Chapter 11
I DID YOGA, MOSTLY BECAUSE in order to eat everything I liked and not weigh three hundred pounds, I had to do something.
I walked a lot. Living in a city like New Orleans necessitated it, but if I wanted to indulge in pralines and Erik’s beignets, I needed to do more.
Stretching, even adventure stretching like Meredith and I did at the yoga studio downtown a couple of times a week, was nothing compared to the kind of hell the personal trainer seemed intent on putting me through.
Apparently a session with the trainer was part of the new member welcome package.
The gift membership a client gave me was set to expire in a couple of months.
Despite owning a string of gyms and having the body to show for it, the man had been surprisingly reticent.
I helped him boost his confidence and the last I’d heard, he and his new wife were expecting their first child.
And I no longer had the excuse of being too busy with work to put off going.
“Push, push, push,” said the twenty-something drill sergeant in perfectly pressed flat-front chino shorts and a white polo with the club’s logo embroidered over what I bet was an impressive pec.
The stupid uniform made it impossible to know for sure, which was wrong on so many levels.
If I was going to do something that made me sweat so much and hurt so bad, I ought to at least have something nice to look at. Motivation and shit.
I pushed against the bar over my head, giving it everything I had, and watched it move all of two inches before I let go and it slid back to its starting position.
“That’s okay,” he said, more like he was trying to reassure himself than me that I’d eventually get it. “We’ll lower the weight and up the reps. In a couple of weeks, you’ll be hitting the top.”
I couldn’t think about doing this for a couple of weeks.
I’d rather be flogged by a firm full of accountants than spend that much time in the gym trying to make weights move for no good reason.
I let Commander Ken lead me through a series of leg exercises.
They were easier for me than arms and by the time we finished, some of his will to live seemed to have come back even as mine had seeped away.
I made it through a minute of plank and called uncle when we hit V sits.
“That was fantastic,” I said, trying and failing to hide the fact that I was gasping for breath. “Just great. Thanks for showing me around.” I struggled to my feet, ignoring my trembling legs so I could escape while I had the chance. I stuck out my hand to shake and after a moment, he took it.
I could tell by the confused expression on his face, he hadn’t been ready to finish. I kept my smile glued in place and he had no choice but to push for more or shake my hand. I watched him wrestle with the options before finally deciding to take my hand.
“Great job today,” he said with an amazing amount of generosity.
I arched an eyebrow at him and his can-do facade slipped for a moment.
He gave me a genuine smile. I might have worked harder if he’d shown me that instead of the rah-rah, push harder cheerleader stuff we’d been doing for the past forty-five minutes.
I thought about telling him, but it probably wouldn’t have made a difference and it seemed better to let both of us off the hook as soon as possible.
I needed a shower, but after all that time heaving weights around, I needed sustenance more.
I’d remember seeing something about an apres workout café.
I doubted they’d have anything as fortifying as a decent donut, but made right, a smoothie could be almost as good as a milkshake.
Not the chocolate or salted caramel kind but better than wheatgrass.
Making my way past the workout-driven minions to the mezzanine level, I placed my order for a berry smoothie, ignoring the look the girl behind the counter gave me when I asked if it could be made with whole milk yogurt and honey instead of agave.
Given her expression when she handed me the glass, I might as well have been asking her to smear butter on my thighs. With all the straining I’d done, I had to at least have worked off some yogurt. If not, I didn’t want to know. Ignorance is bliss and all.
I found a seat at the bar looking out over the machines below, and sucked a swallow of my full-fat berry extravaganza through the wider-than-normal straw.
At least they didn’t make it hard to get to the good stuff.
I could maybe even get used to this. I could sit on my barstool, sucking on smoothies for a couple of weeks and call it using my gym membership.
Of course, that would be going in the wrong direction where the size of my ass was concerned.
Ignoring the way my abs ached as I leaned forward, I scanned the crowd below.
If only people watching burned calories.
There was a guy—broad shoulders, great ass—pounding the treadmill like he was running away from something.
At this distance, it was hard to tell but it looked like he was wearing earbuds.
I wondered what kind of music he listened to that made him run like that.
Erik could probably run like that. He had the body for it.
I mean, I hadn’t seen all of it, but I’d felt a lot of it and I had high hopes for the rest. He wouldn’t run in a place like this.
Regardless of how high-end it might be, it was still too public for a man like Erik.
He probably had a treadmill in his loft, where he could run looking out over the Gulf.
My mind drifted from Erik running to Erik naked in the shower, washing the sweat off his completely lickable body.
Taking his heavy cock in his hand and running a soapy fist down the length.
I inadvertently sucked harder on the straw and coughed when I choked on the berry smoothie.
I should have tried to find a way to make our text me before you come arrangement reciprocal.
Even as I had the thought, I heard Jack Nicholson ala A Few Good Men, saying “You can’t handle the texts.
” Nicholson was right. I probably couldn’t handle knowing when Erik was getting off. What if it was with someone else?
The thought did uncomfortable things to a place deep inside my chest. And then it twisted itself around and a little slice of genius was born. I slipped my phone out of the nifty Lycra sleeve I’d gotten to hold it while I pumped iron and scrolled to the contact for Sir.
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YOU DON’T NEED ME TO TEXT YOU IF I’M HAVING AN ORGASM WITH SOMEONE ELSE, RIGHT? THAT WOULD JUST BE WEIRD.
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The reply came so fast; he must have been staring at the phone when he got the text.
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DON’T DO IT
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It would be easy to let him off the hook, but honestly, where was the fun in that?
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K. I WON’T TELL YOU
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NOT WAT I MEANT AND YOU NO IT
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If the typos were any indication, I’d succeeded in getting under his skin at least a little.
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YOU’RE A LAWYER. YOU OUGHT TO BE BETTER AT COMMUNICATING.
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The pause before my phone vibrated was so long I’d almost convinced myself he’d given up.
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I DO NOT WANT YOU TO HAVE ORGASMS WITH ANYONE ELSE.
NOT OPEN FOR NEGOTIATION. HARD LIMIT.
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His commander-in-chief tone would have pissed me off if I wasn’t so sure I’d riled him. That was still no reason to let him get away with it.
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I DON’T WANT TO SPEND THE REST OF THE DAY CLEANING MY APARTMENT. DUST BUNNIES DON’T CARE ABOUT THE LIMITS HARD OR OTHERWISE. SAYING A THING DOESN’T MAKE IT SO.
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DON’T TEST ME, KITTEN
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Again with the kitten thing. Yeesh, I ought to accuse him of being some kind of crazy cat man.
I was working out how to phrase it for the maximum amount of burn (and actively ignoring the way my pulse kicked up whenever he said it because I wasn’t anybody’s pet) when I shifted on my seat and almost fell off the stool.
I overcorrected and had to grip the counter to stop from landing on my ass and put a sizeable dent in my smoothie cup.
Taking it as a sign not to poke the sleeping tiger, rile Nicholson, or tempt karma in any other way where Jensen was concerned, I ditched the cup and shoved my phone back in the handy pouch without responding.
I got out of the club as fast as my abused legs could carry me.
The last thing I needed was an overzealous personal trainer catching me on the way out to try to schedule more weight-induced torture.
I needed food you had to chew. Smoothies were beverages, not meals, and I hadn’t been lying to Erik when I said I had to clean my apartment.
I wasn’t obsessive about it, at least not in a clinical way, but I needed to keep my spaces orderly. My life worked better that way.
I lived in an older building just outside the district, a couple of blocks from my studio.
With its cast-iron railings and long plantation shutters, I’d fallen in love with the place the first time I saw it.
It was so unlike where I’d grown up and practically oozed Creole charm.
It was also dusty, a little cramped, and it went from charming to hovel fast if I didn’t stay on top of it.
I’d been so preoccupied with the threat of the lawsuit and work worries, it had been too long since I’d given it a good cleaning.
I could probably write notes to myself in the layer of dust on the old dresser I used as a hall table.