Chapter 3
Rhys
Who the fuck was the babe?
I wasn’t normally one to sport wood when a girl threw a drink at me. Usually that meant a date had gone completely south and she was making clear I had done something inexcusable, but this cutie? Big brown eyes, little freckles across her nose–I wanted to count every one–and best of all, red hair? Fuck, I loved red heads. I’d just gotten out of the shower and was ambling over to the office I shared with Drew to get some clean clothes when I collided with this hottie. My skin was sticky from the smoothie, but as I walked back into the men’s change room to have another shower, it was her I felt.
Her little hands mopping at my chest. Her eyes widening when she realised what she was doing. Those pretty pink lips opening just for me, making me want to push things between them, just to see how that’d feel. I could’ve let her wipe all this mess away, but even I wasn’t that much of a prick. Get her number , that need punched me in the gut, because it was the more acceptable one right now. A more primal side of me wanted to drag her under the showerhead I was now stepping under and see just how clean she could get me before I got her all dirty.
Fuck!
Working out always got me charged up, but her… This was something else. Her touch was like an electric volt pulsing through me, waking something I’d long thought had died a terrible death. It’d been years since I felt any sort of connection with someone, so I grabbed the soap, intent on washing up fast and getting back out on the gym floor. I’d intercept the babe on her way out and see if I could get her to go out on a date with me as an apology for the collision.
Then my hand slid down.
Fuck, what the hell was this? I was rock hard and aching, my hand finding the base of my cock without thought, as if that would ease the situation. It throbbed like a sore tooth, making clear my erection wouldn’t be going anywhere soon. With a hiss I slid my hand up and down the length, looking back over my shoulder to see if anyone was walking in.
I wanted her to. I wanted her to see what she’d done to me, that she’d made something flare back to life I hadn’t thought to see again. I wanted to see those brown eyes go wider as she saw what I was doing to the thoughts of her, then draw closer involuntarily. Her eyes on my body, taking in all my hard work, then growing hooded when they saw what I was doing. Yeah, I liked that idea a lot.
I wasn’t much of an exhibitionist, but I could be, for her. My hand moved harder, faster, the sensation so much more than the shitty, furtive wanks I took in my bed just so I could get to sleep. This was real, hot, amazing, and over far too soon, pleasure tearing through me as I erupted all over the bathroom floor. Taking a moment to catch my breath and then clean up, I was out the bathroom door and into the gym, scanning the floor for a sign of her, only to find it empty except for Drew.
“Where’d she go?” I snapped at my business partner.
He looked up and shot me one of those shit-eating grins that made clear he’d seen everything that happened.
“Which she?—?”
“Don’t fuck around with me.” Whoa, that came out way sharper than I expected it to. I sucked in a breath, then let it out slowly. “Drew, where did the girl that spilled her drink on me go?”
“Took off out of here like her arse was on fire,” he replied mildly, turning back to the computer screen. “What have I told you about traumatising new members?”
“Traumatising?” My brain replayed the moment at four times the actual speed and I shook my head. “Pretty sure she wasn’t traumatised by what she saw.”
“Well, Katie…” I stopped hearing what he was saying. My mind grabbed that name, declaring everything else extraneous. “…and she left.” He looked me up and down, as if he could see I was still half chubbed up after the exchange. “So, you can go throw some clothes on now. She’s not coming back to paw your naked chest today.” He frowned slightly. “Maybe not at all.”
Yes, she would. That innate sense that got me through everything was sure of it, so I just nodded, making a beeline for the office. I tossed the damp towel onto a nearby chair, something Drew would tell me off about later, before jerking on a clean pair of shorts from the boxes of gym merch we stored in here. Halfway decent, I jumped on the computer and did a very bad thing.
Client data was sacred. Mess with that, pass it out to other people, and you’d, at best, develop a reputation as a shitty gym and, at worst, face a criminal charge. So I really shouldn’t be scouring through the new members’ profiles, searching for hers. It was guilt that had me closing the files the minute the door opened, then opening a random webpage as Drew walked in. That knowing look made clear he knew exactly what was going on.
“So what’s going on, partner?”
He sat down in the chair opposite me, fingers forming a steeple, making clear he wasn’t going anywhere without an answer.
“She was hot.” Fuck, that sounded just about as convincing as a thirteen year old boy trying to deny he liked a girl at school. I let out a sigh and then scraped my wet hair back from my face. “Katie is hot and I dunno…” My foot tapped restlessly on the floor until I looked down and noticed it. “It’s a pretty dumb way to meet a girl, but…”
“You felt a connection.” Drew shook his head. “That hasn’t happened for a long time. Not since…”
We didn’t talk about what happened in my last disaster of a relationship. It was over and done with and I had moved on. Trying to make it work with a girl was hard enough, but when your two flatmates and best friends were openly sharing the same woman? Some people seemed to make poly relationships work, but I was definitely not one of them.
“No, it hasn’t.” I sat back in the chair, forced to press my body into the back, because it felt like my body was about to start vibrating on a cellular level with all the repressed energy I kept inside me. “So her name is Katie…?”
I was fishing for details and I didn’t care that Drew knew now. He sighed and scrubbed at his face.
“Her name is Katie and she’s Mandie’s sister.”
“Mandie…?”
That was unexpected. She was an awesome chick that had come through our door after getting hassled by guys in another gym. I admit, influencers took a little wrangling, but there was a way to keep them and our regular clients happy. While I know plenty of the guys were desperate to catch her eye, she wasn’t my type.
Katie, however…
It wasn’t just that she was fucking hot, because if she thought she was hiding that body under that baggy t-shirt, she had another thing coming. I shifted restlessly, replaying my memories of the glimpses I’d taken. Those tits, that arse, those thighs, they’d made it impossible to even register the smoothie dripping down my chest as I fought to take all of her in. The girl was one of my wet dreams come to life and somehow she’d ended up barrelling into me.
Almost as if it was written in the stars.
“Katie, huh?” I grabbed my phone from where it was charging and pulled up my contacts.
“Just cool your jets for a sec,” Drew said. “There’s more. Katie… she’s getting over a bad break up.”
“The best way to get over a guy is to get under another one, right?” I tapped out a quick message to Mandie, asking for Katie’s number. Drew was scowling at me when I looked up. “I’m just talking shit, you know that. I’m hardly fuckboy material. I just…”
The guys, they always put shit on me for making up whole scenarios in my head after just meeting a girl, but I couldn’t seem to stop when I thought of Katie. That feeling when she touched me, it was a sign, right? Our dreams of a poly relationship might’ve died a horrible death, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t find love on my own.
“I just want to take her out, show her a good time, and if she says no, I’ll respect that.”
But she wouldn’t. Somehow I could just see those pink little lips returning my smile and then saying the one word I wanted from her. Yes, over and over, yes.
“Yeah, you will.” He walked over and gave my shoulder a shove. “Or we will be having a chat. A long, very detailed chat about consent.”
“Won’t need it.” As I jumped to my feet, the phone buzzed and one look at the screen let me know Mandie had texted me back. “Me and Katie? We’re a match made in heaven. We’ll be telling our grandkids about the smoothie you made that brought us together, just you wait.”
“God, you’re annoying when you’re into someone.” His smile made clear he didn’t really mean it. “But… it’s nice to see you back in the saddle, brother. It’s been a long time.”
I grinned and then opened the text from Mandie.