride up and show a flash of smooth, male skin.
But my brain had pretty much stopped working after he’d called me cute. Because again, I knew I wasn’t. And I was seriously getting pissed that he’d do that to me.
It wasn’t fair.
Jackson was twenty-five. Knew he was hot, and he was baiting me. It was ugly. It was mean. Cruel. That was the kind of shit Kyle would pull on me.
And suddenly I was no longer having fun. No longer happy about being here. Biting the corner of my lip, I decided that after today I was seriously going to talk to Daniel about (a) paying, and (b) getting a new damn trainer. One who didn’t look like Eric Decker and make me breathless and anxious and all mixed up inside.