Page 16 of Betting on the Bad Boy

Faith

I looked over,a scowl on my face. Of all the empty machines in the room, and some guy had to pick the one right next to mine?

“Oh, it’s you,” I said, noticing Dante.

“Yeah, nice to see you again too.” He pushed the button, increasing his pace.

I sped up, breaking out of my jog into a full-fledged run. Too bad we weren’t outside where I might have a chance of actuallyoutrunning him. The last thing I needed was more face-to-face time with the man who’d been haunting my dreams.

I’d tried declaring thoughts of Dante as off-limits, but my head kept going there… again and again and again. And now here he was in the flesh—a distracting mountain of muscled, tempting, eye candy flesh.

“Thanks again for letting me use your shower the other night. I’ll get your clothes back to you as soon as I have a chance to wash them.”

“No rush. Sorry again about getting us locked in the storeroom.”

“Don’t worry about it.” I glanced over at him, taking in the loose-fitting tank top. My gaze lingered on his well-defined biceps before roving down to appreciate what I could see of his abs from the side. What did the rest of him look like? No matter how much I tried not to, my imagination had been doing a pretty good job of filling in the details since I’d last seen him.

The sight of so much exposed skin on the machine next to me sent my pulse into overdrive. Beads of sweat broke out on my forehead, and I wiped them away with my towel.

“So, you come here often?” he asked, matching my pace.

“Really?”

“What?” He turned his head my way.

“Are you trying to pick me up with your best line?”

He chuckled, sending a rush of warmth to my chest. “No. Definitely not.”

“Wow, you don’t have to be so firm about it.” I cringed as the word “firm” left my lips. Please don’t let him crack a joke at my choice of words. Maybe my mind operated in the gutter, but I could twist just about anything into sounding like something dirty without much effort at all.

“Firm?” Brow raised, he nudged his speed up a notch.

I groaned. Nope, not getting away with that one. “I just meant?—”

“Look, you made it pretty clear the other night you weren’t pickupable.”

“Forget it.” Pickupable? My internal English snob stuck her nose in the air, ready to dismiss the conversation altogether.

“Let’s try again. I haven’t seen you working out at the gym before.” He lifted his chin, indicating the expectation of a response.

“I usually run outside, but I tweaked something last week and figured some weightlifting might help strengthen my legs.”

“Well, that explains it.” Dante nodded.

“Explains what?”

“Take a look around. See anyone else working out in a bikini?”

What a dick. I furrowed my brow and scanned the room. So what if I was one of only a handful of women in a room full of serious lifters? “It’s a free country, right?”

At that moment, Murph walked over to the treadmills and put his hand on the front of my machine. “Hey, Faith, I see you’ve met my friend Dante.”

Wonderful. Nothing could make this moment more awkward than adding another bundle of testosterone. “Hi Murph. Yeah, we, um, actually met the other night,” I said.

“The other night, huh?” Murph narrowed his eyes.

“She and her friends stopped in at the bar,” Dante said.