“Cool. He must be good. You look great.”
Violet’s stomach cringed at the loaded compliment. She’d lost a whole five pounds since they’d started working out together, five pounds that were composed of flushed water weight and maybe some fat in between her toes. When she looked in the mirror the only difference she saw was in her face, and that change had nothing to do with her weight. Her typical scowl, the creases of worry that were a constant part of her appearance because something was always on her mind, was replaced by this dreamy smile. Even early in the morning, she couldn’t stop smiling, thinking about Grant. But that smile was gone now and Faye knew nothing about it. Did she usually look like shit? Was she missing some other superficial change in her appearance, or was that just something you’re supposed to say when you know someone is getting off their ass and eating a little better?
“Thanks,” she said anyway.
“Does he charge a lot? I like Pinks, but I’m getting kind of bored over there.”
“Uh, yeah he’s a little pricey.” Violet told Faye the amount she paid for the month. And maybe she tacked on another two hundred dollars.
“The fuck! Can you afford that?”
“It’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.”
“You think he’d give us a discount if he trained us together? Patrick said I can’t dip into the Paris fund anymore. We’ll be vacationing at his parents’ house in Lancaster if I keep at it.”
Christ, what did she have to do to get Faye off Grant’s scent? “Uh…”
“Finally!” They heard Jonathan screech from the other room. His outburst of triumph saved her from another lie.
“Let’s go see what that’s all about.” Violet grabbed a couple glasses and a large bottle of water, then led Faye, with her pitcher of pear juice, out of the kitchen.
CHAPTER SEVEN
7
Day 13
Grant was waiting for her on the dark street, backlit by the lights coming through the gym windows. Max was by his side, waiting patiently for them to get his walk started. Violet dragged herself from her car, exaggerating her exhaustion. She reached Grant and leaned against his chest, looking up into his dark-blue eyes.
“Can we skip the walk and go right for the sauna?” she whined.
His free hand rose to the end of her ponytail and he gave her hair a gentle tug, pulling her head back just far enough so he could lay a soft kiss on her lips. “We walk and then I’m taking you someplace special. But if you want the sauna that bad—”
“No. We can go someplace special.”
“I figured you’d say that,” he said, before kissing her one more time.
They started walking, but in a different direction this time. Instead of heading south toward Melrose Avenue they headed north, up La Cienega. The walk was longer this time, that much was obvious when Violet found herself walking with Grant down Santa Monica Boulevard. The streets were busy, as the streets of West Hollywood were every night. Bars, restaurants, and convenience stores open for business for the inhabitants of Los Angeles who were getting their weekends started a little early. Or enjoying their last night off before they worked the weekend.
They passed by several construction sites, new “luxury” apartments taking over lots, as the population boom and limited space for sprawl caused the city to build up instead of out. Being smack between a mountain range and an ocean would do that.
For a couple blocks here and there they were quiet, just soaking the night in, but most of the time they talked. Violet told Grant more about their casting clusterfuck. Grant asked her how she ended up in reality TV; the million dollar question, since she had moved to Los Angeles to work in entertainment news. She confessed to her childhood obsession with Entertainment Tonight and then went on to explain what she was told about the job security in producing that type of news.
There would always be red carpets and gossip, even when the industry was going through a creative lull, one of her professors at Emerson had told her when she’d disclosed her plans to move West. She told Grant how the only work she could find when she arrived was as a production assistant on an MTV dating show. That’s where she met Faye. They’d stuck together, climbing their way up from coffee fetchers to producers in a few short years. Here she was now, producing cooking competition shows and trying to shed the additional weight she’d added to her already chubby frame.
When they circled back down La Brea to Melrose, Violet realized just how long they’d been gone. Her legs were feeling the mileage and she’d developed a nice sheen of sweat in the seventy-degree night air, but she didn’t mind. She’d walk around with Grant and his big dog, talking all night long if they wanted to.
On the corner of Kings Road and Willoughby they stopped so Max could evaluate the trunk of a tree. Violet looked up at Grant. He looked back at her and she felt a sudden urge to hold his hand.
“I don’t feel like I’m working out when I’m with you,” she said. “Every fitness professional I’ve ever met is just Go, go, go. Sweat, sweat, sweat. Cry, cry, cry. Even when Margaret said you were a softy, I was expecting you to make me cry at least once. How’d you—how are you not a dick?”
“I’ll take that as a compliment. I don’t know, I guess I just like to treat my clients like people and not dollar signs. I think I got it from my parents.”
“They’re big hearted fitness experts?”
“No. They run a nursing home in Florida. They’re kind of known for actually caring about the people who live there on an individual level. They raised me to respect the process of being kind and patient, you could say.”
“So this is how you treat all old people?” Violet said, squinting at him.
“Oh yeah. I had an eighty-year-old in the sauna just last week. I rocked her world.”
“I’m sure she’s grateful. But yeah, you’re pretty cool. I thought I would hate exercising with you. I know we have to step it up soon, but I like that you’re going slow with me. I honestly didn’t know trainers like you existed.”
“We do. You want to know how far we’ve walked tonight? Five point three miles.”
She hadn’t run a marathon, but Violet was impressed with herself and even happier with the realization that the distance was one she could easily tackle again. She wasn’t a Pump Fit champ, but she enjoyed the hell out of these tiny achievements.
“Last time I walked that much, Faye tricked me into doing some 10K fun run. It was not fun.”
“You’re not warming me up to this Faye person,” Grant replied, as his brow knitted together in a frown. “We’re about a half mile from the gym. We can head back or we can stop here.”
Violet looked in the direction Grant quirked his head, across a short lawn to a four story residential building. It looked relatively new with its boxy construction, brown and green exterior and steel accents. “What’s here?”
“My place.”
“Don’t you need to lock the gym up? And what about my car?”
“Armando is there and your car will be fine overnight, but we can go get it if you want.”
Violet was not about to change the course the evening had suddenly veered on to, even if Grant had to drive her to the impound lot later. “No. It’s okay. Show me your place.”
✶
There was a heavy glass door that Grant opened with a code, a short flight of steps leading down into an open courtyard complete with trees, stone benches, and a small fountain, then another long flight of stairs before Grant brought Violet to the short, private hallway that led to his front door. Max nudged his way past her, as Grant opened it to let them inside.
Violet cursed under her breath. “Okay, clearly I’m in the wrong business.”
“Reality TV not paying its weight in gold?”
“Not exactly.”
The condo was huge, an open floor plan that joined the kitchen, living room, and dining area into one large space. It was well decorated, for being owned by a single guy in his thirties. Most of the guys V
iolet knew lived with roommates or their significant others. Their places were either trashed, constantly taking on the look of a frat house with a revolving door or their girlfriends/wives had the run of the joint and feminine influences could be found wall-to-wall. Grant’s place definitely had a masculine feel to it. Several pieces of industrial art hung on the walls, rusted metal works crafted from chains, old car parts and pieces of scrap metal. His furniture matched. The dining room set near the kitchen was the same unfinished wood as his coffee table and an oversized rocking chair near the TV. His couch and the armchair and ottoman opposite it were a dark-chocolate leather.
He had other furniture that Violet hadn’t quite expected. Like the giant armoire that had its doors secured open, revealing shelves decorated with picture frames and miscellaneous trinkets. And, of course, Violet recognized Max’s plaid doggy bed. Blankets of a similar design were draped off the back of the couch and the rocking chair.
She took the glass of water Grant offered her and watched him as he refilled Max’s food bowl.
“Armando and I made a lot of smart business decisions. Don’t be fooled by the look of the place, though. I didn’t do any of it. I had a client who was an interior designer and he insisted on helping me when I moved in last year. He even framed pictures my parents sent me.”
Suddenly a sleek, black cat appeared from behind the couch and made its way over to Violet. He wound a path between her feet, purring loudly as he rubbed against her leg. She reached down and gave his head and back a thorough rubbing.
“You have a cat?” Violet said, asking the world’s most obvious question.
“That’s Bill. I got him and Max the same day.”
“It’s a lot of responsibility to take on at once. I don’t even keep a goldfish.”
“Hey, goldfish are hard to keep alive. I went through a bit of a wild streak and my mom told me to get a dog. She knows I wouldn’t neglect an animal and it would force me to slow down before I ran off to Vegas or somewhere to do stupid shit. While I was filling out the paperwork to bring Max home, some lady at the shelter was talking about the lone survivor of Bill’s litter, so I took them both.
“That’s so sweet.” Violet abandoned Bill to look around some more. She stopped at what was clearly a gold record plaque for what looked like a five member pop group that had a name she didn’t recognize. She also didn’t understand what it was doing on Grant’s wall. He could have found it at a garage sale. Failed artists were always selling personal treasures to keep their heads above water. But the frame on this piece seemed pristine and cared for, and its position on the wall seemed to be special. Was he that into music?
She looked closer at the guys in the picture and in the middle—she had to blink twice—in the middle, hunched, with his arms around his bandmates, was a lanky, baby-faced Grant. He looked so different without the five or so inches of height, the thirty pounds of muscle, not to mention the full beard he’d grown in the sixteen or so years since the picture had been taken.
Violet covered her mouth to muffle her girl-screech of disbelief. “Is that you?!”
Grant came over and looked at the plaque. “Yes.”
“You. Were in a boy band called First Base?”
This time Violet actually stumbled back, her lips still covered, as Grant started to sing.
“My heart, it’s true, girl, belongs to you, girl. The days, the nights apart. You don’t know what it does to my heart, when I’m not with you. Girl.”
Violet couldn’t believe her eyes or her ears. It was frightening the difference some well-manicured facial hair could make, but his voice? Grant had one of the most beautiful singing voices she had ever heard.
“I have never heard that song,” she confessed. “But wow.”
Grant shrugged it off, as if his vocal skills were no big deal. “It was a lifetime ago.”
“What happened?”
“I did the whole wanna sing, wanna dance, wanna act thing when I was a kid and then I got sucked into the boy band machine. Artist development takes a long time. They test you in different markets, swap out band members. We had one hit in Europe, but we just missed the craze here. The record label dropped us and that was that.”
“But how’d you go from this to owning a gym? I’m missing something in the gap.”
“That just sort of happened.” He shrugged again, making Violet want to shake him for downplaying his accomplishments. She worked to pay the rent and stay in the industry, but Grant had stories to tell and she wanted to hear them all.
“Starting a successful business doesn’t just sort of happen. Tell me,” she said.
“After my career as part two of a five-part adolescent harmony didn’t work out, I moved back to Florida with my parents and tried to go back to school.”
“Florida didn’t hold the cultural appeal of Paris and London?”
“Not really. I wanted to sing, so I moved out here and quickly realized that my dreams of being a white R&B singer were not going to pan out. The group thing was still hot and executives saw me more as a face than a voice.”
“So you started turning tricks?”
“Close. I started modeling. Sort of.”
“Does that mean you actually did porn?”
“No. I worked for this company that hired semi-nude models to work as living statues and servers at parties. That’s how I ran into Armando. And how I ended up being a Dominer.”
Violet smiled. “You know you like that word better. Admit it.”
“I do, but don’t tell Mando that.”
“So?” Violet wanted more details.
“We both got hired to be eye candy at this bondage-themed party an actor was throwing. He contacted a real dungeon master to give it an authentic feel. That man, Philip, everything he set up for the guy was just for show. Nothing kinky even happened. Well, with us anyway. Some people fucked in various rooms, but that’s typical Hollywood shit. We just had to stand around in leather jock straps and chest harnesses and hold trays, but after the party Philip heard Armando and I talking about wanting to get into the bondage scene for real. He invited us to meet some people, participate in some scenes and, after a while, he was training us both to be Dominants.”
“You really have to train for that? It’s just extra crazy sex, isn’t it?”
Grant stepped closer and wrapped his arms over Violet’s shoulders. The contact left her conflicted. She wanted to rip his clothes off and she wanted to hear the rest of his story. If only they could do both. His hand was in her hair in the next second, tilting her head back in a gesture Violet was starting to crave. His gentle control was so freaking sexy. She looked from his eyes to his golden brown mustache as he continued to talk.
“Sometimes it doesn’t even involve sex. Mainly I needed to learn how listen to my partner, how to anticipate their needs, when to push, when to stop, when to walk away altogether. Anyone can have extra crazy sex, but if I’m tying you up and whipping you, I want to make sure we both enjoy the experience, and also want to make sure you don’t need therapy afterwards.”
“Is whipping people your favorite thing to do?” Was that something she was willing to do?
“No. I like control, Miss Ryan. I like controlling where you sit, where you stand, where you lie down, when you speak and when you’re silent, when you come and just how hard.”
“Oh, I see. You like bossing me around and making me miserable.”
“Something along those lines. Are you too tired to play?”
Her body surged with heat and that seemed to be the answer she was looking for. Still, Violet wasn’t dumb enough to ignore the words Grant had just said. This BDSM stuff was really serious to him. She was pleased he approached it with such practical caution and consideration, but she wasn’t sure how deep those waters truly ran and if she was willing to test them. She exhaled lightly, and took her own cautious step. “What do you have in mind?”
Grant crossed the room and unhooked what Violet thought was a piece of art on
the wall. A length of chain uncoiled and two long metal bars slowly dropped from the ceiling a few feet away from the couch. Grant beckoned her closer as he separated the two bars. One he held in his hand and the other still hung from the ceiling.
Violet examined the bar that was still suspended. It looked sturdy enough. Each end had a small metal hook. “Hands up here and…?”
Grant pointed to the floor. “Feet spread apart here.” Violet pictured herself tied up just so, naked, she guessed, with her arms suspended over her head and her thighs unable to close. Had it been anyone other than Grant looking at her with those big, sweet eyes, waiting patiently for an answer but silently praying that she would be open to this experience, that she would be open to trusting him, she would have said no. But it was Grant and she did trust him. Though she wished she had called Faye or someone to let them know where she was. If he really planned to, say, tie her up and keep her prisoner or kill her, Faye would at least know where to start looking.
“It’s safe, right?” she asked.
“Yes. And I told Armando where we were going. If for some reason I drop dead and you’re still chained up here, he’d come by looking for us by tomorrow night, at the latest.” She could tell he was teasing about the last part.
“Sure. Let’s do it. Can I freshen up a bit first?”
“Bathroom’s right through there.” He pointed down the hallway. “Just leave your clothes in there.”
The pep talk Violet gave herself lasted the length of her super-short shower. Grant liked her. He enjoyed her body just the way it was. He’d already made her come like crazy and hopefully tonight they would finally have sex. It was okay for her to be a little nervous, but there was no need for her to be afraid. This was something new, a new part of this new life she was trying to create for herself. More than just new dresses and a tighter stomach. This new life had long walks and great sex. She was facing something that shined brightly with excitement and she wanted to embrace it.
When she walked back out to the living room, completely naked and dry except for her damp hair, she found Grant had changed into jeans and a t-shirt. Digging through the bottom drawer of the armoire he pulled out a cordless vibrator, two pairs of cuffs and a strip of black fabric.
FIT: #1 in the Fit Trilogy Page 7