HIS TRAINER

The bus nearly leaving without me this morning is a clear sign that I need to cut back on alcohol and throw tantrums in more constructive ways… like crocheting, or knitting, or even bringing my neighbors pie in an attempt to have human connection.

  Or at the very least, get laid.

That must be it.

Why else would I be dreaming up literal hot men kneading my flesh and making me needy?

 “You ready for the first day?” Lawrence asks, jostling me with his shoulders, a bright smile on his face. I groan.

His smile is too bright, clearly not hung over and suffering.

 “Too much energy. No idea where you got it. Tone it down.”

He laughs at me. The asshole.

“Why did you drink so much anyway? You were the only one kicking back the shots.” Danny asks, wrinkling his nose like he was scared to catch alcoholism from me.

 I can’t tell them about my trainer ditching me on the first day, I don’t want them to look at me with down turned smiles and silently thank their lucky stars they didn’t end up with my trainer.

 “I’m only twenty four. Do I need a reason to get plastered?” I ask, grinning instead.

Lawrence claps my back, and I bite back a groan. Soon the bus rolls into the training centre, and as we walk into the building, I find myself clutching my hands in front of me, praying to whoever listens that my trainer would be available today.

 Trisha welcomes us again with another hang over tea, it worked wonders yesterday, so I happily drain the last of it today.

 I’m still drinking when the speaker crackles to life.

“Caleb Doherty, room four.”

I choke on my tea, hands pat my back, my friends ask if I’m okay. I can’t speak. My head bobs up and down.

 I’m better than okay.

I wipe my hands on my pants. This is really happening, I’m going to meet him. The man who stood me up yesterday.

 Room four is the last room in the hallway, ironically the place I was caught by Trisha yesterday. I push the door open, my heart beating furiously in my throat as I step into the warm room.

 Huh.

Every other part of the building is air conditioned. This room is almost sauna hot.

I quickly scan the room. It’s larger than I expected, sleek leather sofa, a pole in the middle of the room, a man on the desk, his dark hair flopping on his face as he reads something from his iPad.

 Wait.

This is my trainer?

The man is… large.

He fills his seat well, arms bulging. I can’t tear my eyes away from the scene in front of me. Even sitted, I know this man would tower over everyone.

 He looks more like an executive than a trainer.

Did I walk into the wrong room?

I step back out to confirm that this is indeed room four. He still doesn’t acknowledge my presence.

 Standing there awkwardly, I scratch the back of my neck.

 What do I do? Do I even do anything? Say somethi–?

“Ten squats.”

His voice is scratches the pit of my stomach, setting off a riff of… well, something at the pit of my stomach.

 “What?” I ask stupidly.

Slowly, like he was doing me a favor by lifting his head up, by giving me his attention. He looks up at me. Air rushes out of my lungs, and I stand there staring shocked.

 His green eyes stare back at me, unamused, uninterested.

He is beautiful.

Where did that come from??

 “First lesson,” he says in that deep, gravelly voice that aims to reach the depths of my soul.

He slowly rises up from his seat, and Christ! He is tall. Chest even wider than I thought. I have to remind myself to breathe as he makes his way to the front of his desk.

 Dressed in tailored, and pressed to an inch of it’s life, dark pants, dark shirt with the top buttons undone– is that chest hair I see?

 Fuck.

Is this even possible?

The man is hot. Unfairly hot.

He crosses his arms and boy, oh boy. All my Instachat gain posts have to go now. They look puny compared to his and he isn’t flexing.

 “I don’t repeat myself.”

That snaps me back to the present. He really is my trainer. The man in designers, that smells of a mix of wood and spice, that looks like sin, is a veteran and my trainer?

 Granted, he’s older than I am. With no less than six years– if I look like him by thirty, my ego would be unstoppable, might I add.

 But he can’t possibly be my trainer. He looks like he–

 “Wait! I saw you here yesterday!!” I growl as the realization dawns on me. Those green eyes were familiar. I knew I’d seen them before, but I couldn’t put together where.

I’d seen him through the walls.

He was right here and he lied!

”You lied! You weren’t out of town. You were right there, and I know you saw me, so don’t you think about lying to me.”

He just stares at me wordlessly.

How dare he? He made me sit in that room doing nothing, he was jerking me around and for what? What did he gain from that??

He doesn’t say anything, which infuriates me further. First he lies, then he ignores me.

I cross the small space between us, and the first thing I notice is the heat rolling off him, and the intoxicating smell he has that litters the space around him.

 And boy is he tall.

He watches me from on top of his nose, the same way you’d watch a bug before squashing it.

 “Why didn’t you say something? If you had to rush out for a family emergency, the least you could have done was tell me yourself.” I jab a finger at his chest, my finger burns and I quickly pull it away.

 What the hell?

I glance at my finger and back at him. He’s still looking at me like that. Like I was a bug. I grit my teeth in annoyance.

Trish said no swapping out trainers, and that rule must have started because of him. I’ve never felt the urge to pull my hair the way I do now.

His words ring in my ears, he didn’t repeat himself. Is that what this is?

Huffing, I stare at him, no– I glower.

He doesn’t flinch, doesn’t move. He seemed content watching me unravel.

 I drop to a squat position, cheeks burning in mortification. Obviously the only way to get a word out of him is to do as he’s asked.

 After the tenth squat, his eyes do a slow crawl up and down my body. I feel a strange urge to hide myself away from his view. That slow crawl with his eyes feels too… dirty for me.

Apparently that’s how he does everything, slow, deliberate.

That’s how he walks to his seat, like a man with all the time in the world.

He’s given me a view of his back, and he’s like a gift inside a gift, inside another gift. Every part of him you get is the best possible thing.

 “You carry a lot of tension in your inner thighs. You should stretch more.”

I try to hide the shiver his voice causes me, it’s impossible. If he notices it, he doesn’t show it. His green eyes steady, completely unbothered.

 “They’re very tight.” he says this and goes back to his iPad like he said nothing remarkable.

I glance down at my thighs, inside my sweat pants and swallow. How did he know that? Was my form that bad?

“Stretch.” he says without looking up.

I grit my teeth before stretching, as I stretch, I imagine wringing the neck of my trainer, and then I realize I didn’t even know his name.

 “I’m Caleb Doherty, but you should know that… since you stood me up and all.” I say as I stretch my arms, keeping my eyes on him.

I thought I was used to it, but he looks up at me with those green eyes and air escapes my lungs.

 “Remy Templeton. But you’re to call me sir, is that understood?”

Those eyes are wasted on this ass, really.

 If I disobey him, Devil’s Playground will drop me.

I ground my teeth as I force the words out.

 “Yes, sir.”