gym skins begin her workout. She had short blonde tousled hair and when she glanced back at him, he saw big green eyes and freckles scattered over the bridge of her nose and cheeks, and a gap in her front teeth that bit her plump bottom lip. Cute.
Fifteen minutes into his workout, he picked up his pace. As he pushed faster on the pedals he noticed she did as well. The arms on their cross trainers swung back and forth in sync. He chanced another glance. She had her earphones plugged in and was watching the same music channel he was. He pushed his heels down harder and kicked his pace up again. And so did she.
Okay now, that can’t have been coincidental. He’d thought she was simply pounding the same rhythm to the music as he was, he kicked it again. Now he was running hard and she matched him. Damn, she was a little thing but she was fit. She had no trouble keeping pace with him. Was she grinning? He didn’t dare look directly at her. He was sweating buckets. The heart rate icon on the computer screen leapt into the purple zone and pulsed brightly—was that the exercise or the girl?
When his twenty minutes were up, the machine automatically lost traction, but she kept pounding away, never looking at him directly. He slowed to the pace of a light jog, and then stepped off the machine. Now he could get a good look at her. Not cute—hot as! Standing behind her, he could take in her narrow waist, slim hips, the flexing, well-formed muscles in her legs and arms. Hmm, real sweet.
He moved to a rowing machine and set it up for another twenty minute cycle; strapped his feet in, grabbed the handles and started to pull. This machine didn’t have a sound and TV system to plug into, so he contented himself with trying to beat the pace boat on the onboard screen.
Five minutes in, and ahead of the pace boat by a full length, someone settled in the rowing machine beside him. It was Green Eyes again. When he pulled back in his stroke, he could see her strapping her feet in. When he slid forward, she grabbed her machine’s handle and they both pushed back together. But his stroke was harder and faster than hers, so the rhythm they had was in opposition. When he was forward, she was back and he couldn’t see her. But when he was back, she was in front of him, and he could check out her perfect form, bent into the task of rowing, head down, puffing her breath out with each push through her legs and pull of her arms.
He wasn’t sure he had enough air in his lungs to have a conversation, but he was going to give it a go. “Are you trying to kill me?”
She looked at him blankly as he passed her, moving backwards.
He tried again. “I wondered if you were trying to kill me. I haven’t been in a gym for a while and you’re obviously used to this. I can hardly keep up with you.”
“Oh.” She passed him again, and on the next pass, she added, “No.”
“Good, ‘cause I think you could do it.” He slowed up, letting the on-screen pace boat catch him, taking the opportunity to spend a fraction more time behind her—watching her.
She was sweating heavily too. A rivulet of moisture trickled down her arm. He shook his head to clear the kind of thoughts that didn’t belong in a public gym, or a public anywhere, but made him want to lick her, like she was flavoured ice.
“Do you work out here often?” he said, on the pass.
She shook her head. Tucked her chin down to avoid him. She had to have known he was checking her out. He had about as much subtlety as sunburn.
He brought the rower to a stop and released the handles. He was defeated on the field of flirting, but he was still genuinely interested in her. “What do you do to stay so fit?”
She pulled harder. She was well ahead of her onscreen pace boat. “I don’t get distracted.”
Crash and burn. “Good on you.” Jake released his feet from the stirrups and stood. He laughed at himself under a swipe of his towel. He’d had more practice pushing women away than reeling them in on the last tour. On most tours. And how it showed.
He dragged the towel across his face