One-Two Punch (3 page)

“Don’t worry—you’ll get it. Now watch,” he ordered and Beth made herself concentrate on the progress of the wrapping, despite the distracting feel of his fingers brushing against hers. When he finished, she held up her hands and admired the neat wraps covering her hands from knuckles to wrists.

“I look so…professional,” she breathed with a grin, making Harry laugh.

“Yeah, just wait until you can actually throw a punch,” he teased. “Okay, go grab a jump rope.”

Forty-five minutes later, Harry’s hotness had retreated to the back of Beth’s mind.

Beautiful or not, he’s a sadist
, she thought sourly, turning her forehead against her short pink sleeve before the sweat could run into her eye.

“Come on now—one-two,” he commanded, holding up his hands, which were protected by punching mitts. “Step forward with the jab, plant your feet for the straight.”

Beth obeyed, the gloves on her hands pulling at her arm muscles as if they weighed fifty pounds instead of just one.

“Knees bent.”

Her leg muscles screamed for mercy.

“Stay on the balls of your feet!”

Beth popped up, wobbled and caught her balance.
There’s no gliding like a butterfly
going on with me
, she thought, grimly amused.
It’s more like shuffling like Igor.
She snickered at her own mental joke.

“Concentrate!” Harry the Dictator barked and Beth stepped forward on her left foot as she threw the punch, her glove meeting Harry’s mitt with a satisfying smack.

“You’re popping your elbow,” Harry barked. “Elbows in!”

Why did I ever think he was nice?
Beth wondered, tucking her elbows and slamming her fist into the center of his left mitt.

“Nice,” he told her. Beth gave a weak smile, panting.

“That’s enough technique for today,” Harry said. Before relief could even register in Beth’s tired brain, he finished, “Time for strength work. Take off your gloves and go grab those ten-pound weights.”

As Beth dragged herself over to the rack of weights, she wondered why she had thought that joining the gym was a good idea.

Is Harry worth all this?
she asked herself, glancing back at him. He was watching her and when she met his eyes, he grinned, his cheeks creasing and his blue eyes light and happy.

Yeah
, she sighed to herself, yanking off her gloves.
He’s worth it.

Harry didn’t know if he could take much more of this. Every time Beth pushed the weights over her head in a military press, her tiny pink shirt rose to show a sliver of skin. Every squat thrust her ass, outlined by the tight black pants, toward him.

He was so hard he ached with it, his self-control shredding with each little sound that escaped her as her arms extended toward the ceiling.
Even her grunts are sexy
, he thought and then caught himself.

Focus
, he commanded his brain.
This is a client. This is work.

Her arms wobbled as she struggled to push the weights up and Harry steadied her elbows with a light touch.

This wasn’t going to work, Harry realized, feeling her slick skin under his fingers, stiffening at the overwhelming urge to touch more of her, to slide his fingers beneath her shirt and up her wet back. Biting back a groan, he shifted his weight and felt his bad knee bobble under him. Catching his balance, he briefly closed his eyes against the shot of pain that zigzagged across the side of his leg. Harry opened his eyes to find Beth watching him, the weights dangling by her sides.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“Fine.” Embarrassed, he brushed off her concern and took the weights from her hands. “Bad knee. That’s enough for today. Go grab a mat and stretch it out.”

With a relieved nod, she moved across the gym away from him. Harry carefully kept his eyes averted from the easy sway of her walk. There was only so much temptation a guy could take.

“What’s wrong?”

Beth looked up from her contemplation of the six steps that led from the front door of the Anchor Paper building down to the sidewalk. Sheri was watching her with a baffled half-smile.

Making a face, Beth looked down at the steps again. “Stairs hurt.”

“How’d you hurt yourself this time—did you trip on the bus steps again?” Sheri asked.

Beth scowled. “No. And that wasn’t my fault. The top step was wet.”

“Uh-huh. Did you run into another glass door?”

“Okay, that door was really clean and hard to see. Anyway, I didn’t hurt myself this time—I worked out yesterday,” Beth said smugly.

Sheri looked at her skeptically. “You? Worked out? Did you fall off the treadmill again?”

“Of course not,” Beth protested, offended. “I’m not
that
uncoordinated.”

Sheri snorted. Beth chose to ignore the skeptical sound.

“I boxed.”

“Ohhh.” Sheri drew out the sound, comprehension settling in. “You actually met the gym bunny?”

“He’s my trainer.” Blinking innocently, Beth couldn’t suppress a tiny grin. “My
boxing
trainer.”

“Congratulations!” Sheri crowed. “You are
such
a rock star. I can’t believe you actually walked in there—usually you’re such a chicken with men.”

“Hey!” Beth objected.

Sheri just waved away the indignant protest. “Oh please—you wouldn’t know a penis if one hit you in the head.”

“How would a penis—” Beth began, brow wrinkled, but Sheri cut her off.

“Whatever—I’m just so proud of you. Here’s to you having lots of fabulous sex with that hot, hot man in the very near future.” Sheri held up a high-five hand.

Beth looked at the hand mournfully. “Don’t mean to leave you hanging but my arm doesn’t go up anymore,” she sighed.

Sheri shrugged and let her hand drop. “Never mind.” She threw an arm around Beth’s shoulders. “No pain, no gaining a super-hot guy in your bed, or something like that. When do you see him again?”

The mention of her next training session with Harry made Beth forget her sore muscles for a moment. “Monday,” she said, her face glowing.

“Uh-oh,” Sheri muttered. “You’re already falling for him, aren’t you?”

Flushing, Beth shook her head a little too emphatically. “What? Of course not. I don’t even really know him. He’s not…I’m not…I mean…” She trailed off.

“Of course not,” Sheri said, obviously not believing a word of it. “Come on, gimpy—let’s get you down these steps. You’re going to miss your bus.”

She made it to her stop on time, but just barely, running toward her waiting bus in an awkward, stiff-legged hobble.

“What’s wrong?” Ed asked as she climbed on, wincing as the steps pulled at her quads.

“Oof,” she grunted as she plopped into a seat. “I worked out yesterday and I’m a little sore.”
Just a little
, she thought, rolling her eyes at her understatement.

Ed shook his head. “Why are you doing that? You have a perfectly nice…” He trailed off, the red of his blush showing easily through his pale skin, and focused a little too hard on his side mirror as he pulled back into traffic.

Beth grinned, amazed that the painfully shy driver had almost given her an actual compliment. Between that, Harry and her secret admirer, men were just raining down on her lately. With an amused snort, she pulled out the small sketchbook she always kept tucked in her purse.

She liked to draw to pass the time. It made her feel like she was accomplishing something during her bus rides. Also, with an excruciatingly boring job and no place to paint in her tiny, dark apartment, Beth felt like her sketches were the last link to her dream of being an artist. Everything around her served as her drawing subjects—the other riders, the old stone church they passed every day, a man and his dog walking along the path bordering the golf course.

Today it was the bus driver. As she roughed out an outline, her mind drifted to Harry. Although she had denied Sheri’s assertion that she was already falling for him, Beth knew her friend was right. But how much of her crush was merely based on her fantasies of a gorgeous stranger glimpsed through a window? Could the reality of him really measure up?

Her pencil paused and she smiled into space, remembering the heat and smell of him, the way his cheeks creased into near-dimples when he smiled, the feel of his hands as he wrapped her wrists. Yes, she decided. Her daydreams couldn’t even come close to the fabulousness of Harry in live and living color, smart and friendly and funny and so sexy that he melted her knees.

The bus hit a bump, knocking her back to reality with a jagged pencil line across the paper.

“Shoot,” she grumbled, scrubbing at the mark with her eraser. The sketch had been a good one too. She considered the oblique profile she had roughed out, liking how she had captured the gawky, vulnerable length of Ed’s neck and the way his ears protruded from his closely clipped blond hair. Even his large-knuckled hands gripping the wheel were spot on.
Oh well
, she shrugged, flipping the sketchbook closed and tucking it into her purse. Her stop was coming up anyway.

Beth’s eyes immediately searched for Harry as she walked into the gym for her second training session on Monday. When she didn’t see him, disappointment dropped her shoulders. The intense emotion scared her a little.
Sheri’s right again,
Beth admitted to herself. She was in way over her head.

She saw Dominic doing crunches across the gym and brightened a little. Digging in her duffel, she maneuvered around the heavy bags toward him. He grinned when she walked up.

“Hey there, jail bait!” he called out. “Here to torture Harry some more?”

Blushing and smiling, she protested, “Jail bait? I’m twenty-four—that’s totally legal.”

“Yeah, but I’m sure Harry can think of some illegal things he wants to do to you.”

Dominic smirked at her as he pushed off the mat and climbed to his feet.

Beth pulled out two boxes of cookies and held them out to him. “Here. Some Girl Scouts were selling these outside the Super-Mart.”

“The coconut ones?” Dominic asked, his voice hushed, as if the cookies were sacred.

As she nodded, Beth found herself crushed in a huge bear hug, her feet dangling off the floor. “You’re an angel! A cookie angel!”

“Hands off, Dominic,” rumbled a voice behind Beth.

With her head smashed sideways against Dominic’s barrel chest, Beth could only move one eye to see a pissed-off-looking Harry glaring at them. Despite the death stare directed his way, Dominic’s arms didn’t loosen.

“But Harry, she brought me cookies!” he exclaimed, his arms tightening around Beth until the air squeezed out of her with an “oof”.

“So you’re smothering her as a thank you?” Harry’s jealous glower had mellowed a little, probably because of her obvious lack of enjoyment of the hug. The corners of his mouth were even twitching.

If he laughs, I’m going to have to hurt him
, Beth decided, rolling a desperate eye at him and wiggling her hands, the only body part that wasn’t immobilized by Dominic’s bear-like grip.

“Okay, enough,” Harry told him, moving to pry Beth loose. “Let her go, Dom—I don’t think she can breathe in there.”

“Oops.” Dominic released her and Beth dropped back to the floor. She stumbled on landing and Harry caught her against him, supporting her as she found her balance.

Beth immediately relaxed against him, instinctively molding her back to his front.

Security and comfort radiated from him, filling a space in Beth that she didn’t even know was empty.

“Sorry, Beth,” Dominic apologized. “It’s just…you brought me
cookies
.”

Is he tearing up?
Beth wondered, horrified. “If you cry, I’m taking them back,” she threatened.

“I’m not crying.” Offended, Dominic snatched up his towel and rubbed his eyes.

“That was sweat.”

Beth felt Harry shake with silent laughter. His solid arm had wrapped around her rib cage when she had fallen against him and Beth realized that each breath she took brushed the undersides of her breasts against his forearm. He must have realized it too, because Beth felt a thickening bulge press against her lower back. Her breathing quickened, moving her breasts even more rapidly against his tightening arm.

Harry squeezed her against him, hard, for just a second—not nearly long enough—

and released her. Her body wanted to follow his but he set her away. Beth heard him inhale, a hard rasp of sound.

“Jump rope,” he ordered harshly, his voice rough. Beth moved dazedly toward the hooks holding the ropes.

“She brought me cookies, Harry,” she heard Dominic repeat in awestruck tones as she walked away. Despite the desire roaring through her body, she had to smile.

Wow, Dominic was easy
, she thought.

Harry hadn’t slept much during the past five days. Ever since Beth had walked into the gym for the first time, in fact. She was attacking the uppercut bag and each twist of her body made her breasts jiggle, even in the tight confines of her sports bra.

When she had fallen against him after Dominic dropped her, his head had almost exploded—not to mention his erection. He could still feel the warm length of her body pressing along his, her round, soft ass nestled against his thighs, the brush of her breasts against his arm.

“Bend your knees,” he ordered, forcing himself to focus. “Put the strength of your legs behind your punch.”

Beth nodded without speaking. She was breathing hard and sweat streaked her flushed cheeks but she didn’t pause, renewing her assault on the bag with grim determination.

“Okay,” he said. “Take a break—get some water.”

“Yay,” she cheered weakly, using her teeth to pull the Velcro strap around her wrist free, tugging her glove off so she could pick up her water bottle.

Harry watched her tip her head back, her throat working as she swallowed.
Great
, he thought. Now
he
was sweating too.

“You know,” he told her, “you’re awfully tough for a soft little girly girl.”

She lowered her water bottle to grin at him. “Who are you calling soft?”

“Just in the very best way,” he reassured her, his eyes slipping down to her breasts, still heaving as she caught her breath. “So…can you beat up your boyfriend yet?” Harry mentally smacked himself on the forehead.
Smooth, man, really smooth. Can you make it
any more obvious that you’re interested?