L. A. Witt - Rules 1 - Rules of Engagement (3 page)

The creaking of his jacket barely registered in my consciousness as he raised his arm. His hand went to the side of my neck where it paused for a moment before drifting up into my hair, letting his nails gently scratch my scalp. The resulting shiver made me gasp, and I broke the kiss for little more than a heartbeat, but it was too long to be away from the warmth of his mouth, and my lips returned to his desperately and passionately.

His kiss was as gentle as any woman’s, possibly more so. That surprised me for some reason. I don’t know what—if anything—I’d ever expected from a man’s kiss, but the soft, sensual touch of his lips and the sweet taste of his tongue were more arousing than anything I’d ever experienced.

He tenderly ran his fingers through my hair and down the side of my face. I did the same, exploring the cool softness of his hair and the coarseness of his jaw.

I broke the kiss and rested my forehead against his, holding his face in both hands. His thumbs brushed the sides of my jaw as we stood in breathless silence, no sound between us except for his jacket squeaking with every ragged breath he drew.

My hands were shaking. So were his. Neither of us could draw a steady breath. I was so hard it hurt, and judging by the way he moaned softly when I pressed my cock against his, he was too. Never in my life had I been so turned on, even though all I’d done was kiss him.

And I needed to do it again.

I pulled him to me and kissed him, using the tip of my tongue to draw his into my mouth. The sweet taste of his mouth and his masculine scent made my head spin. I couldn’t get enough of him.

Grasping his hair gently, I pulled his head back and dipped my head, kissing his neck the same way I had done to women in the past. A low moan vibrated against my tongue, and he dug his fingers into my shoulders. Kissing my way up the side of his neck, I found the spot just beneath his ear and flicked my tongue across his skin. He pulled me closer and pressed his hips against mine as I sucked his earlobe into my mouth. Then I kissed his neck again, working my way down to the front of his throat.

“Kiss me.” His voice was little more than a deep growl that I felt rather than heard.
“I will.” My lips never left his skin. I kissed his neck again, running my fingertips down the opposite side.

“Fucking kiss me,” he murmured. I grinned against his skin and paused to make a gentle circle with the tip of my tongue.

“Kiss me. I
want
you to kiss me.” The amount of need in the word “want” almost knocked me off of my feet, but before I could do what he begged me to do, his fingers tightened in my hair and he pulled my head back. He kissed me, devouring my mouth with a kind of hunger I’d never before experienced. I pressed him up against the car, needing to be as close to his body as possible. I was dizzy, overwhelmed, completely lost in him. I didn’t know what I wanted to do, what I wanted him to do. I couldn’t comprehend anything except my need to touch him and taste him.

After a while, he broke the kiss and looked at me, touching my face. Then he dropped his gaze. “
Fuck
.” He sounded frustrated, almost angry.

Alarmed, I said, “What is it?”

 

He kissed me again, gently this time. Swallowing hard, he whispered, “I don’t want to, but I have to go.”

 

Disappointment, relief, and frustration tightened my chest. “Right now?”

He licked his lips.
Christ, that’s even hotter now that I know what it tastes like
. “If I don’t…” His voice was unsteady. “We’ll be here all night.”

I nodded and, as much as it killed me, released him, slowly breaking contact with his body. Then he seized my shirt and pulled me to him again, kissing me hungrily. We both tried to draw away, then came back for more. Tried again. Came back. Each time our mouths met, the desire and fervor were even more intense.

Finally, we managed to pull ourselves off of each other. Leaning against my car, I tried to catch my breath, to calm down, to bring myself back to Earth. I gripped the door handle to keep myself from pulling him in for just one more kiss.
We stood in silence for a moment. Then he came toward me. I

avoided his eyes, afraid I’d completely lose control if I so much as looked at him again.

“I’d like…” He paused. “I’d like to see you again.”
Swallowing hard, I said, “Me too.”
“Dustin.”
I closed my eyes.
“Dustin, look at me.”

Willing myself to stay in control, I raised my head and looked at him. The ache below my belt intensified, and when our eyes met, I barely suppressed a frustrated moan.

“I’ll be at the tournament on Saturday,” he said.
“I know.”
“Will you be there?”

Wild horses couldn’t drag me away
, I wanted to say, but all I could manage was a nod.

He smiled. Then he touched my face and kissed me. It was just a soft, gentle kiss this time, his lips barely touching mine, but the electricity was still palpable in the air. I had no idea how he could stay so calm and in control in that moment, but when he broke the kiss, just a split second before he finally pulled away, he released a ragged breath against my lips and his fingers twitched against the side of my face.

I held my breath. If he didn’t pull away, I wasn’t going to be able to hold myself back. I needed him. I needed him in ways I couldn’t fucking comprehend.

He took his hand away from my face and I released my breath. There was less room between us than there had been earlier, when I’d thought he was too close, but now it seemed too far. Too far, but still too close.

“I’ll see you on Saturday,” he said.
“Saturday,” I said with a nod.
He smiled, and some of that cockiness I saw in the bar crept back

into his expression. “Are you going to be playing?”
I laughed in spite of the maddening tension. “We’ll see.” “Good night, Dustin.”
“Good night, Brandon.”

And he was gone, leaving me standing on shaking legs, leaning against my car, listening to his footsteps fade into the night, wondering what in the hell just happened.
T
HE
treadmill shifted to a faster interval, catching me by surprise. I cursed, adjusting my speed, and reminded myself for the hundredth time to pay attention.

But by the time the interval changed again a minute later, dropping to a steady jog as it had a dozen times since I started my run, I was a million miles away and almost stumbled again.

Fuck it
. I was too distracted for intervals. I changed the program on the machine to finish out the last three miles of my run at a brisk but steady jog, leaving my mind free to wander wherever it pleased.

Specifically, to one Brandon Stewart.

Grabbing my towel off of the bar, I wiped sweat off of my face, all the while replaying everything that had happened the night before. Trying to figure out what exactly
had
happened. Was I really attracted to a man? Had this ever happened before, and I somehow didn’t notice?

The gym was a setting that tended to lend itself very conveniently to flirting and checking people out. In over five years as a personal trainer, I had admittedly checked out more than a few women. Looking back, I’d also had countless opportunities to do the same with men, but aside from occasionally stopping to admire a particularly interesting tattoo, I couldn’t remember ever giving a male client a second look.

Even now, as I continued my run, I looked around the cardio room, trying to find a man who piqued my interest. None.

For that matter, I couldn’t remember a woman who had ever driven me to distraction the way Brandon currently did. My ex-wife certainly never had. The last girl I had dated left me with a smile on my face and a few scratches on my back for good measure, but even that long weekend of furniture-splintering sex hadn’t left me in this kind of stupor.

Maybe I was gay. Or bisexual. Or… something. Hell, at this rate, I was wondering if I were simply Brandonsexual.

 

All questions about my sexuality aside, there was something else that bothered me about this development with Brandon: my divorce.

I’d filed almost six months ago. Though it was a relief to be out from under Stephanie’s thumb, I still caught myself comparing every woman I dated to her. I found myself looking for women who were as different as humanly possible from Stephanie. If a woman so much as smiled the way Stephanie did, I wanted to—and often did—run in the opposite direction.

So was my attraction to Brandon just an extreme attempt to get over my ex?

He was as different as anyone could possibly get from Stephanie, at least physically. From gender right on down to eye color, I couldn’t get much further from her than Brandon.

As far as I could tell, his personality was completely different too, but aside from some pool table banter and the flirting in the parking lot, I hardly knew him. I knew he was sarcastic, witty, and obviously intelligent, judging by the way he played and the way he spoke. He was cocky, but not obnoxiously so. In fact, it was a rather attractive quality, a way of carrying himself that said, “This is the way I am; if you don’t like it, fuck off.” It was confidence more than arrogance.

But beyond that, I knew nothing about him. My first impression, though, was that he was nothing like my catty, controlling, manipulative ex-wife.

So was I just attracted to Brandon because of what he
wasn’t?

I wasn’t just attracted to Brandon, though. I was
drawn
to him. Moth to a flame, that was me to Brandon. Even from across the room, he’d intrigued me, and I could only half-heartedly convince myself that it was his crowd charisma or his billiards prowess that pulled me to that table. There was something about him, and judging by the way his game had faltered and the nervous but ballsy way he’d pulled me up against the other car, he felt it too.

So this is what chemistry feels like.

 

And if I was just looking for something to shift gears from Stephanie, why Brandon? Why now?

The treadmill beeped and started slowing down to the cool-down phase. Trying to concentrate on my workout, I finished the cool-down, wiped down the treadmill, and headed upstairs to the weight room, pulling on my weightlifting gloves.

In the weight room, as I added plates to a barbell, someone nudged my arm. I jumped, having been completely lost in my own thoughts. I looked up to see Tony, one of my regular clients.

“Whoa, sorry to scare you,” he said.

 

“Don’t worry about it.” I took one of my earbuds out. “Just had the music on a little loud. What’s up?”

 

“Hey, I hate to bother you during your workout, but….” He paused.

 

“I’m on the clock either way,” I said with a shrug. “What do you need?”

“You showed me how to do handstand push-ups last time, and—” He cut himself off, scowling. His face flushed a little. “Man, I just can’t get it right.”

“No problem. They’re tricky. Come on, I’ll show you.”

“I’m okay when I’m still using the wall for support,” he said as he followed me over to one of the areas by the wall. “But as soon as I come away from the wall, I can’t keep it together.”

“Just takes practice,” I said. “It’s all about balance.” I folded my arms. “Show me what you’re doing.”

He scowled again. Then he took a breath and went into a handstand. He wobbled slightly but then recovered. As soon as he started going down, though, he lost his balance and dropped his feet back to the floor. “See?”

I nodded. “Yeah, you’re not focusing on keeping your core solid on the way down.”

 

His eyebrows furrowed. “Really?”

“Yeah. As soon as you start coming down, you put all your focus on your arms and shoulders, then your core relaxes, so you lose your form. You can get away with that to some degree when you’re using the wall for support, but not freestanding. Now watch.” I put my hands on the floor and kicked up into a handstand, breathing slowly and evenly as I tightened my abs and held the stand for a second to stabilize. Once I was steady, I lowered myself, concentrating on keeping my back and abs tight, almost letting my face touch the floor before pushing back up. I did three reps before I dropped my feet back to the floor and stood.

“You son of a bitch, you make it look too easy,” he said with a good-humored scowl.

“Do it a few hundred times and it gets easier.” I chuckled. “But seriously, you have to watch your core, just like you do when you’re lifting. Let it go, and you’re going to lose your balance or get hurt.” I gestured towards the floor. “Try it again.”

He did nothing for a second, so I assumed he was processing what I’d told him. When he went into a handstand this time, he held it together, lowering his body and rising again with relative ease. He was still a little unsteady but didn’t lose his balance. After a few reps, he stood and laughed. “Yep, you were right. Thanks, man.”

“I’m always right.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he said. He shook my hand, and I headed back into the weight room.
Over my shoulder, I said, “You’ll be doing five sets of twenty at your next session, so practice.”

“What?” His voice was almost shrill with panic.

I looked at him and laughed. “Just kidding. But keep practicing.” As I walked away, I put my earbuds back in and let myself wander back into my own little world. Strangely enough, as I finished putting plates on the bar for a dead lift, I found myself thinking of my brief exchange with Tony.

For all I knew of what women liked, Tony was attractive. He was well-built and, even when he was sweaty and disheveled at the gym, well-groomed. There was certainly nothing about him that would make someone cringe, as far as I could tell.

Picking up the barbell, I started my first set of dead lifts.

I had several female clients who had progressed to handstand pushups, and while I did my absolute level best to be completely professional when I worked with clients, I couldn’t help but look at them in a decidedly
un
professional way during that particular move. It was an extremely powerful move, one that engaged almost every muscle in the upper body. There was something incredibly sexy about a woman with that much strength, stamina, and balance.

By all rights, given my sudden interest in the male gender, watching Tony perform a handstand push-up should have at least elicited
some
sort of response.