chapter five
ENTERING THE MEN’S changing room is foreign. The layout is identical to the women’s changing room—rows of lockers in the front, showers and toilets in the back. But it’s like I’ve stepped into Narnia, or a beast’s lair. The simple fact that I’m not supposed to be in here sends a pang of nervous energy trickling down my spine as I creep past the first row of lockers.
On the brink of aborting this entire mission, I spot Squat Rack Thief in the second row. He’s rifling around in his locker, his bare back to me. I take a moment to admire the hard ridges of muscle over muscle that make up his torso. He has one of those tapered shapes. Broad shoulders and narrow waist.
I’m not supposed to see this. My palms aren’t supposed to get clammy. My ears aren’t supposed to burn. My body isn’t supposed to be tingly south of my belly button. I’ve officially become a Peeping Tom, a creeper, a voyeur. I squeeze my eyes shut. I really ought to turn around and get out of Dodge. If I leave now, I can forget I ever saw this. But I can allow myself one more look, right? Just one.
I bet he’s one of those guys with the damn V. The outline that goes straight down to the . . .
Shit. He is. Life is cruel. What did I do to deserve this harsh fate?
He’s fully facing me now and I have no idea where to cast my eyes. His prominent six-pack? The dusting of light brown hair on his chest? His V? His hulking shoulder muscles? His gorgeous eyes, wide with surprise when he sees me standing there like the stalker I am? His body is a work of art. It belongs in a Parisian museum, protected by velvet rope and an armored guard.
He appraises me, lips curving into a half smile. He’s both amused and understandably confused. “Crystal. How can I be of assistance to you?”
I widen my stance, recalling the real reason I’m here, which does not involve hungrily admiring Squat Rack Thief’s body in any way, shape, or form. And I’m definitely not going to fantasize about it later.
“I know you took my phone. Stop messing with me and give it back now.”
He lets out a half laugh, as if I’m certifiably insane. And maybe I am. But my entire life is on that phone. Photos. Pre-edited business content. Videos. My clients’ workout plans. The worst part: I ran out of iCloud storage months ago and was too lazy to buy more. If I lose this phone, I lose it all.
“You sure you’re not a little confused and exhausted from all those shoulder presses?” he asks, unable to squash his patronizing amusement.
“I don’t get exhausted. Ever. I appreciate the concern, though,” I add, voice sweeter than Grandma Flo’s sugar pie.
“Oh, I could exhaust you.” His eyes blaze, and I nearly choke at the innuendo (whether he intended it or not). “In fact, I think you’re already at the end of your rope with me right now.”
“Not even close.”
“It really doesn’t take much to get you all riled up.” His gravelly voice almost distracts me as he inches in front of his open locker.
My eyes dart behind him. It isn’t a coincidence that he shifted his body in front of his locker like a bodyguard stationed outside a nightclub. He’s holding my phone hostage in there. I’m convinced.
Like a panther focused on its prey, I storm toward him.
We’re face-to-face, chests heaving, connected in yet another face-off. But this time, his chest is bare, and I’m losing the battle to resist ogling him with each passing second.
To distract myself, I search his face far and wide for something to critique. Anything at all. And I come up empty. I hadn’t noticed until now that his pupils are surrounded by soft rings of gold.
The severity of his expression tempers with a slight brow raise. I take it as a sign of weakness. It’s my time to pounce.
I gaze left to fake him out before making a break for his locker. As I stick my hand in, he blocks me with his shoulder. I attempt to push him backward with my forearms, but his body is like a sturdy tree. One of those majestic three-thousand-year-old trees in Yosemite. He doesn’t even budge.
He watches me, mouth twisted in amusement as I step back in a huff. “You’re not getting in my locker,” he says, as if it’s just pure fact, as simple as one plus one equals two. He extends his arm to the side, palm against the locker, blocking me from any future attempt. But I don’t give up that easily.
Fully aware of his strength, I make one last go of it.
He stops me as I lunge toward him, placing his hands square on my shoulders. He turns me swiftly yet gently against the lockers. “Keep trying all you want. I can do this all day.”
The coolness of the metal against my back offsets the warmth of my skin. I desperately try to ignore how he smoothly circles his right thumb over my shoulder. His hooded eyes hold my entire body captive, despite the fact that his grip isn’t all that tight. He’s not holding me here against my will. I could probably leave at any time. In fact, I probably should. But I don’t, and I don’t know why.
I don’t dare blink. Blinking is for the weak. We only break eye contact when his gaze flickers to my lips. I glance at his too. They’re not too thin and not too thick. In fact, they’re perfect. My inner cavewoman desperately wants to feel them against mine. And that’s when I question my sanity. If there was an appropriate female equivalent to “thinking with your dick,” my mug shot would be right alongside. The real Crystal, a woman of logic and all things practical, would never be attracted to this infuriating asshole.
Unexpectedly, his lips brush against mine, stealing my air. Heat flushes through me like a violent tsunami, ready to obliterate everything in its wake. All of my internal organs clench. My muscles seize. My eyes close. My toes curl.
Am I even still alive? Did he really just kiss me?
I’m frozen in place and time. I can’t physically move.
His kiss is featherlight, testing, as if he’s unsure if he should continue. He tastes familiar somehow, minty and fresh, bringing me alive slowly but surely. His hands loosen on my shoulders, as if confident I won’t pull away from him. His right hand drifts up the nape of my neck and into my hair.
I panic, because my hair is a tangled, sweaty rat’s nest. But as I feel the pads of his fingers stroking up and down the back of my skull, I’m lost in this moment. I want to savor it forever. I tilt my chin upward to deepen the kiss, which he takes greedily. There’s a tremor in his hand as the pad of his thumb skates over my cheekbone. No one has ever touched my face like this, as if treasuring every curve and line.
It’s only now that I realize my arms are hanging like dead noodles. I snake my hands up his hard stomach, over the ridges of his shoulders. His muscles clench under my palms. I’m practically on my tiptoes when I lock my fingers behind his neck, pulling us completely flush. He lets out a tiny sigh of relief into my mouth.
His lips open and close against mine in a slow rhythm. I moan into him, and he pulls back for half a second. There’s a stormy change in his eyes as they darken to an electric mossy hue, my new favorite color. The air shifts around us, as if we’re in the eye of a chaotic twister.
It’s desperate, needy, wild. I pull him down, closer to me until I can feel him, hard against my stomach.
Our kisses devolve into a frantic flurry of hair pulling, teeth clinking, and lip biting. The further his tongue goes, the deeper I slip into a haze, a daydream that I never want to wake from. Every time his lips dare to leave mine for a split second, I pull him back to me, harder, closing the gap between us, wanting more and more.
Who am I and how did I end up making out with a stranger in the men’s locker room? I really ought to tear myself away and run.
But the feeling of his lips on mine is like an explosion of euphoria. Of everything I want and need. The perfect taste. The perfect sensation. The perfect pressure. The perfect everything.
His hand dips around my bottom, hooking underneath my right thigh, lifting it around his waist. A low groan escapes his mouth, vibrating into mine as my hips roll against his, sending a blinding jolt to the forgotten corners of my body. His lips dart hungrily to the side of my mouth, down my jaw, and over my neck as he hoists me off the ground completely. He backs me up against the locker again, my legs hooked around his waist.
I’ve never been picked up by a man before. To call this “exhilarating” is the understatement of the century.
“Fuck,” he whispers in my ear as I rock against him, one hand linked around his neck, the other gripping his hair. He’s looking at me, not through me. In all my hookups, I don’t think I’ve ever held eye contact for longer than two seconds before looking away. In fact, I don’t even remember linking eyes with Neil.
Squat Rack Thief’s expression is the perfect mixture of pleasure, adoration, and sincerity. I didn’t know he was humanly capable of this. I revel in it. I lose myself in it.
I’m about to spontaneously combust from the pressure alone when the changing room door squeaks open.
His head jolts back in the direction of the door. His muscles clench and seize underneath me, holding me in place for a breath. All I want to do is capture this moment and freeze it in time. Our eyes are still locked as he sets me down more gently than I’d expect, flashing me a Shit, we’re busted look.
A stout, balding man barely covered by an impossibly tiny towel strolls around the corner, whistling. Red-faced from the sauna, he stops dead in his tracks when he catches sight of me, chest heaving, lips swollen, caged against a locker. I only see the man’s stunned reaction for a fraction of a second, because Squat Rack Thief shifts, as if protecting me from sight.
I blink, the silence yanking me back to reality. Cheeks burning like the fiery flames of hell, I inch past Squat Rack Thief and scramble out of the changing room without looking back.
On my way to take shelter in the women’s changing room, I nearly bulldoze one of the gym ladies from earlier. The one with the visor.
“Excuse me, hun. Is this your phone?” She holds my white iPhone in her extended hand. “Accidentally took it from the mat area, thinking it was mine. I left my phone in the car today. Guess it’s just habit.”
Instead of being ecstatic to be reunited with my beloved phone, all I can think is, Crap.
I was dead wrong.
Squat Rack Thief is innocent.
“Oh, uh, thank you for returning it,” I manage through my fog. I can barely look this lady in the eye without blushing.
With my phone safely in my possession, I spend at least half an hour in the changing room, hunched over on the bench in a daze. I can’t leave. The risk of crossing paths with Squat Rack Thief on the way out is too great. He probably thinks I’m a total loon, falsely accusing him of stealing my phone and climbing him like a ladder in the changing room.
Despite my best efforts, even after I’m showered and dressed, my heart rate stubbornly refuses to settle to a resting BPM.