In the hotel gym half an hour later, I was
in full work-it-out mode the old-fashioned way. I grunted, groaned, and cursed
my way through a circuit on the weight machines complemented with CrossFit
training designed to make me keel over. At least then I could stop thinking.
Having to pretend I was into Nicky while
ignoring the fact I was one hundred percent attracted to Leelee was gonna make
me mentally unstable. Not to mention her last relationship broke off because
Patrick was bi and lied to her about it. I didn’t stand a chance with Leelee
even if I was on the up and up with her, not with her history and my Rom-Con
con. Shit, her bad break-up story more than rivaled my own.
So my plan of the moment was sweating it—her—out of my system PD-fuckin’-Q. If
that failed, I was going to masturbate over every single sex scene in her book
until my dick was raw, even if I had to bust my nut in the shower with Nicky in
the next room. Maybe then my bastard cock would learn to stand down in her
presence.
Right then, as luck would have it in some
form of twisted fate or some other writerly term—like foreboding or
foreshadowing or whatever—the door swung open . . . and Leelee swished inside.
Wearing exercise gear: hip-huggin’, boob cuppin’, ass-lovin’ Lycra.
Her life might be worse than a bad romance
novel, but mine was beginning to resemble a har
har fucking har romantic comedy, minus the romance part.
Trying to ignore her so I could get my
workout done and get the hell out of Dodge, I continued to torture my body.
Sweat dripped like bullets down my bare chest and into the low waistband of my
nylon shorts. My muscles huge and heaving, I rolled up to a squat from another
set of sit-ups and came face-to-tit with Leelee.
When I rose to my full height, topping her
by a good nine inches now that she wore sneakers instead of fuck-me heels, my
gaze fell to her face. Her pouty bottom lip was tucked half between her teeth,
and I wanted to use my mouth to tease it out. Her eyes were brighter than ever,
her hair pulled into a high braid, all the better to wrap around my fist and
draw her up for a long, deep kiss.
And
the room just got a whole lot hotter.
I rolled my neck, bouncing on my feet while
I reached for my discarded tank top to mop up my face. Pushing the neck of my
tank top into the waistband of my shorts, I was well aware the extra weight
dragged my shorts even lower over the cut muscles of my pelvis, almost to the
point where my pubes peeked out.
I grinned when Leelee peeked too. “So, what
brings you here?”
She took a seat on one of the blue mats,
averting her eyes. “The gym’s a great place to hide. I only started workin’ out
when I began coming to these things. You know, me and crowds.”
“Yeah, I’m hiding from those vicious
writers too.”
She laughed, and then her gaze flickered
over me, not with a quick glance but with the attention of a woman who liked what
she saw. I held still, held my breath and felt like she electrocuted every one
of my nerve endings until my muscles jerked in excitement rather than exertion.
And that was all before she even stretched
her legs to either side of her in a near split and began limbering up.
What had I thought this morning about
wearing a hard cup jockstrap? Yeah, that. I needed one now. My cock rose and
the thin material of my shorts was not gonna hide a single goddamn inch of
thick erection for very long.
I covertly slipped the tank top over so it
fell on top of my crotch. Resuming my workout on the pull-up bar, I watched
Leelee as she watched me. I pumped up and down at a strong, measured pace. She
performed some yoga-type moves that immediately put me in mind of inventive
sexual positions. I hopped down and moved on to weighted squats, and she bent
over from the waist, walking forward on her fingertips, round ass in the air.
The tank top wasn’t gonna last very long
concealing my raging erection at this rate either. And it was pretty damn hard
to do squats with my dick as iron-hard as the barbell in my hands. I was so
revved up, my only hope was to outlast her. My very, very best dreams come true
. . . and my worst nightmare of the moment right in front of me:
Soft,
voluptuous Leelee
Who
writes fuck-hot, steamy sex
And
works out
In
tight ass Lycra and boob-hugging spandex
Long
wavy red hair
Beautiful
southern drawl
Hard
as nails and sharp as a tack underneath it all
The kind of girl I could take home to Ma .
. . and the kid. Fuck fuck fuck.
“Spot me?”
I almost fell on my ass when I heard her
request. I brought the barbell slowly to my shoulders and then lowered it to
the floor. “What?”
“Could you spot me?” Her face was flushed
from all the yoga cum Kama Sutra
contortions.
I groaned and pretended to massage a
hamstring to cover the quick jerk in my shorts. Jesus. I’d spot her all right, all the way down to the mats.
“Sure.”
She lay back on the bench after calibrating
the weights. I stood behind her, thighs opened on either side of her head. This
was a very bad position for me to be in. If things went south, my cock was
gonna end up in her mouth.
Through deep and determined inhales and
exhales while she pumped iron, she asked, “Did you get a chance to check out Ride?”
I tried real hard not to think about where
I’d left off reading: Jase and Avery desperate to fuck, yet deliriously as
cockblocked as me. Every hot word written by Leelee. I definitely couldn’t
admit I’d been about to tug my tackle over it either.
“Yeah, a little. Not bad.”
Leelee nodded her chin, signaling me to put
the weight back on the rack. As soon as she was clear, she swiveled up and
around. “Not bad?” She playfully punched me in the ribs.
I couldn’t tell her what I really thought,
so I shrugged. “The guy-girl thing doesn’t cut it for me, ya know?”
“Hmm.”
Leelee reserved her opinion on my opinion.
After that, we went around the machines
together. Sexual tension hovered on the sidelines, but it was broken down with
talking, teasing . . . and sweating goddamn buckets.
An hour later, we sat
against the wall, arms hanging over our knees.
“You remind me of my ’69 Camaro.”
I had an oilgasm every time I thought about the muscle car I kept babied in the
garage beside my house. Sleek, bright red, and just gritty enough, the car was
an American classic, like Leelee. Not like the fancy foreign made motors I was
making a fake career over.
I braced myself for the backlash.
The last time I’d said something similar was to Claire about her resemblance to
my full-sized Bronco. I meant she could handle anything, not her post-baby
weight. Shit got ugly after that.
“That was supposed to be a
compliment,” I added when Leelee made no comment.
Her smile was slow in coming but it lit me
up like the rays of the sun when it hit me. “I know. My daddy’s a gear-head. He
always wanted to get his hands on one of those. I grew up with my head under
the hood.”
Lovely Leelee, a tomboy in grease-stained
coveralls? Va va vroom and va va voom.
Damn if she wasn’t the woman of my dreams.
“You’re not the tough guy I first
took you for, Stone.” She patted my leg.
Begging to differ, I scowled in
response.
She poked a finger at my biceps
that didn’t dent a centimeter. “Frown all you want, I’m still not convinced.”
“It wasn’t a frown, babe, it was
a glower.” I jumped to my feet and hauled her up with me, catching her when she
stumbled.
Leelee’s lips brushed my
shoulder, her breasts skimming against my midsection. Her thighs hit mine as I
clasped her waist. “Steady now.”
