Page 36 of Resistance Training

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I t’s raining.

It’s raining, and my heart is racing as I drive to Vivian’s house like I’m racing to the airport.

She isn’t about to board a flight, as far as I know, but I am absolutely running late.

Eight years late. Maybe nine. I can’t tell if my heart’s racing because I have no idea how to say what I need to say to her or if it’s because I just want to see her. Need to see her.

I am so fucking mad at myself. At eighteen-year-old me anyway. I was so hell-bent on protecting my ego that I forgot to protect her feelings.

I felt bad about putting Bella back into the guest bathroom after she’d been brave enough to emerge on her own and explore the condo, but she didn’t fight me when I picked her up to take her back to her kennel.

Her fortress. She seemed kind of relieved.

That’s probably how I’ll feel when I go home after tonight.

But maybe not. Maybe making Vivian feel good will be my new fortress.

I am equal parts relieved and annoyed that there is plenty of parking on her street tonight.

I pull up right in front of her little house.

The front porch light is on. I haven’t even checked my phone to see if she wrote me back.

But I see a light through the part in the living room curtains and a shadow moving behind a curtain.

As I park my car, I realize two things. One: I forgot to bring a jacket.

Two: I haven’t felt like this since the morning I walked to school with sparkles on my face.

I wasn’t even nervous when I was walking to school—that’s the thing.

It didn’t even occur to me back then that anyone would come between us.

When I slam the car door shut, Vivian’s front door opens.

It is the strangest feeling, seeing her open her door to me like this.

The way she did hundreds of times when I’d walk to her house back when we were in school.

There’s hesitance in her posture now, the way she rests a hand against the doorframe, but she doesn’t look much different.

Her hair is down. She’s barefoot, wearing loose-fitting wide-leg pants that sit low on her hips, and a cropped sweatshirt.

Much like I did when I was a teenager, all I want to know now is whether or not she’s wearing a bra under there.

Will I get to see her boobs? I am a lot more confident about seeing her boobs tonight than I ever was back in Seattle, but I feel like I’m coming home.

I stride up the path, and by the time I take the stairs up to the porch, she’s opened the door wider and stepped through the doorway with the confidence of a woman who knows she’s about to get what she wants. And nothing’s stopping me from giving it to her. Not even me.

I wrap my arms around her shoulders, she wraps her arms around my waist, pressing the side of her face against my chest. I hold her so tight, kissing the top of her head, stroking the back of her neck with my fingers. “I’m so sorry,” I exhale into her hair.

She grabs onto the back of my shirt, tilting her head back in a silent invitation to let me show her how sorry I am.

I kiss her forehead. Her cheek. I cup her beautiful face in my hands and kiss her mouth.

Once, twice. Soft and slow with my lips parted just a little, stroking her jaw.

And then I claim her with my mouth, my tongue, confirming her teenage suspicion that I am a good kisser.

Pushing her hair aside, I kiss across her jaw and down her neck.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” Something sticks to my tongue.

Her necklace. That pretty little gold necklace.

She tastes clean, which means she wore the necklace in the shower, and that makes me so happy on top of all the other things I’m feeling.

I kiss back up her neck, her cheek, her forehead, her mouth, her forehead again.

She sighs, her knees give out a little, she rests her forehead against my chest. We settle back into another long hug. Rubbing her back, I say, “I had no idea I’d hurt you that much, Sparky. I didn’t think you’d miss me the way I missed you.”

“Well, you could have just read the emails…” she mutters. Still sassy even as I cover her with kisses and apologies.

Thank God.

But also—fair. “I thought you were mad.” My arms circle her waist. She’s already more toned than she was a week ago, and it makes me proud but also achy.

Partly because I’m not her trainer anymore and partly because I like her soft spots.

“I only saw the subject line of the first one, and then I set it up so your emails would go to a hidden folder.”

I let one hand wander up her back, under the bottom of her cropped shirt.

“I didn’t know how many you sent. I was determined to move on, and the only way I knew how to do that was by not engaging at all.”

God dammit. No bra.

I stroke the sides of her waist and kiss her before saying, “I was so crazy about you, Vivi. I hid it really well back then, but you would not believe how much I like you now.”

“Come inside and show me how much,” she says, tugging at the bottom of my shirt. “No jacket…,” she says as she glides her hands up my wet shirt sleeves to my wet face.

“No bra…” I take her hand and pull her through the front door. “Thank you,” I say as I close the door behind her, because I am about to forget everything I need to tell her about eight years ago. “For what you wrote. For writing to me even when I didn’t write you back.”

She looks up at me, slow-blinking, sliding her hands up under my shirt.

I cup her sweet, beautiful face in my hands, groaning and kissing her all over. I’ll never be able to look at this face and not kiss it. “I hate everyone who ever hurt you, but I was the worst. Why do you forgive me?”

“I’ve met a lot of guys, and you’re the only one I’ve missed. I haven’t found anyone else I like as much as you,” she says, without hesitation. Pulling back to look me in the eyes, she adds, “Although I could run off with Cindy and the girls at any moment, so don’t fuck up again, all right?”

She studies my face, and I must be too horny to hide the fact that I have zero confidence in not fucking things up again. “Hey,” she says, holding my face. “Hey. You don’t have to change who you are now. I just want you to be real with me. Okay?”

I nod. It is okay. My body has known for God knows how long what my brain is finally ready to accept—that this thing I’ve been so afraid of, loving Vivian without limits, will be my life’s work and my salvation. “You are the most perfect woman who ever lived.”

“I know.”

Lowering my forehead to rest against hers, I say, “There is so much I need to tell you.”

“I’m not going anywhere, so you can tell me later. Talk to my body first.”

My. Life’s. Work.

“You got it. I also hated the way Lost ended, by the way, but we can talk about that later too. Turn around and put your hands against the wall.”

Her kind brown eyes flash with excitement, but she turns around very calmly and slowly, leaning forward to place her hands flat against the wall above her head. Her gorgeous round ass is sticking out toward me, and when I tilt my head, I get a satisfying glimpse of underboob. That’s my girl.

But right now, I am focusing my attention and adoration on the expanse of bare skin between the loose waistband of her pants and the bottom of that cropped sweatshirt.

I wrap my hands around her waist and stroke upward, letting my thumbs trace the heavenly curves along that valley of the small of her back.

“You have excellent lumbar alignment, you know that?” I push my groin up against her ass, keeping my words and hands controlled even as things get rough from the waist down.

“Your lumbar curve is perfect and so sexy.”

“Thank you.” She pushes back into my growing erection, wiggling around. Playing dirty in the most innocent way and driving me wild.

“Your hips.” I massage her luscious hips. “I get dizzy thinking about your fucking beautiful, round hips.”

“Brought to you by banana cream pie and weighted hip thrusts.”

“Yesssss.” Untying the drawstring of her pants, just below her belly, I discover that the sides of her panties are extremely thin.

Thin straps. “What have we here?” Pulling back as I lower her pants, letting them drop to her ankles, I find raspberry-red-colored ribbons creating a V across the back of her waist and disappearing between two magnificent globes.

And my brain has stopped working.

“It’s called a lace adjustable V-string panty. Do you like it? I ordered it the day after I first saw you at the gym.”

I make a sound that could unfairly be described as a whimper.

A very masculine whimper. In my defense—this is the best ass I have ever had my hands on.

I grunt, lowering myself to kneel on the floor so I can simultaneously fondle those two magnificent globes and let my mouth and tongue and teeth do all the insane things they need to do to them for, like, thirty uninhibited seconds.

Her gasps are felt more than heard over my moans.

Remembering there is so much more of her to explore, I take a steadying breath before standing up again and get myself out of these stupid shoes and pants and boxer briefs. “So, that would be a yes, I like it… Walk me through your evening.”

She’s squeezing her thighs together. I use my knee to spread them apart, stroke my cock a couple of times, bend my knees as I close the space between my chest and her back.

And then I let my erection inhabit that warm, wet space between her legs.

She’s still wearing that tiny strip of fabric she calls panties.

She rocks and rolls her hips. Stroking her outer thighs and up, up, up, I say, “You get home from the gym. I’m at my place, being emotionally devastated while reading your emails.

You walk through that door, take off your workout clothes, get in the shower…

” Finally, my hands connect with boob and I can’t speak anymore.