His for the Taking

by Julie Cohen

  Where’s your white charger, Sir Nicholas? she tried to say, but nothing came out but the now-familiar squeak.

  ‘I was going to come after you right away, but I figured you needed some space to calm down so I went back to the apartment and waited for you. I sat on that damn couch all night waiting for you to turn up. And I know you’re a grown woman and I know you live in New York but I was worried about you and you’re lucky I didn’t turn up here at 3:00 a.m. to make sure you were all right. I was on my way at 3:00 a.m, as a matter of fact, but I figured you’d probably assault me.’

  He stopped, and looked at her. ‘Why aren’t you interrupting me?’

  She opened her mouth. Squeak.

  The corner of his mouth twitched. ‘Have you lost your voice?’

  Zoe nodded, grudgingly.

  ‘Ha!’ Nick threw his head back and slapped his thigh. ‘Zoe Drake has lost her voice and can’t tell me to shut up!’ He sat on her couch, a look of huge enjoyment on his face. ‘I think this is my lucky day.’

  Zoe glared at him, her hands on her hips. She stomped into the kitchen and got down the whiteboard and pen she used to write herself notes. She rubbed off a shopping list with her cuff as she went back to the living room, and then wrote on the board and held it up for Nick to see.

  ‘You are incredibly annoying.’

  He laughed. ‘Does this mean you haven’t calmed down since yesterday?’

  She rubbed and scribbled. ‘Forget 3:00 a.m., you’re in danger of being assaulted right now.’

  He didn’t seem bothered by the threat. He looked around her living room, bare and functional as usual, tidy except for her shoes on the floor. ‘Where’s all your stuff?’

  She furrowed her brow in an obvious question.

  ‘You know. All your clothes and handbags and fashion magazines and all that other stuff women always have all over their houses.’

  Don’t be stupid, her look said. He nodded, seemingly in approval.

  ‘Fine. Listen. I want you to know that I kissed you because I’m attracted to you. Plain and simple.’

  For a minute, she almost believed it.

  Plain and simple. He wanted her as she wanted him. She had lightning-fast visions of joining him on the couch, sinking her fingers into his damp, curling hair, and kissing him back as hard as she’d wanted to yesterday. Pulling his T-shirt over his head and seeing his bare chest, close up this time.

  ‘And you looked like you needed to be kissed,’ he added.

  The visions vanished. She remembered being close in his arms, and him yawning. She remembered how he took off his clothes in her presence as if he hadn’t noticed she was a red-blooded female. She remembered the damn pigeon.

  She’d needed to be kissed.

  It was just another rescue mission.

  ‘In fact, I’d really like to do it again. But only if you’re interested.’

  Do it again? If she was interested? The visions of kissing him and stripping him came stampeding back into her brain and she had to grit her teeth not to throw herself onto the couch and plaster herself all over him.

  She needed to think of something, and fast, before she let herself become the charity case she’d sworn never to be.

  And then she thought of something.

  She rubbed off what she’d written on the board and wrote rapidly, concentrating on the words rather than him sitting there, big and male and gorgeous and inviting her to kiss him. She finished and turned the board to face him.

  ‘Okay, lover-boy, if you’re so hot to help me out, I’ve got something you can do for me.’

  Nick, reading, raised his eyebrows.

  ‘I’d be happy to,’ he said, and his voice made her think of bedrooms, caresses, sweat.

  ‘Good,’ she wrote. ‘Let’s go. We don’t have much time, and you need a pair of sneakers.’

  Nick watched as Zoe placed a brightly coloured plastic box in front of him on the polished gym floor.

  ‘What’s this?’ he asked.

  A step, she mouthed. She demonstrated by climbing onto it with her sneaker-clad feet, and then stepping back off.

  ‘What am I supposed to do with it?’

  She gestured at the sheet of instructions she’d written out for him on the subway to Manhattan and while he was changing into clothes he could exercise in.

  The first class is step aerobics, and the second is a toning class. All you have to do is follow along, do the exercises with me, and when I nod at you, call out what I’ve written on this sheet so everyone knows what’s coming next.

  ‘You call this exercise? Stepping up and down on a plastic box?’

  She just looked at him. There was a glint in her eye that he wasn’t sure was good for him. It was pretty incredible, how she could communicate without any words.

  And she could let her body talk to him any time she wanted to, he thought. She was wearing Lycra shorts that showed off her perfect hips and backside, and her beautiful toned legs were completely bare. When they’d reached the midtown gym she’d taken off her big sweatshirt to reveal a tight sleeveless top. The whole outfit didn’t leave much to the imagination, although his imagination was working overtime anyway.

  Nick was wearing a T-shirt and shorts and if he studied Zoe any more his arousal was going to be obvious to the entire class, who were starting to come into the room. He watched the plastic box instead as he moved it around with his foot.

  ‘I guess in New York you don’t have mountains to climb or trees to cut down,’ Nick said, trying to distract himself. ‘Plastic boxes are probably the best you can do.’

  Zoe snorted and went back to sorting through CDs. The students were mostly women, Nick noticed, all of them fit-looking, though nothing compared to Zoe. All of them greeted Zoe as they came through, and gave Nick the once-over.

  Nick didn’t mind being in rooms full of women. He liked women. Still, he was relieved to see a few men among the people setting up steps. He’d never been much of a gym person; even in the winter he preferred to exercise outdoors, cross-country skiing or snowshoeing. He didn’t think he’d ever been in a room like this, a dance studio with mirrored walls and full-length windows looking out at the Manhattan street below. The men made him feel a little bit less as if he were in an alien world. He smiled and nodded at them.

  Zoe signalled the start of the class by putting on music, a high-energy dance track, and taking her place at the front of the room. Without a word from her or him the class fell into step together, jogging in place behind their steps.

  Nick was situated at the front of the room, diagonally to Zoe so he could watch her, and so that the class could hear him. He started jogging in place, too. Although he doubted he’d get much of a workout, he might as well make the most of it since he was here; he’d been cooped up so long in the city that his muscles could use some action.

  Plus, if he was lucky, it would tire him out enough so that he’d have a little bit less sexual energy. He seemed to like Zoe better and better in every outfit he saw her in, and he was spending a whole lot of time thinking about her in no outfit at all.

  Zoe nodded at him and he read off the sheet he held in his hand. ‘Twenty basic, right foot,’ he said, and immediately the class began to step in time onto their boxes and off again.

  What a weird way to exercise. There were hundreds of sky-scrapers; surely New Yorkers could climb up and down steps whenever they wanted to.

  There was a plus to this kind of exercise, though. He watched Zoe step energetically up onto her box, and then back down again. The action tensed her thigh and calf muscles, and the movement made her breasts bounce under her snug top. Nick moved up and down to the rhythm of the music, unable to take his gaze away from the tantalising rhythm Zoe’s body was creating.

  She clapped her hands, and Nick blinked. He raised his eyes from her chest to her face and saw her nodding at him.

  ‘Oh.’ He looked down at the paper he held. ‘Twenty basic, left foot.’

  The class switched
feet without missing a beat. Nick had to think about it, but within seconds he was stepping with his left foot and doing his best not to let himself stare at Zoe’s chest again. He tried looking past her, but the mirror behind her gave a perfect view of her buttocks flexing and tightening.

  Hell. Imagine her walking up the stairs in front of him. On their way to a bedroom. Her backside at eye level. Imagine sliding his hand over her curves, down over the swell of one buttock and around her firm thigh.

  Zoe clapped again and he nearly stumbled as he held up the paper. ‘Three knee-lift repeater,’ he read, and, though that made absolutely no sense, the rest of the class immediately stepped up onto their boxes in time and lifted their knees three times in a row.

  Yeah. He could do this. He stepped up and lifted his knee and then saw that the rest of the class had moved to the other side of their steps and were doing the same thing with the other leg. By the time he got to the other side of the step, the class was going back to their first position.

  He looked at Zoe. She was grinning like a madwoman, and her breasts were still moving in that wonderful way. When she lifted her knee he could see the inside of her thigh.

  Nick missed the step completely and landed hard on the floor, jolting his ankle.

  He scrambled to get back into the rhythm of the exercise, but as soon as he’d lifted his knee again he heard Zoe clapping, and had to read out the next instruction. And then the next. And the next, all of which seemed to be in a code everyone but him understood.

  This wasn’t easy. This was torture.

  Nick had to watch his feet because if he didn’t, he’d fall off the step again, but if he didn’t watch Zoe, he’d miss his cue. But if he watched Zoe, he looked at her body moving and he thought more and more about her body moving with his, the athleticism she’d take to sex, and the minute he thought about that he felt his penis hardening and then he stumbled even more. Sweat dripped from him; he had to blink it out of his eyes and that made everything even worse.

  ‘Around the world,’ he gasped to Zoe’s nod. Everybody skipped over their step, arms circling, and Nick groaned. The music was building to a climax. Nick watched Zoe launching herself into the air and wished he were building to a climax, too.

  It seemed to last a muscle-burning, ankle-twisting, arousing eternity before the music finally slowed and the exercise pace calmed, back to easy steps and finally to stretches. Nick saw on the sheet, incredulously, that this section of the class was called the ‘cooldown’.

  Zoe stretched forward, her long leg extended behind her along with her arms, a posture that thrust her breasts forward towards him. Her nipples were erect underneath her shirt and sports bra. She seemed to be sweating a whole lot less than he was, but her face and neck gleamed. He imagined the taste of salty moisture on her skin.

  This wasn’t even remotely like a cooldown.

  The end of the CD and applause from the class told him the session had finished. He mopped sweat off his forehead with the bottom of his T-shirt and silently thanked God.

  ‘How’d you like that?’ It was a male voice with a heavy New York accent.

  Nick pulled his shirt down off his face. ‘It was pure hell,’ he said to the person who’d spoken to him, one of the guys he’d smiled at in solidarity at the beginning of the lesson.

  The guy laughed. ‘Zoe’s great, ain’t she? You not used to this kind of workout?’

  ‘I’m not used to anything in New York.’

  ‘What kind of workout you usually do?’

  ‘Chasing animals, lifting rocks, that sort of thing.’ He filled a cup from the water cooler at the front of the room and drained it in one gulp.

  ‘You interested in going for coffee?’ the guy asked.

  Nick, mid-gulp of his second cup of water, noticed for the first time that the guy was looking at him with more appreciation than friendliness.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said, ‘but I’m not around for long.’

  The guy shrugged. ‘No harm in asking. See ya.’

  As he moved away Nick saw another person, this one female and brunette, approach him. ‘Since you didn’t say yes to Carl,’ she said, smiling, ‘how about coffee with me?’

  ‘Uh. Thanks. But as I said to Carl—’

  ‘You’re not around for long.’ The brunette’s eyes darted to Zoe, and she smiled knowingly. ‘Sure. Have a good time.’

  Nick let out a long breath as Zoe came over. Her smile was devilish, and her eyes sparkled. She wasn’t winded at all from the exercise.

  ‘NewYork is crazy,’ he said in answer to her raised eyebrows. ‘I’ve never turned down two dates in two minutes before.’

  She pressed her lips together as if she were stifling a laugh, and handed him another sheet of paper. Then she picked up a pair of dumb-bells from a container on the floor and gave them to him. Three minutes till the next class, she mouthed, and went back to her CDs.

  Nick sank down on the plastic step, wiped his face again, and wished he were in the woods.

  ‘That’s it, folks.’

  Zoe heard more than a note of relief in Nick’s voice. Surreptitiously, she watched him as he returned his gym mat and dumb-bells to the boxes at the front of the room.

  He was fit. Very fit. His shorts revealed legs roped with muscle, and whenever she’d caught a glimpse of him lifting a weight she’d just about gasped. He wasn’t used to gym exercise, because he didn’t know any of the moves and he had to work out twice as hard as everyone else in the room to get it right and then keep up. Still, he hadn’t stopped. His T-shirt was soaked with sweat in deep Vs on his front and his back, in a way that Zoe found distractingly sexy, but he wasn’t puffed.

  Zoe packed away her own CDs and her own mat and smiled to herself. He hadn’t enjoyed it. Whenever she’d glanced at his face, he’d looked as if he were trying out that thumbscrew collection on Xenia’s wall. But he hadn’t complained, and he hadn’t given up. He hadn’t really had to do every exercise, but he had done. And he’d followed her instructions to the letter.

  It was just the kind of damn noble guy he was.

  ‘Bye, Zoe!’ said the last of her class as they left, and Zoe waved at them from her crouching position on the floor. She heard the door shut and then she knew without even looking around that she and Nick were alone, because the room seemed hotter and paradoxically smaller.

  ‘Well, that was fun,’ Nick said, from over near the door, and she heard him walking closer. She concentrated on zipping up her gym bag. Exercise always warmed her blood, made her feel good. Made her feel sexy. And that was dangerous with Nick around.

  You hated it, she mouthed, and he laughed.

  ‘It was different from the stuff I normally do, but then again, everything’s different in New York.’ He was standing right next to her, and she could see his strong, hair-roughened calves. She thought about his shorts; they covered him, but there wasn’t a whole lot of spare material. She turned away and began fiddling unnecessarily with the CD player, just to give herself a few minutes to calm down before she looked him in the eye.

  ‘We need to talk,’ Nick said. She did look up at him then, and pointed at her throat.

  ‘Okay, I need to talk, and you need to listen, because I’m desperate here. We didn’t finish our conversation this morning. About why I kissed you. About how attracted I am to you.’

  Her heart had slowed down after the exercise; now it began to race.

  She stood and shook her head, waving her hand in a dismissive way. Of course standing up meant that she was closer to him, close enough to touch. Close enough to smell clean sweat and the cotton of his T-shirt. Close enough to see the stubble on his chin and the darkness of his eyes and to feel the heat of his body.

  ‘Are you shaking your head because you’re not attracted to me, or because you don’t believe that I’m attracted to you?’

  How the hell was she supposed to answer that? Especially with no voice? She swallowed.

  ‘Let me make it simpler. Are you attracted
to me?’

  Lord, he was so close and she couldn’t possibly think. Zoe retreated a step and felt her back pressing against the mirrored wall behind her. Nick stepped forward. His face was too intense, his eyes too dark and deep.

  She should make a smart answer. She should protect herself.

  She couldn’t.

  She dipped her gaze to escape and found herself staring at the base of his neck where his T-shirt met his skin. There were a few strands of curling hair. She could see his pulse beating strong.

  Zoe licked her lips, imagining despite herself the taste of his skin.

  ‘That’s the answer I wanted,’ Nick said, his voice soft and low, and he leaned forward, each arm braced on the mirror behind her, and kissed her.

  This man’s mouth was perfect along with everything else about him and now that he was touching her Zoe officially lost her mind.

  She kissed him back.

  CHAPTER NINE

  SHE WAS GREEDY, greedy, and she opened her mouth to him and kissed him as if she were devouring him. Nick made a sound of surprise and pleasure in his throat and that made her hungrier. Her tongue swept against his, feeling the strength in his kiss, the smooth hardness of his teeth.

  She pressed her hands against the mirror behind her, curling her fingers on the glass. She wanted to touch him, not just with her mouth but with her hands and her whole body, but the wanting was too powerful, just with touching his lips with her own. It would take her over.

  But his kiss, dear God, it was perfect. He began gentle and then responded to her own ferocity. She took all she could, bit his lip and smoothed it with the tip of her tongue, let her sense of taste and smell be overwhelmed by him, the rasp of his stubble on her chin, the saltiness of sweat on his upper lip.

  Nick, she thought, I can even taste how kind you are.

  When he broke from her they were both panting raggedly. He only moved his face a fraction from hers and she could feel his breath hot on her wet lips.

  ‘Do you believe I’m attracted to you now?’ he asked.