Jake glanced down at her. ‘I need to take this. Think you can stay out of trouble for two minutes?’
Liz. Wasn’t that the name of the woman who’d given him the birthday card? Roma looked at him closely. A break right now would probably be a really good thing. ‘I’ll try.’
She watched him walk away, and her gaze naturally zeroed in on his tight butt.
Naughty girl, her conscience reprimanded. That could be his girlfriend on the phone.
Or it could be just another client wanting to hit on him, her inner devil argued. Besides, not watching that yummy backside would be a crime.
Letting out a puff of air, Roma stared at the ceiling. She had no idea what his availability status was. At least without him hovering over her, she had a chance of getting her body under control. He’d been flirting with her – no doubt. But really, one little casual touch and she was reacting like this? Come to think of it, though, it hadn’t just been one touch. He’d stripped her in his office. Measured her bust line. Tugged down her panties.
Ms Tiny Boobs walked by with a sneer, and Roma felt her face flush. Oh, God. She hadn’t just moaned or anything, had she? Trying to cover her embarrassment, she reached up for the handgrips. She needed to work off some of this sexual energy before he got back – because if he did have a girlfriend, she was in big trouble. Taking a breath, she gave a push.
Nothing.
She let out a grunt. It was tougher than she’d expected. The woman who’d been on this machine before hadn’t looked like an Amazon. She slid upwards on the bench to get a better angle. Again, she gave a push, this time with more emphasis.
The bar moved, but the weights clicked when it came right back down.
‘Hmmfff.’ Not good. She needed to get serious about this. Jake had reminded her of an important fact. She only had three months to accomplish her goal. She slid up on the bench, braced her feet against the floor, and gave a heave.
The weight went up. She gritted her teeth and growled until she managed to straighten her arms.
There! One rep! She let the bar come back down and reversed directions to try a second, but it was just too heavy. It was all she could do to stop the weight stack from banging as it dropped back to its starting position.
How much weight was on this thing anyway? She turned her head to look.
‘Ouch!’
Yowza, that hurt. She reached up to the base of her ponytail. What in the world? Hell’s bells, her hair was caught in the weight stack!
A little frantic, Roma followed the path of her stuck hair. A good portion of it was jammed between two weights. She wrapped her fist around the ponytail and gave a tug. It wouldn’t budge.
She sighed. She was going to have to lift the weights again to get loose. Resuming her position on the bench, she copied what she’d done before. She dug her heels into the floor and gritted her teeth. With an unfeminine growl, she pushed.
Nothing.
She’d used all her energy lifting it the first time. She was well and truly stuck.
Crap! If she didn’t do something quick, Jake was going to find her like this.
He’d warned her to stay out of trouble.
She looked around for help. Where was Tito? She winced when she turned her head and saw him at the front desk. Not an option. He was too far away. She stared again at the ceiling. What to do? What to do? Neither her angel nor her devil voice had any suggestions. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw somebody sit down on the machine next to her.
‘Excuse me,’ she called.
The person didn’t respond. ‘Could you help me?’ she said more loudly.
She turned her head further, suffering through the pull on her hair, and finally caught a glimpse of the guy. Instinctively, she pulled back.
It was a sweaty tattooed man – and a big boy weightlifter, at that. Talk about imposing. Not only was he huge, but his head was shaved as smooth as a billiard ball. A barbed-wire tattoo wrapped around his massive bicep and another graced the back of his shoulder. From her position, she couldn’t quite decipher the artwork, but it looked like some sort of an animal.
He was wearing headphones, so that was why he hadn’t heard her cry for help. Did she dare try to signal him again? Well, it was either him or Jake. She didn’t know how many more times she could embarrass herself in front of her hunky trainer before she’d be forced to move out to the country and live in a hidey-hole.
She lifted a hand to tap the frightening stranger on the shoulder. It was all the more frustrating now that she’d worked up her nerve, she found she couldn’t reach him. There he sat, seemingly in a daze. Her hand fluttered towards him, missing him by only an inch. She tried snapping her fingers, but that didn’t work either. His attention was riveted on something else. Braving going bald herself, Roma lifted her head.
Missy was walking by.
She opened her mouth to call for help.
‘What in the world have you done to yourself now?’
Jake was standing close when Roma’s head whipped towards him. Her eyes were wide with surprise, but they quickly narrowed when her ponytail pulled tight. She let out a cry and reached up to her head.
‘It’s not what you think,’ she said weakly.
He’d seen her predicament the moment he’d stepped out of his office. ‘I think you tried it by yourself while I was gone, and you got too close to the weight stack.’
Her face flushed a million shades of red. ‘OK, so it is what you think.’
He shook his head. ‘Two minutes. That was all I asked for.’
Dropping his clipboard to the floor, he moved so his legs straddled both her and the bench. The shock on her face told him exactly what she thought of that move. Interesting. He wrapped his hands around hers on the handle grips. ‘We don’t try machines until somebody shows us how to use them properly, OK?’
She looked like a chastised puppy. ‘Sorry.’
‘You’re lucky you didn’t give yourself a concussion.’ He gave a little pull, and the stack lifted easily. She immediately liberated her blonde strands. He settled the weights back down to their resting position. ‘How’s your head?’
‘Sore,’ she mumbled. She started to roll off the bench. He blocked her with his knee. ‘Hold on there. You haven’t completed the test yet.’
She looked up at him in disbelief. ‘I still have to do it?’
‘I’ll be here this time,’ he said. He leant over her to lighten the load and heard her inhale sharply.
‘Could you move, please?’
He could, but he wouldn’t. ‘I think I’ll stay right here to spot you.’
‘But you’re right on top of me.’
‘Just where I want to be.’
Her face flushed crimson, but she wrapped her fingers around the grips. Fierce determination tightened her face, and he could almost feel her heels digging for the foundation of his building. Her back arched off the bench, and he immediately placed his hand, palm open, on her stomach. She dropped flat as a pancake.
‘What are you doing?’ she said, exhaling like a pricked balloon.
‘Don’t arch like that. You could hurt yourself.’
He’d liked the look of her straining body, though. With her stiff nipples, it gave him all kinds of fascinating ideas.
He let out a long breath. Unable to remove his hand, he rubbed her stomach. Damn, he liked touching her. Her skin felt incredible, all warm and soft.
Her teeth bit into her full lower lip, and she glanced down at his hand. When she realised he wasn’t going to move it, her eyelids drifted shut. She seemed to call upon some inner strength. Her hands tightened and she pushed upwards on the handlebars. The weight stack lifted, but only a short way.
‘Why don’t we drop this to something more comfortable?’ he suggested.
‘Yes, why don’t we?’ She sighed.
Time and again, he made her lift the weight until he found one that challenged her, but didn’t cause any undue stress. He worked as slowly as possibl
e, but eventually, it was time to let her off the machine. Satisfied with her effort, he bent down to retrieve his clipboard.
‘Are we done here?’ she asked, her pulse pounding visibly in her throat.
‘Yeah. That’s it.’ His heart rate was elevated, too, and he had to concentrate to make sure he marked down her numbers correctly. His pen skidded across the page, though, when he felt her move.
She was like a snake. Apparently unable to stand being trapped by him any longer, she took her one avenue of escape. Instead of rolling off the bench, she chose to shimmy down it. Like a champion limbo player, she went underneath him. He gaped as she slid right through the arch of his legs without even brushing against him.
Quickly, he looked over his shoulder. She slid until she was on her knees on the floor behind him. Then she simply pushed herself up to a standing position and brushed off her hands.
Stunned, he looked at the only other witness to the contortionist display. Hawk sat on the machine next to them, gaping at Roma with just as much wonder. A sly smile crossed his face, and he pulled one side of his headphones off his ear. ‘Limber little thing, isn’t she?’
Jake shrugged. ‘I guess I can skip that flexibility test.’
Hawk shot him a horrified look. ‘Are you crazy?’
‘Good point.’ Jake stepped over the weight bench and crooked his finger at his favourite new client. ‘You. Goldie. Follow me.’
Chapter Four
He was watching her again.
Missy could feel Hawk’s gaze on her as she walked by. His stare glided over her from head to toe and an uneasy but familiar thrill settled in the pit of her stomach. It began its slow burn, and she licked her dry lips. Every time. Every darn time.
She made herself keep walking, overly aware of the way her hips swayed and her breasts bounced in the confines of her bra. It was always this way with him. He stared and her body would start gunning its engines. He’d never said a word to her – not so much as a hello – but she was more aware of him than anybody else in the gym. How could she not be? That much testosterone was impossible to ignore.
Especially when it was all being thrown in her direction.
And especially when it made her feel so sexy.
Too sexy. The man’s blatant carnal interest made her nervous.
Ignoring him as well as she could, she walked to the front desk. She set her backpack on the counter and pulled on her ski jacket for cover. It didn’t help. She could practically feel his fascinated gaze slide down to her butt. Her thighs clenched together in unconscious reaction.
‘Hey, Tito,’ she called anxiously. ‘Can I get my cheque?’
Poor Tito. He hadn’t seen her coming, and she’d startled him. He jumped so high, he nearly came right out of his tennis shoes.
‘Sorry,’ she said automatically.
‘Keep your pants on, would you?’ he said, holding his hand over his heart. ‘Jake signed cheques this afternoon.’
Missy tapped her fingernails on the counter impatiently. Keeping her pants on was exactly what she was trying to do.
Unhurriedly, Tito searched through his keys. He unlocked a cupboard behind the desk and pulled out the moneybag that was stored there. He unzipped it and flipped through the cheques until he found hers. ‘Here it is.’
‘Thanks,’ she said, snatching it out of his hands. She put it in the front pouch of her backpack. That covered what she needed for her half of the rent this month. ‘Can I see the schedule for next week? Trisha asked me to cover her Pilates class on Wednesday.’
‘What’s your rush tonight?’ he asked as he passed her the clipboard. ‘Hot date with the boyfriend?’
Boyfriend. She had one of those – one of the live-in variety, in fact. Why did she seem to forget that every time she set foot in this place?
‘Hot date with my kinematics book,’ she said. ‘I’ve got a test tomorrow.’
And she was going to have a devil of a time studying for it if she didn’t get her thoughts centred. She hooked her hair over her ear and concentrated on the schedule. She inhaled sharply, though, when she felt Hawk’s interest focus on the side of her neck. She could almost feel him nuzzling her there, his short moustache and goatee brushing against her skin.
‘Something wrong?’ Tito asked.
Her hand shook as she passed him back the clipboard. ‘Uh, I didn’t realise I had three classes on Saturday.’
‘Want me to ask Jake if you can switch?’
‘No. It’s all right. I need the money.’
And she needed to get out of here. She risked a glance at her admirer and found him staring right at her. Their gazes collided and she felt his essence like a punch in the chest.
Tito gave a chuckle. ‘That Roma’s a pistol, isn’t she?’
Missy blinked and for the first time realised what was going on behind Hawk. It looked as if Roma had gotten tangled up in the bench press machine and Jake was giving her the ‘what for’. ‘I like her. They’re going to be fun to watch together.’
‘I’ve got a feeling she’s going to give Jake all he can handle.’
Missy knew a thing or two about that. She didn’t even know how to begin to deal with Hawk. She glanced at him quickly before her gaze skittered away. He was the kind of man she’d expect to find in a biker bar somewhere – the kind who’d be comfortable because he knew he was the meanest, toughest son-of-a-bitch in the place. Her belly began twittering with excitement all over again. She stopped it by swinging her backpack onto her shoulder and letting it smack her in the middle of the back.
What she really needed was a good smack upside the head. She had no business messing around with a guy like that.
Roma suddenly slipped out of Jake’s clutches, and Hawk’s attention was diverted to the commotion behind him. Missy saw her chance to escape and she took it. ‘Thanks, Tito,’ she said as she turned towards the door.
The night air was bitterly cold when she stepped outside, but she inhaled deeply. The sub-freezing temperatures cleared her head and cooled her overheated body. Stuffing her hands into her pockets, she headed to her car.
The nip in the air quickly became uncomfortable. She ducked her chin and hurried her footsteps. It had been rush hour when she’d arrived, and she’d had to park all the way across the lot. The area wasn’t well lit, and she could feel the tips of her ears going numb. Wishing she had a remote starter, she ran the last thirty feet. She unlocked the door, threw her backpack on the passenger seat, and hopped inside.
‘Brrrr,’ she said, her body giving a dramatic shudder. Winter could leave any day now. She’d had enough of it.
Still shivering, she pushed her key into the ignition. She couldn’t wait to get home and make some hot chocolate. Health nut or not, it was her one vice. On a night like this, she was going to imbibe. She might even add a marshmallow or two.
Well, maybe not. She’d hate to get crazy or anything.
She turned the key, and the engine gave a hesitant whrrrrr.
‘Huh?’ She looked dumbly at the dashboard. The lights hadn’t even come on. ‘Oh, no. Don’t do this to me.’
She tried again. The engine coughed, but finally took off. Her shoulders sagged in relief. ‘Oh, thank goodness.’
She looked at the gauges. The lighting seemed dim but, more importantly, she was low on gas. That was a problem she could fix.
She rubbed her hands together and blew on them. She hoped the car warmed up soon, because the steering wheel was ice cold. Gripping it with her fingertips, she pulled out of the lot and drove to the nearest gas station. She shivered as she pumped fuel into the tank. By the time she got back behind the wheel, her teeth were clattering. That hot chocolate was sounding better and better.
Ready to go home, she turned the key in the ignition.
And got nothing.
Her heart sank. ‘Come on, baby. I know it’s cold. Just start for Mama. You’ll warm up soon, I promise.’
Sending up a silent prayer, she tried again.
&
nbsp; And all she heard was a click. The car was dead.
With a groan, she leant her forehead against the steering wheel. ‘Damn.’
The cold soon gave her a headache, and she slumped back into her seat. What now? She looked back into the convenience store, but the only person she saw was a greasy-haired clerk. She shuddered. She wasn’t asking him for help. Chewing on her lip, she glanced around. She wasn’t anywhere near a bus route. She sighed. She’d have to call Danny to come get her.
‘Double damn,’ she cursed. He was at his weekly poker game – the one he couldn’t afford, but refused to give up.
She reached for the car door handle and gave it a yank. She only had one other option; she’d have to call Jake. He was her boss, but he was also her friend. He’d help her. Climbing out, she slammed the door behind her and headed for the pay phone.
This was just what she needed.
After making the call, she sat in her car waiting for help. Waiting in the warmth of the convenience store would have been more comfortable, but with the way the greasy clerk was looking at her, she’d rather freeze. After a few minutes, a big pickup truck pulled up to the pump in front of her. The headlights pointed right at her, blinding her. She shielded her eyes, hoping that the driver would turn them off while he got gas.
Only the driver didn’t head to the pump. Instead, he came towards her. Squinting, Missy tried to make out the man’s features. Was that Jake? Already?
The big body was a dark outline as it walked between their vehicles to come up to her window. Hesitantly, she rolled it down a few inches.
‘Is there a problem?’
Her hand stopped dead on the window controls.
It was Hawk.
And his voice was so sexy, she thought she might just melt into the driver’s seat. It was deep and smooth, perfect for late-night radio.
‘Missy?’
Her hand dropped limply into her lap. The way he’d said her name was like a caress. ‘My car won’t start,’ she said weakly. ‘I called for Jake.’
‘He’s busy with Blondie, so I came instead. Any idea what the problem is?’
High School Reunion Page 6