Gym Locker: Part 2

I didn’t walk out.

The knowledge of that choice settled between us like a held breath. The older trainer—whose name I still didn’t know—stayed exactly where he was, towel low on his hips, water still tracing slow paths down his chest. He had given me the door. I had refused it. Something in his expression shifted when that became clear, darker and more intentional.

“Name,” he said.

“What?”

“Your name. If you’re going to stand there looking at me like that, I want to know what to call you.”

“Sage.”

“Sage.” He repeated it once, like he was testing the shape of it. “I’m Cole.”

I nodded, not trusting my voice. My pulse was still too loud in my ears. In other places. The sports bra suddenly felt thin. I crossed my arms under my chest before I could stop myself, which only pushed my breasts higher. Cole’s eyes flicked down, lingered a second too long, then returned to my face without apology.

“You’ve been coming in for about two months,” he said. “Always the evening block. Always alone. You push harder than most of the people in that group.”

The fact that he had been cataloguing me sent another slow curl of heat through my stomach.

“You watch the floor that closely?”

“I watch form. Yours improved. Then I started watching the rest.”

Honesty sat between us, blunt and heavy. Most men would have softened it, laughed it off, given me an exit. Cole simply let the admission hang in the warm, steamy air of the locker room while the last of the water dripped somewhere behind him.

He took another step closer.

This time the distance closed enough that I had to tip my head back. I could smell the clean soap on his skin and the faint heat still rising off him from the shower. The towel shifted with the movement. My eyes dropped again before I forced them back up. He noticed. Of course he noticed.

“You’re allowed to look,” he said quietly. “You already have been.”

“You’re not exactly covering up.”

“Didn’t see the point. You walked in. You stayed. We’re past polite.”

Another step. My back met the cool metal of a locker. I hadn’t realized I was retreating until the surface pressed between my shoulder blades. Cole stopped with less than a foot left between us. Close enough that the heat of his body reached mine. Close enough that if either of us inhaled too deeply we would touch.

His gaze moved over my face, then lower—over the flushed skin of my chest above the sports bra, the tight line of my stomach, the way the leggings clung between my thighs. He didn’t rush it. He simply looked at me the way he looked at form on the floor: thorough, assessing, and completely uninterested in pretending otherwise.

“Your heart rate’s up,” he observed. “I can see it in your throat.”

“Occupational hazard of walking into the wrong locker room.”

“That what this is?”

The question landed low. I didn’t answer. My silence was answer enough.

Cole lifted one hand and braced it on the locker beside my head. The position caged me in without quite touching. His other hand stayed at his side, fingers loose against the towel. I could see the clear shape of him underneath the damp fabric now—half-hard, heavy, impossible to ignore. My mouth went dry.

“I’ve thought about this,” he said, voice low and even. “About what it would look like if you ever stayed. Didn’t think you’d actually do it.”

“I shouldn’t have.”

“But you did.”

His eyes dropped to my mouth. For a second I thought he might close the last of the distance. Instead he leaned in just enough that his next words brushed warm against my temple.

“Last chance to walk out, Sage. You leave now and we never mention this. You stay, and I’m done looking without touching.”

My pulse thudded hard between my legs. The sensible part of my brain was still screaming. The rest of me was locked in place by the solid heat of him, the quiet authority in his voice, and the fact that I had already crossed the line simply by not leaving the first time.

I stayed.

Cole’s free hand finally lifted. His fingers brushed the side of my neck, light, testing, then settled more firmly along my jaw. His thumb stroked once across my cheek. The simple contact sent a sharp spark of need through me so strong my knees felt unreliable.

“Good,” he murmured.

He kissed me.

It wasn’t careful. It was the kiss of a man who had been watching for weeks and had finally decided to stop holding back. His mouth was hot, demanding. I opened for him with a soft sound and his tongue slid against mine at the same time his body pressed fully against me, pinning me to the lockers. The towel did nothing to hide how hard he was now. The thick ridge of his cock pressed against my lower stomach through the damp fabric and my thin leggings. I gasped into his mouth.

Cole’s hand left my jaw, dragged down the side of my throat, and cupped my breast through the sports bra. His thumb found the already tight nipple and rubbed slow, deliberate circles. My back arched. A helpless noise escaped me. He swallowed it and kissed me harder, grinding against me once, twice, letting me feel exactly what staying had earned me.

When he finally pulled back, both of us were breathing harder. His eyes had gone almost black.

“Shower stall,” he said, voice rough. “Now. Before I fuck you against these lockers and neither of us cares who walks in.”

He didn’t wait for a verbal answer. He simply took my wrist, turned, and walked deeper into the locker room toward the row of private stalls, towel still somehow clinging to his hips, pulling me with him.

I followed.

My legs felt unsteady. My sports bra was damp with more than residual sweat. The ache between my thighs had become a pulse I couldn’t ignore. Every step made me more aware of how wet I already was, and of the fact that in less than a minute the older trainer who had been watching me on the floor for weeks was going to stop watching and start taking.

The stall door swung open under his hand.

He pulled me inside after him, and the latch clicked shut with a soft, final sound.