Page 11 of Boys Who Taint (Spine Ridge University #5)

Apollo

I lift myself from the floor on my fingers alone and keep my breath controlled as I go into a set of planches, lowering my body to the floor again without touching it.

Ignoring the girls sprawling at the window near the gym is tough, but a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do to make it work.

Privacy while trying to execute this move is impossible when you’re all muscle like I am.

The girls just can’t get enough of this piece of meat.

But my meat is only interested in one thing, and it’s currently walking into the gym doors as we speak.

The mere sight of her breaks my concentration so easily that I have to place both hands on the floor and lift myself into a full handstand on fingers alone.

Otherwise, I’ll fall on my face and embarrass the living hell out of myself.

So much for discipline.

The girl with that gorgeous red hair, button nose, and pink lips that make me want to lick the gloss straight off. Aspen Caruso.

She throws her towel over her shoulder and sets down her water bottle near a bike, before she jumps on, and fuck me, that ass is so goddamn round and juicy as it fills the seat that I have to do a double take. Juicy enough to instantly make my mouth water, my God.

I get back to my feet again and do a stretch and crack on my fingers as I watch her get to work on the bicycle. She’s going faster and faster until her lungs nearly crash out, and sweat pours from her glands. I’m starting to wonder what’s gotten her all worked up like that.

A smirk forms on my face as I approach.

“Hi there, Freckles.”

“Don’t call me that,” she retorts, ignoring me.

“Should I call you fat cheeks instead?”

Her jaw drops, and she throws me an incensed look.

So I tilt my head and say, “I didn’t mean your face.”

My eyes slowly slither off to her thick butt below.

She pulls off her towel and smacks me with it, right in the face.

I take it like a man.

“Keep your eyes to yourself, thanks,” she says.

“I prefer keeping them on you, where they belong.”

“Don’t you have anything better to do?” she asks while she continues biking.

“Other than staring at you? No. Never.”

She’s getting more and more annoyed by my presence, but it only eggs me on further.

“I’m busy.”

“I can tell,” I reply. “This is the first time I’ve seen you in this gym. Why start now?”

“How would you even know this is my first time?” She scoffs.

“Trust me, I would’ve noticed.”

She rolls her eyes but keeps on biking anyway just because she can, and I kinda admire her enthusiasm to keep ignoring me, but it’s not going to work.

“I need to exercise,” she explains. “So if you could pl—”

“For what? Those perfect hips don’t need any.”

She gasps, and the air catches in her throat.

“I’m just saying, there must be a reason …” I muse.

“None of your business,” she retorts.

“Why are you so mad, Freckles? Have I done something to offend you?” I ask.

“Existing,” she says with a stone-cold face.

I fake a knife going into my chest. “Don’t hurt me. I’m sensitive.”

She frowns. “Who are you kidding?”

“You. Is it working yet?” I joke, winking.

“You’re as sensitive as a rock,” she says.

“Hard as one too.” I flex my arm. “Wanna feel?”

She makes a face. “Are you trying to compensate for something small?”

Oooooh. Burn.

“I don’t know. Wanna find out?”

She rolls her eyes and groans out loud. “Can you please let me work out?”

“Of course. And we can chat while you’re working out those fantastic buns,” I reply.

Her scrunched-up face is magnificent.

“Did you forget your family is not supposed to talk to mine?” she asks.

“Why?”

“Levi?” she hisses like I don’t already know. I just enjoy seeing her get riled up.

I chuckle. “Freckles, I may be a Torres, but I am technically not his family. We’re only cousins.”

“Are you dense? Or just willfully obtuse?”

“The latter. But my side of the family did nothing wrong. We’re not involved with any of that mess, and I don’t take responsibility for anything Levi does,” I reply, leaning on her machine. “And as far as I know, nothing about you is forbidden to me.”

Her eyes widen, and she swiftly rubs her own face with the towel to hide the blush. But I noticed.

Someone knocks on the window, and I glance sideways to the three girls waving at me while excitedly hopping.

Haven’t they had their fill yet? How many times are they going to beg me to twiddle their clitties before they finally have enough and leave me alone? I have other priorities now.

“Don’t you have a harem to entertain?” she says, glancing at them too.

Damn.

“You want me to entertain you? You got it.”

Her jaw drops. “Hello, I did not say I was part of your little gang of admirers.”

But I’ve already moved back to my spot again, and am thoroughly enjoying the hateful darts she’s sending me as I begin doing pull-ups on the bar.

All the way to the top with my chest and back again, losing one finger at a time, until all that’s left are my two middle fingers and her wide-open mouth.

Good girl.

Keep that mouth wide open for me, and I will make you drop to your knees while you’re at it.

All in due time.

Aspen

“See something you like?” Apollo asks.

Oh my God, does he ever stop?

I just want to get into shape so I can fight off whoever comes at me next, but Apollo just can’t stop budging in, and it’s pissing me off.

It doesn’t help that it’s hard to look away as he attempts another stunt while doing his calisthenics routine. His perfectly toned body is to die for, and he knows it.

But I’m here for a workout, to get strong so I can fight off whoever it is that snuck into my room, because I know he’ll come for me.

I grab my phone and force myself to avert my eyes and focus. It’s time I switched from burning calories to building muscle.

Wiping my face with the same towel I smacked him with, I jump off the bike and walk to the kettlebell area. I glance over my shoulder and watch him drop down the bar, patting down his hands. He looks around, and I swiftly turn my head back again so I don’t lure him.

“Lifting weights? Unnecessary.” His voice alone signals his arrival.

Goddammit.

“Not if you want to get stronger,” I reply. “You should know. You do it every day, ’Roid.”

He frowns. “I do not do ’roids.”

Oh, that’s what offends him?

“Then how’d you get so pumped and veiny?” I retort, picking out a kettlebell, but I nearly drop it on my foot because it’s so heavy.

He intervenes right in time, stealing it from me with just a single finger. “Like this.”

Arrogant son of a— “Show-off.”

“I can teach you if you want. But first, I want to know why you’re interested in my veins all of a sudden.”

“I don’t remember asking for a tutor,” I reply, stealing the kettlebell back.

Even though I have to lift it with two hands, I can still raise it to my stomach. If only just to show him I don’t need him to watch over me.

“I can teach myself, thanks.”

He chuckles like he thinks it’s cute. “Start here.” He snatches the kettlebell out of my hand and gives me another one that’s much lighter.

“This isn’t heavy.”

“It’s not supposed to be.”

“Then how am I going to get strong enough?”

“Strong enough for what? A competition?” He grabs some weight plates and pushes them onto the bar. “A fight?”

I put the kettlebell down and stare at him for a second before I return to lifting.

He’s fishing. And I blab easily.

“So a fight, then. Who are you fighting?”

“None of your business.”

“Levi?”

My face instantly turns white as snow.

“I know you want to kill him.”

What the f— “He’s your cousin.”

“Do I look like I would murder anyone on sight if they annoyed me enough?” He grabs the bar that he just filled with a bunch of weights and lifts it, actually lifts it with one single veiny hand while looking at me.

And my God, my pussy just throbbed from the way his muscles clench. “Because I would. No questions asked.”

He’d kill his own cousin? Without a second thought?

Jesus.

I never expected Apollo to be that … volatile.

He drops the bar while I can’t stop staring.

“No. This isn’t about Levi.”

He smiles. “Who then?”

I sigh out loud. “You’re not going to let this go, are you?”

“Fine, don’t tell me. But at least let me train you.”

“Train me? And what makes you believe you’re qualified?”

“I know what I’m doing. Trust the process,” he replies.

“And what if I get hurt in the ‘process’?” I make quotation marks with my fingers.

“Then I’ll patch you up myself.” He winks. “I have a first-aid certificate.”

No wonder he was the first to jump into the water to save Mavis. Not that it helped, but at least he tried.

Apollo puts the bar right in front of me now and then takes the weights off that he used. “We’ll start slow. Give you some time to adjust to the weight.”

Why does it sound like I’m supposed to get used to the weight of something else entirely?

“Go on. Lift.”

I roll my eyes again. “Fine.”

I grab the bar handles and lift them with both arms, while he begins to circle me, and I can practically feel his eyes ogling my ass.

“Excellent form, Freckles.”

“Thanks, Muscles.”

He raises a brow. “ Muscles ?”

“Since we’re calling each other by different names, I thought it’d fit.”

“I like it. Better than ’Roid.” He smiles, which is in fact the opposite of what I wanted to achieve. Dammit.

He moves in and adds another set of weight plates. I try to pick it up, but man, is it heavy.

He eyes me up and down. “You look like you’re about five feet, five inches. How much do you weigh?”

“Excuse me?” I frown. “You don’t ask a woman that, especially not a chubbier one.”

“Chubby? C’mon. Juicy is more like it.” He winks.

I blush and tuck a strand of my hair behind my ear to hide it.

“So what is it … one fifty?”

I snort. “I wish.”

“One sixty?”

“Dude …”

He tilts his head, and the veins in his neck nearly pop. “So one sixty-five then?”

“What? How would you even know?”

The smirk slowly growing on his face gives the ruse away.

Shit. I should not have said that.

He grabs a smaller set of dumbbells and puts on the weight plates, then looks me up and down again with those sharp, bright gray eyes, and then adds a few more plates.

The exact amount of weight he guessed correctly.

“Why are you doing this?”

He grabs the dumbbell and lifts it with just one hand, a lopsided smile forming on his chiseled face as he glances at me while he easily plays with the bar right where his waist is. “Just so I know how it will feel when I carry you to my bed.”

My whole body begins to heat, and I’m sure my face looks like a tomato.

“Easy.”

Oh my God.

“What is?”

Levi’s voice makes all the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, and I drop the kettlebell on the floor. “Oh fuck!”

“Patience, Freckles,” Apollo says.

Why do I have the feeling he just meant something that has nothing to do with lifting this weight?

But Levi’s presence slowly drowns out my ability to speak.

I haven’t seen him since he threatened me in that classroom.

Since he tried to finger fuck me in a corner.

Goddammit, why can’t I get the image out of my mind?

“Apollo, weren’t we supposed to train today?”

“Oh shit.” Apollo swiftly drops the bar and rubs the back of his neck. “Forgot.”

Levi’s nostrils flare. “Figured.” He throws his towel over his shoulder and then throws me the most maddening of all glances without saying a single word.

And for some reason, I can’t decide whether to throw this kettlebell at his face or yell at him for being a prick.

We used to be friends.

Used to.

Because all I can think of right now is what items in my vicinity I can use as a weapon in case he tries to attack me. In case he wants to kill me just like he killed my sister.

My throat clamps up.

“What are you doing with her?” Levi asks.

“I’m training her,” he responds.

“Why?”

Apollo cracks his knuckles. “You think I answer to you?”

“We don’t need your permission,” I growl.

“I wasn’t talking to you,” Levi growls.

My heart has never gone frigid so swiftly as it did the moment I saw his darkened eyes settle on mine.

“Don’t you have somewhere else to be?”

“Excuse me?” I bite back.

Since when did he become such a goddamn bully?

Apollo laughs.

“Settle down, Loverboy. She doesn’t need your permission to talk,” Apollo replies. “Let’s keep things civil. At least at school, so we stay out of Rivera’s sight.”

“ Loverboy …” I snort. What a joke. “Good one.”

Apollo glances at me, a filthy smile forming on my lips like he knows something, but suddenly, Levi smacks him in the shoulder. “Don’t.”

They have a stare down without saying a single word to each other, but my God … if looks could kill, about half the dumbbells in this gym would’ve been thrown around right about now. None of us would survive.

“I’m done,” I say, and I grab my towel and march off to pull myself out of the situation before it blows up.

I’m not staying a second longer in this macho space.

Too much testosterone.

Too many killers in the same room.

And I’m not staying to find out who of us will be the next body.