Love Her or Lose Her (Hot & Hammered #2) - Tessa Bailey Page 0,18

unlocked the driver’s-side door and slid in, she frowned, shifting her butt around.

It was forty-something degrees outside. No way the seat should have been so warm. As if someone had been sitting in it before her. Between her red coat appearing on the hook and this, she was starting to feel like the protagonist in a psychological thriller.

Physics had never been her strong suit in high school, especially because Dominic had sat behind her all semester, whispering in her ear when the teacher’s back was turned, but maybe the beginnings of sunlight coming through the windshield had heated the seat? Seemed unlikely, but the alternative was that someone had been inside her car.

With a frisson of panic slipping into her bloodstream, Rosie leaned back to make sure there wasn’t a seat-warming murderer camped out in the backseat. Finding it empty, she faced forward again with an eye roll and started the car. Rosie reached down and pinched the skin of her forearm, relieved to feel a jolt of pain. The lack of sleep was obviously taking a toll.

There were very few cars on the road as Rosie drove to the gym and parked in the rear lot. Itching to blow off some steam, she flashed her membership card at the sleepy teenager manning the front desk and headed straight for the cardio section. Normally, she would store everything in a locker, but since the gym was empty, she left her coat in a neat pile in front of the treadmill, popped in her headphones, and started running.

She had to make a decision today. Was she going to give Dominic a second chance or not? And if the answer was yes, did she have the strength or will to make an effort?

As if thinking about her husband had conjured him, a movement in her peripheral vision turned her head—and there he was, just on the other side of a floor-to-ceiling partition that separated cardio from weights. She almost tripped over her own feet, her hand slapping down on the treadmill’s emergency stop button, before stepping off the treadmill on shaky legs.

Dominic hadn’t seen her yet, but the sweat staining the back of his T-shirt told Rosie he’d been there for a while. He finished a set of biceps curls, then fell onto a bench press without taking a breather, his hips straining off the black leather every time he heaved the bar up. There was so much weight on either end, the bar appeared to curve ever so slightly. And when she heard the low rumble of his grunt, right before he released the bar back onto the rack, it sounded so familiar, her nipples tightened into points inside her sports bra. Yes, sir, she knew that grunt exceptionally well. She usually heard it in the dark, amid the creaking of bedsprings and her own screams.

Those were the thoughts in Rosie’s head when Dominic sat up and they locked eyes across the gym. His surprise melted into outright hunger almost immediately. It was so potent and visceral, it almost knocked her back a step.

Damp warmth spread along the seam of her yoga pants and she could hear her own breath rasping against her eardrums. So, no—running a mile hadn’t done anything to alleviate the sexual frustration. And now her body’s tormentor was mere yards away, looking much like he did after one of their Tuesday-night marathons. Sweating, muscles prominent, intensely focused on her.

Why couldn’t there be one single other person in the gym? A buff buffer, perhaps? Damn that new CrossFit that had opened in the neighboring town and left this place empty in the mornings when it used to be reasonably busy. Being near her husband when she was this needy wasn’t at the top of any good-decision lists.

When one corner of Dominic’s mouth lifted in a smirk, Rosie realized she was returning his intense focus and then some. As she watched, he caught the hem of his drenched T-shirt in one hand and stripped it off over his head, revealing a glistening wall of packed, ink-draped muscle. Never taking his gaze off her, Dominic scrubbed a palm over the mountain range of his abdomen, letting his hand drift down, just beneath the waistband of his sweatpants, dragging them down a single inch—and a hoarse sound left Rosie’s mouth.

Based on Dominic’s reaction, it might as well have been a gunshot. He was off the bench while the noise still hung in the air, closing the distance between them. Whatever thread