Page 11 of Honey Undone (The Hornets Nest #5)

SARAH

T he music pumping in my headphones made it hard to focus on anything else in the gym, but it was quiet for the first time in a week and I couldn’t help but let out all the stress by dancing around between my sets.

I’d been taking it easy on my knee but Silas had given the okay to start working more leg days to strengthen the muscles now that it was healing better.

Although I was dancing more than I was working out.

I was avoiding the squat machine because I was afraid to blow out my knee but I knew I had to get back on it eventually.

I watched Jensen come through the front doors like clockwork.

I had been coming earlier so that I could get most of my workout done before allowing myself to get distracted by him.

He consistently forgot to bring a shirt.

I couldn’t tell if he was actively trying to cause chaos or if he was genuinely just that unaware of how attractive he was but it was impossible to keep him out of my head when he walked around like that.

His gym shorts hung low on his hips, every ounce of his tattooed skin on display under the harsh lights of the gym.

You’re staring.

I shook loose of the daze and tried to hype myself up for something a little more simple.

I turned myself sideways on the mat and started my lunges as Jensen wandered around the gym landing on the deadlift platform.

He had a hat low on his brows today and was already so sweaty from the heat outside that I could see the droplets running down his skin.

I cleared my throat and continued to do my lunges, focusing on the mat in front of me so I didn’t lose my balance and embarrass myself again .

My knee stung a little in the deeper lunges and it took a second to warm up to the movement but eventually the pain dulled and the muscle loosened.

My step stumbled a bit in the planting but it felt better than it had all season.

I could feel Jensen’s eyes on me and it pushed me to stay up right as I worked across the gym in slow uncomfortable lunges.

He set himself up on the opposite end, getting set up on the deadlift platform as I switched legs and moved at a grueling pace back across toward him.

I watched him load the weight on the bars, genuinely impressed as he totaled close to three fifty.

He looked up at me as he wrapped his lifting belt around his taut stomach and stepped back to the bar.

I positioned myself behind a long bench, grabbing some weights but never taking my eyes off of him as he readied for his first set.

Far gone past the shame of sharing, I started my step ups.

The least I could do was look busy as my mouth went dry and my temperature rose higher.

Jensen’s shoulders rounded out, the muscles in his arms flexing tight as he lifted the weight from the ground to his hips.

His chest heaved as he worked to keep his breathing steady, his focus entirely on the bar between his hands.

His abs flexed under the strain, and a thick corded vein twisted around his forearms up into his biceps with every lift.

All I could do was count my own steps, almost missing the bench more than once. I felt like I was sweating through the thin fabric of my sports bra and the oversized t-shirt I was wearing over my bike shorts.

I chuckled, setting down the weights the second my set was finished before I stepped back from the bench in full view of Jensen. I grabbed the hem of the shirt, lifting it over my head and chucking it into my bag before continuing on with my next set of lunges.

Alternating the two workouts helped keep my knee moving in different ways, never placing too much stress on the same muscle.

The lack of shirt had stolen Jensen’s attention from his own set and the bar crashing to the platform noisily.

I turned over my shoulder to look at him as he snapped the clip on his belt and dropped it to the ground.

He glared at me, his chest rising sharply as his head shook gently back and forth in amused disbelief .

I gave him a little shrug and kept doing my lunges well within his eyesight with more skin on display than before.

Two could play the game he started, and I knew I could play it better.

I giggled as he huffed something under his breath, his lips moving as he ran a hand through his hair, knocking his hat to the ground.

He tugged on the fabric of his shorts and it exposed the hardened sweaty lines of his hip bones just enough for my head to get a little dizzy from the sight of it.

Fuck this man.

I wanted to tell him to leave, to give me some space to breathe but even the thought of telling him to go away made me lonely and sad. If what I felt was a crush, I didn’t want to feel it anymore because I was going insane.

How is it possible to be this horny?

I wandered back in a straight line, my lunges getting wobbly as my thighs started to become overworked.

Taking a break I downed some water, my head tilting to the side as Jensen went back to his deadlifts.

He hadn’t fixed the band of his pants and I was two minutes and one more piece of skin from finding out exactly what tattoo he had that high on his thigh with my tongue.

For research of course… I wet my bottom lip and tried to focus on anything but his sweaty, tanned hips for two minutes but nothing cut the edge and my eyes were back on him within seconds.

He pushed his set harder the second time around and I couldn’t tell if he was doing it because I was watching but it was going to cut my workout short if I was forced to spend twenty minutes in the shower with my hand between my legs.

All in some pathetic attempt to be able to concentrate at work after.

I gave up on the step ups, my focus was too foggy to ensure I didn’t fall and break my ankle so I switched to the squat bar in hopes that I could round out my workout. Was the squat bar in front of the deadlift platform? Yes. Did I need to do the squat bar today? No.

I loaded it up to my max, wandering around and watching his eyes on mine as he snapped the belt off his body with shaky hands.

He walked toward his bag, squatting down to grab his water, we were locked in a quiet, brutal game of who would cave first out of the eye-fucking.

I had never been so grateful for an empty gym .

It was a mistake, and it was quickly realized because as I pushed through my first set, aiming for a failure so I could up my personal best next time around, I realized that my knee was still too weak for the weight.

It buckled slightly, my face scrunching up in pain as I pushed through the next explosion of strength.

Jensen rose slowly, watching carefully as he approached.

My focus faltered for a moment, my fingers flexing around the bar tensely just trying to keep control.

I exhaled sharply and lowered again with the bar.

I was pushing my luck but I needed to know just how weak my knee had become.

He didn't say a word as he rounded behind me in the mirror and hovered his hands beneath the bar.

“Is this alright?” He asked and all I could do was nod, I just wanted to get through this set without feeling weak. “You can do it,” he encouraged. “Slow,” he whispered, “control the movement.”

The next squat was better, the confidence slowly returning with him there to catch the bar. He left a decent amount of space between us but I could still feel the heat vibrating off his chest as he lowered himself with me.

“I like this,” his voice was low, barely a whisper as his fingers ghosted over the grouping of thin straps holding my sports bra up.

I tried to focus on the workout, I was almost tapped out on my set.

The bar was heavy across my shoulders as I pushed backup to full extension, a tiny smirk forming on my lips at the sight of him mesmerized in the mirror.

“If you wanted more one-on-one training, you could have just asked.” His breath fanned over my neck as I pushed through the squat.

“I can do one more,” I said in a half-pained grunt that was definitely not sexy but I couldn’t concentrate on how he was making everything warmer from his attention. I shoved through the next squat, shaking too hard to get it to the top.

“All the way, Adeline,” he instructed, his tongue brushing over his bottom lip with his eyes on my legs in the mirror. “Atta girl,” he murmured low as soon as I hit the top.

I nearly whimpered from the praise and cursed the betrayal of my body trembling.

He moved in close behind me, his chest against my back as I dropped the bar into the hooks and took a breather.

His eyes were fixated on mine in the mirror as his hand ghosted over my hip.

His fingers flexed tightly but he never touched, he just leaned in a little closer.

“Think you can handle a bit more?” He teased, his voice low and full of implications.

“Funny, I was just about to ask you if that was all you had?” I teased back and stepped away from him. Jensen rested his arms across the bar that separated us and smirked.

He stepped around the bar, closing the space between us again. “I can’t show you just how much I have,” he raised an eyebrow at me, “at least not here.”

“That’s a shame.” I smiled at him, “maybe next time.”

“Mm,” he hummed watching my body move as I backed away from him and lowered to the ground to stretch.

His jaw tightened uncomfortably as his eyes flickered to the strap sliding off my shoulder.

I stifled the amused laughter that bubbled up as he shifted on his feet, clearly doing everything he could to adjust himself without being obvious.

If he only knew how badly I wanted to find out if I could handle more.

Fuck .

“How about we get dinner tonight?” He asked, squatting on the mat across from me with his hands resting on his knees.

I almost caved in the moment and said yes to him but I knew that I could hold out just a little while longer.

I just needed to make sure that my future was in order before I gave into something so simple and fun like Jensen.

I had to make sure all he wanted was a physical connection before I allowed myself to get tangled up between the sheets with him.

I needed hard evidence that he was just the fuckboy everyone made him out to be. No strings.

“Help me stretch?” I asked him, pushing my luck and ignoring his question. If he was as determined as he made himself seem, it wouldn’t bother him.

He smirked, looking away from me and swallowing down the rejection before he dropped to his knees and shifted over on the mat toward me.

I laid back against it and pressed my hands into the material to keep steady as he grabbed my ankle gently in his hand.

I inhaled beneath my teeth at the sudden warmth that wrapped around me as he shifted closer, lining his hips up with mine and rested my ankle on his shoulder .

“How’s that?” He asked, his fingers pressing into my calf as he worked a deeper stretch into my hamstring.

I winced at the heat that flooded my sore muscles but nodded.

“Good yeah,” I said, trying to ignore the sudden shift in temperature and tension that was building between us.

I cursed myself for biting off more than I could chew, inviting him to help me.

I could feel him against my ass through his pants and all I could do was dig my fingers into the mat to keep from falling apart completely.

Jensen watched me carefully, no doubt noticing the blush that flooded my cheeks under that feeling of his bat calloused hands. My breath hitched as he pushed further my shorts riding up over my thigh as he took what was supposed to be an innocent stretching session into dangerous territory.

His fingers dug softly into my hamstring, unknowingly making my inner thighs tighten under his touch. My head rolled back as his fingers worked the tight muscle loose and my legs fell open, slack and relaxed.

“Mmm,” I practically moan, melting into the mat beneath me.

Jensen’s fingers brushed against the inside of my shorts as he reached the top of my hamstring and he paused, his breathing shallow. “Adeline, you have to stop making those noises,” the request was strangled as he looked up at me from the base of my body.

“Or what?” I mistakenly challenged him in the lusty haze of my intense relaxation.

“Or I might do something stupid,” he growled, lowering himself until his shoulders brushed against my thighs, “like put my mouth somewhere it doesn’t belong in public.”

A fire bloomed in the pit of my stomach and it took what felt like an eternity for me to calm down enough to be reasonable. I wanted to tell him to prove it, that maybe I was sick of waiting and didn’t give a shit if he ate me out on the gym floor.

But I couldn’t.

A low, frustrated growl bubbled up.

I pushed my foot against his shoulder, digging the toe of my sneaker into this bare skin as I slid upward on the mat out of his reach. I hid the immense void I felt from the lack of his touch and exhaled quietly before speaking .

“I have to get back to work,” I smiled, rolling to my feet. “Thanks for the stretch.”

“You’re welcome,” he said, his voice still husky from the tension between us.

He stood after me, adjusting his gym shorts to hide any evidence that he enjoyed himself.

He shook his head and I watched as he wandered back over to his gym bag in the mirror.

He grumbled something under his breath before grabbing his shirt from the bag and roughly threw it over his shoulders.

I knelt down by my bag, smiling to myself and pulled on my t-shirt before digging around for my phone only to find a tiny cloth bag I definitely did not put in there.

I picked it up and shook it gently before pulling on the ribbon that was keeping it closed to find a set of D&D dice inside that I’d never seen before.

I looked over my shoulder at Jensen, knowing that they had to be from him and it made my heart squeeze with affection in my chest.

How was it possible that he was Harbor’s most feral fuckboy while simultaneously being its softest, most obsessive loverboy. I dropped them back into my bag and stood up to text that I was on the way back to work when I felt a rush of heat at my back.

“Next time you make those noises, make sure we’re somewhere I can do something about them,” he warned, his shoulder pressed against my back and his voice a dark whisper.

I kept my head down to hide the blush and my satisfied smile as he left me standing in the gym alone staring at the present he left me.