Page 32 of Want Me

Nate:Terrible line, btw

Eric:Never claimed to be charming, just dirty

Couldn’t argue with that.

“Wait the fuck up!”

Damn, that voice lived under my skin. An obnoxious twitch of my cock followed, but I stopped and turned around, adjusting the strap on my bag as Eric trotted through the grass toward me while I tried to ignore the stupid thrill of happiness I got out of him deciding to join me after all.

“Decided maybe I should burn off last night,” he explained, falling in step beside me.

“Pounding me like you were trying to launch me into orbit wasn’t enough?”

“You’re still walking on solid ground, aren’t you?”

“Barely,” I muttered, and Eric stopped, grabbing my elbow to stop me, too, concern flitting through his eyes and making a firm line of his mouth as he angled toward me.

“Did I hurt you?”

I wanted to roll my eyes and laugh it off, but the sincerity in his expression held me back. I shook my head. “Nah, man. It’s good.”

“You can tell me to ease up, stop. At any time and I would.”

I laughed, a little uncomfortably. “What, like some kind of safe word or something?”

He shrugged. “Maybe, yeah.”

I did roll my eyes then. “Fine, my safe word is: fuck off. I told you it’s all good. Relax.” Because what I’d originally meant when I’d spoken had nothing to do with the physical. At all.

He studied me a moment longer, then released me and we started walking again.

“We’ll get you set up with a nice, light walking program on the treadmill,” I told him, trying to steer away from the sense of heaviness that seemed to move with us. “And they do have some two- and three-pound hand weights.” I gave him a smart-ass grin that he mirrored.

“Will I need to spot you with those, or you think you can manage on your own?”

Fucker. I broke into laughter, shaking my head, and yanked open the glass-fronted door, warm air and the tang of sweat and gym equipment rushing out to greet us.

Inside, I claimed a tread and dropped my gear off in the locker room while Eric got started, then rejoined him, punching the screen to start the belt. The long line of TVs in front of us blared newscasts, sports, interior design shows and cooking demos, and usually I just popped my earbuds in and got lost to the tempo of my running playlist, but today I was tuned into Eric beside me, the steady rhythm of his footfalls, his breathing as it sped up, resembling… I groaned internally and focused on a lady on the screen as she dumped a bowl of what looked like vegetables into some kind of batter. Gross.

“You run and I just never noticed it?” I asked, without looking over; he was moving at a pretty decent clip. I’d bumped up the speed on my belt and was starting to get nice and winded, that breathless feeling I loved tightening my chest, firing off dopamine and twitching through my muscles. In absence of a fuck, exercise was about as close as I could get to accomplishing the same sated, muscle-drowsy feeling afterward.

“Here and there. Not much. I played soccer in high school and a few other sports. Think I’ve got decent muscle memory.”

“What position? In soccer I mean.” I snuck a glance aside at him and glimpsed the faint curve of his lips. His neck glistened with a thin layer of sweat, the muscles of his calves popping with each stride.

“Forward.”

“Were you any good?”

He huffed out a breathy laugh. “Not good enough to try to pursue it. It was just for fun. I was homeschooled, so it wasn’t the same as a school team or anything. Didn’t you play football or something?”

“Yeah,” I said, grinning. “Same answer, though—not well enough to do anything with it.”

“Guess the habits lasted better in you than in me. You’re in stupid good shape.” Eric reached out, knocking down the speed on his treadmill. “I’m starting to fade already.”

“You did it wrong. Gotta start slow and ramp it up.” I wasn’t about to address his comment on my body with some return compliment, because even though I found his lean definition smoking fucking hot, there was no way I’d be able to say it without sounding like a total lech in the middle of the gym. Though shit, he’d probably like that.

“Yeah, that’s one way to do it.” He cut a sidelong look at me that lingered suggestively a couple of beats and sent an extra kick of heat dancing through me.