Page 31 of Gym With Benefits

“Thank you,” I murmured, leaning into the tender graze of his thumb against my cheek as he let go of me to get his own towel.

He slung it low around his hips, the cloth barely clinging to the sharp, carved lines of his obliques. My gaze got caught on the fine trail of hair leading down the center of his abs and disappearing into the knot of the towel. A roadmap to the power I’d just felt firsthand.

"David is not gonna believe this," I murmured, the thought slipping out before I could catch it.

Brock paused, his eyes narrowing in a flicker of confusion. "Who?"

"Never mind," I said, a flush that had nothing to do with the shower creeping up my neck. "It doesn't matter."

We stood there, caught in the high-voltage pull of the afterglow, our gaze locked in a way that made my heart go crazy all over again. He looked like he wanted to say something, his hand reaching for me—

"Oh, hello."

I spun around, clutching my towel to my chest.

Hunter’s knowing smile stretched across his face. His eyes darted from me to Brock, then down to the damp floor, taking in the scene with a quick, clinical assessment.

11

Jess

The musty weight of damp parchment settled in my lungs. My fingers brushed against the water-damaged edges of Constance’s correspondence, trying to flatten a page where the ink had bled into an illegible bruise.

My hands were steady, but the rest of me was a disaster. I was stuck in a feedback loop of steam and tiles. Of muscular bodies and a giant cock that had rendered me useless.

The logic was simple: I was spiraling.

That was the only explanation.

The wedding was a slow-motion car crash, and my subconscious had decided to cope by getting pinned in the shower by a man who looked like he’d been carved from a mountain.

It was a gorgeous lapse in judgment. Nothing more.

I looked down at the letter in my hand. Constance had been a suffragette, a woman of iron and public defiance, but her private papers told a different story. These were the forbidden dispatches from ‘R.’ Letters that spoke of illicit touches in the back of dark carriages and longing that bypassed the brain and went straight for the marrow.

Carter tugged at my thoughts. Up until now, he was my great love story. The man I’d spent three years convinced was my permanent North Star until he navigated right into Amberleigh’s bed. He was a gentle lover. Considerate, polite, and left me feeling like I’d just finished a very pleasant cup of chamomile tea. We had a real connection. We had shared goals and a future. That mattered more than the all-consuming furnace Brock had ignited. You don't build a life on the kind of sex that leaves your knees feeling like liquid. You build it on the stuff I had with Carter before my ex-best friend turned into a homewrecker.

Constance and 'R' had risked everything for a touch. I was just risking my pride at a luxury fitness center.

Perspective. That was going to save me from this.

I dropped the archival brush and moved to my desk, the hum of the Smithsonian’s internal server the only sound in the gloom. David’s voice lurked somewhere in the gloom of bad decisions:Know your enemy.

The Instagram login page glared at me. I needed a ghost. A digital specter that wouldn't lead back to Jess Seymore, the girl who still lived in a basement. I typedHelen Salisburyinto the name field, my fingers hovering over the keyboard as I tried to invent a life for a woman who didn't exist.

"Salisbury? Sounds like a woman who owns a lot of sensible cardigans and a prize-winning spaniel."

I slammed the laptop shut, the plastic casing making a loud crack in the silence. Walter flashed a knowing smile.

"It's a project I’m working on. Go back to your lair and let me work in peace, please," I said, my face heating up.

"You’re a terrible liar, Jess. Your pupils are dilated and you’re trying to hide a window from a man who has spent ten years spotting microscopic flaws in ancient artifacts." He nudged myhand aside to flip the screen back up. "You have to show me what you’re doing on company time or I’ll have no choice but to report you.”

"I’m... verifying data. For work."

Walter snorted, pulling a rolling chair over with his foot. "Rule number one: never use a government-issued IP address for a digital hit job. You might as well leave a business card at the scene of the crime."

I slumped in my chair. "I don't have a burner phone, Walter. I have a grudge and a deep-seated desire to regain my dignity."