Chapter Ten - Royal
As far as I know, nothing turns up when it comes to Hawthorne and his search of Abby’s true identity, which means everything she told us was true. A good thing. I don’t think we’d be able to progress at all if she’d lied. Lying would have been a very bad sign.
No room for liars in this house.
I’m in the basement, working out two days later when Abby slinks in the room and takes a survey of the area.
All the weight machines, the hand weights, the treadmill; everything one could possibly need to keep in shape.
I note the workout clothes she wears, too: a matching set of light pink joggers and a tank top that hangs loosely on her figure.
And you know what? She looks fucking good. In those clothes, with her hair pulled up in a messy ponytail… yeah, she looks good. She looks too good to ignore.
We aren’t supposed to get close to her like that, but I’m a man who’s increasingly growing weaker and weaker as the days go by.
The more I see of her, the more I fucking want her—and the more I just don’t understand why we can’t mix some pleasure with business.
If she’s going to join the team, that puts her on a different level than every other woman outside of this house.
Hawthorne should understand that, right? If we were to… you know.
Fuck.
I’m laying down on the bench press, working out my chest and biceps as she saunters over and eyes me up and down. Or, more accurately, eyes me from head to toe. She must like what she sees, because a sly grin tugs at her lips.
And those fucking lips? Full. The kind of lips that I bet are soft as fuck.
A minute passes, maybe two, and I finish my set of reps and then slowly sit up and face her, my legs on either side of the bench, knees spread wide.
Don’t mean to brag, but the position definitely showcases what I’ve got packing between the legs.
Whether or not she notices, I can’t say.
If she does, she keeps her cards close to her chest.
“Can I help you?” I say as I wipe off the sweat from my brow.
Abby’s grin widens, and she flashes me a perfect set of pearly whites.
“Yeah, I thought, since you’re clearly the muscle-head of this house, you could show me some exercises.
If I’m going to go out with you, I need to pump these muscles up.
” She demonstrates said muscles by flexing her arms—and while she is somewhat toned, not flabby in the slightest, she also doesn’t have much muscle definition.
“You want to work out?” I can’t help but sound incredulous. If she’s doing this to get closer to me, she doesn’t need to bother. As far as I’m concerned, if she asks for it, I’ll get up right now, close the door to the basement, barricade us in here, and take her on a one-way trip to poundtown.
What would Hawthorne do, if I did? What could he do? We don’t kill women. We do what we do because we lost women who were important to us. Even the mysterious Benefactor wouldn’t go against our code and tell us to kill her, so what kind of punishment could there really be?
I know what the consequence for trying to quit the team would be, but I don’t think getting close to Abby would merit that kind of finality.
“Is that so shocking?” she asks, giving me a pout that is too damn cute to belong in this house. With her pastel-colored hair, she is quite the specimen. Oh, yeah. I really would love to bend her over every which way, see what that body of hers is really capable of.
She can get her hands dirty, we know that much already. It isn’t too far-fetched to think the rest of her can be just as dirty.
“Maybe it is,” I say. “But if you’re serious, I can show you a few.”
“Mmhmm, I bet you could.” You’d have to be deaf to not hear the desire in her voice, the way she takes on a sultry tone. When she says it, it’s damn near impossible for me to ignore it and pretend it didn’t go straight to my dick.
It’s been a long, long fucking time, okay? A hand just doesn’t cut it the same way. Up until now, I was more than willing to make that sacrifice, but now that Abby’s here, now that she might join us permanently… well, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to not think with my other head.
I get off the bench, and I make sure to do so in a way that places me directly in front of her, mere inches between us.
I tower over her; she’s short, maybe five feet tall, give or take an inch.
Her face reaches my upper chest, and she has to crane her neck back to keep hold of my stare.
Those gray eyes of hers do drop for a split second, taking me in anew, and she runs her tongue along her bottom lip in a gesture that is way too fucking tempting.
Fuck, this one. How the hell am I supposed to stay away?
The air between us is thick with electric tension, the kind that sparks flames.
The moment we give in, it’ll be over, I know it.
I know it in my heart of hearts, and it’s the only reason I’m able to step aside and say, “Lay down on the bench.”
“Uh…” She puckers her lips as she glances at the weights on the bar. “Call me crazy, but I don’t think I can bench—what is that? Two hundred?”
“More like three,” I correct her. “But don’t worry, we’ll start slow. The bar itself weighs forty-five pounds. I’ll spot you, in case you can’t do it.”
It’s more than evident she has no idea what I’m talking about, because she sounds suspicious as she moves toward the bench and says, “Okay…” The word stretches on, like she’s afraid to let it go, and only when she finishes saying it does she lay down and I get to work on taking off the round weights off each end of the bar.
Only when the bar is free of the weights do I move to stand at the top of the bench. “Scoot down a bit,” I tell her, and she does as I instruct. I take the bar and move it down two notches, since her arms aren’t as long as mine. “Now keep your shoulder blades together as you pick up the bar.”
She squares her shoulders and then reaches for the bar, although she doesn’t go to pick it up right away. “Man, this feels weird. Are you sure about the shoulder blades thing?”
“Yep. You need to have the right figure if you want to work out the correct muscles and not fuck anything up in the process. Believe it or not, you can lift wrong. A lot of beginners do.”
“Whatever you say.” She lifts the bar, and in the process of bringing it down, she loses the correct posture. I can see it in the way she tenses up as that bar lowers to her chest.
I pick up the bar, helping her push it up. “See? You felt that in the wrong spot, didn’t you? You want to work out the muscles in your upper arms and chest with this, not the shoulders and neck. You’ll have a sore-ass neck tomorrow if you keep doing it wrong. Try it again.”
This next rep she does slower, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Better to do things slowly and correctly than quickly and wrong when it comes to weightlifting. I wait to scold her on her figure again, but what would you know? Doing it nice and slow means she does it right.
She struggles somewhat as she lifts the bar, and I catch it with my hands to give her a break. “That was good, much better. You’re a fast learner.”
“That’s what they say,” she says with a grin. “You’re not a bad teacher, either, so I’m sure that helps.”
I coach her through an entire set of reps, and she does her best for each one. On the seventh rep her arms shake, and I can tell she’s seconds from losing grip on the bar and letting it come crashing down onto her chest, so I take it from her and set it on the stand.
“Let’s try some dumbbells,” I say, offering her my hand as I move around the bench, not thinking twice about it, and she must also not be thinking twice, because she takes my hand and lets me pull her up.
It wouldn’t mean anything if she was literally anyone else, but since she’s not… since she’s Abby, our little complication, our little killer, it’s more than that.
Her hand? Fucking soft. Too soft. So much softer than mine it’s unreal. The very moment her hand slips into mine, it’s like I short-circuit and lose my train of thought.
A moment passes, and Abby asks, “Is this a workout, too? Hand-holding for bodybuilders?” Though she jests, she doesn’t take her hand out of mine, and the depths of her gaze twinkle as she says it.
I drop her hand and move away from her. If I don’t, I might get other ideas, like locking us both in here and getting sweaty in a whole new way. God, those particular muscles of mine could use some stretching.
I have to keep my distance from her as I bring her to the rack of dumbbells, and though I coach her on her form for a few different exercises using the smallest dumbbells we have, I attempt to keep my gaze averted off her as much as I can.
Fuck, this is hard. This is so, so hard. If I’m not careful, I’ll be sporting a hard-on for the world to see. Or Abby, since she’s the only one in the room.
By the time I’m finished showing her what she can reasonably do on her own, she’s covered in sweat. A pity, as I can think of another way we could’ve gotten her all sweaty, but again, the moment we cross that line, there’s no undoing it. I want to, and she’s clearly down for it all, but…
There shouldn’t be a but, and there’s not, not really. Not like there is with Ezra.
“That was nice,” Abby says, totally unaware of where my thoughts are. “Thank you for your wisdom when it comes to working out. Maybe someday I’ll look like you.” She giggles. “Well, then again, maybe not.”
“No problem,” I say. There’s a good ten feet between us right then, and it suddenly feels like too damn far. Too many feet. Too much distance. That scares me a little.
Even when I did date way back when, before all this, I couldn’t remember a time when I was fully in it, when I wanted nothing else.
It’s not just an itch to scratch; maybe it started out that way when Abby first mentioned things off-handedly, but now?
Now enough time has passed that it’d be different. It’d be more than that.
She’s more perceptive than she should be, a reason why she got away with the things she did up until we stumbled across each other, because she cocks her head at me and innocently asks, “You seem out of sorts, Royal. Something on your mind? Want to share with the class?”
I force out a chuckle, but it comes out stilted. “Nothing at all is on my mind, Abby.” I make sure to say her name, just like she said mine. The more I’m around her, the more I don’t know whether or not she’s playing a game or if this is really just who she is.
It’d be easier if this was a game to her. I could always write it off as a no-strings-attached kind of thing. If there are real feelings involved? No amount of excuses would ever be enough.
Feelings are what get you caught or killed. Feelings are something people like us need to avoid.
She moves closer to me, holds her hands behind her back, and says with a smile, “Liar.” And that’s all she says before she walks away, leaving me to my thoughts and the confusion growing deep inside.
I shouldn’t, but I turn to watch her go—and I hate to say it, but my gaze does drop to that ass of hers. And, damn it, when Abby reaches the door to the stairwell, she stops and tosses a glance back at me, as if she knew I was watching her go, and then she winks before ascending the steps.
Yeah, she fucking winks.
Oh, fuck. She’s not going to make this easy on me, huh?