Page 26 of Gym With Benefits

I exhaled, the tension in my chest refusing to dissipate. "I have a client, Hunter. Back to work."

"We aren't finished," he whispered, a smirk playing on his lips as he retreated. "Not by a long shot."

The hours after the morning rush blurred into a mechanical rhythm of plate-loading and postural corrections. The gym transformed from a high-voltage arena into a mid-afternoon lull, the light through the floor-to-ceiling windows turning from a harsh white to a long, honeyed amber. I moved through my roster with the detachment of a man on autopilot, my body performing the labor while my mind remained anchored to the final hour on the digital log. Every time the doors opened, my head turned with a reflexive, unwelcome hope.

By eight-thirty, the floor was nearly vacant. The persistent hum of the treadmills had died down to a single, distant drone. Hunter caught my eye from the front desk as he prepared to close out his till, his expression a mix of exhaustion and that lingering, knowing smirk. I didn't give him the satisfaction of a glance back. I headed for the private training room at the rear of the facility, a space of rubber, steel, and a silence that felt heavy with anticipation. I spent ten minutes meticulously organizing the equipment, resetting the bench and checking the tension on the resistance bands, my movements precise to the point of obsession.

They had to be. Because if I stopped moving for even one second, I’d start thinking about her.

Then, just as I was dragging my mind out of the whirling cloud that looked a lot like Hunter’s greatest love—

"I'm not late, am I?" Jess’s hair was pulled back, exposing the elegant line of her neck and the flush already blooming on her cheeks.

The air got sucked clean out of the room. She wasn't in the oversized, defensive layers of her first day testing the waters.Tonight she wore those same high-compression tights and an armored sports bra that left nothing to the imagination. The dark fabric highlighted every curve, the strategic ruching of the leggings defining the rounded, athletic span of her hips.

"You're exactly on time," I said, my voice sounding rougher than it had all day. "Put your bag in the corner. We’re starting with a mobility screen."

My professional mask was already beginning to fracture under her curious gaze. As she moved toward the center of the mat, the light catching the slick texture of her clothes made it impossible to look away. We spent the first twenty minutes on the fundamentals, but the tension in the room was a third person, uninvited and overbearing.

"Before we start," I said, tapping away on the iPad. "Goals. We talking cardiovascular endurance, functional strength, or are we chasing a specific aesthetic?"

Her mouth twisted into a cynical line. "Let’s go with spite. I want whatever physical configuration is required to make my ex-best friend choke on her own wedding cake."

"Ah, the revenge body,” I said with a small laugh. “A classic motivator. Petty, but highly effective for high-intensity intervals."

"I prefer the term surgical strike," she countered, though the glibness in her voice faltered as I stepped into her space.

"Let's see the foundation then. Overhead squats. No weight, just the PVC pipe. I need to see where you’re tight."

I handed her the hollow plastic tube. As she lifted it, the movement pulled her crop top higher, exposing the soft, pale skin of her midriff. I moved behind her, my shadow swallowing hers. "Drop. Keep it slow."

She descended, her knees wobbling. I placed my hands on her inner thighs, my thumbs pressing into the muscle to force her knees outward. "Don't let them cave. Keep the tension against my palms."

"Easy for you to say," she said, her breath coming in short bursts. "You’re built like a support beam. I’m built like a librarian."

"You’re built just fine," I murmured against her ear, my hands sliding up to her hips to guide the tilt of her pelvis.

The contact was a jolt of current I wasn’t ready for. The fabric of her leggings was slick, but the heat underneath was a living thing. I could feel the strain of her muscles fighting the load and stepped closer, my chest brushing her shoulder blades to steady her. The air between us was a thick slurry of ozone and her skin. Not the floral extract Juno wore, but something deeper, like rainwater on hot pavement.

"Perfect. Now do it again.”

I spent the next thirty minutes moving around her, a constant cycle of tactile corrections. My fingers splayed against the heat of her spine to support her through rows. Guiding her arms during overhead presses, the friction of my chest against her back a slow, searing burn.

I reeled her in, feeling the way she melted into my touch, then stepped back the second things got too hot to be simply working out.

We moved through the circuit I’d planned with a clinical, punishing efficiency. I was the architect, and she was the raw material. But the blueprint kept blurring. Every station became a fresh exercise in sensory restraint.

On the lat pulldown, I stood behind her, my chest a hair’s breadth from her hair. I reached around to place my palms over her hands on the bar, guiding the path of the iron.

"Drive with the elbows," I said into the space behind her ear. "Imagine you’re tucking them into your back pockets."

The scent of her warm, salt-licked skin caused chaos with my breathing. When she pulled the weight down, her back arched, the midnight-blue nylon stretching to its limit over the muscles of her spine. The rhythmic hitch of her breath against my ribcage was a synchronized stutter that made the walls close in.

I could only hope Hunter was busy somewhere else. Because if he walked back here and saw this—

“Am I doing it right?”

We’d transitioned to the cable machine for woodchoppers. I had to wrap my arms almost entirely around her to correct the rotation of her torso. "Power comes from the hips, Jess. Pivot. Don't just pull."