Sex Snob (17 page)

He pinned me more roughly against the door with his solid body, and I pulled him harder toward me, rubbing against him until I felt like I could come from this alone.

“Tell me to stop now if you want me to.”

I didn’t know how long we’d been doing this, and my need for him was becoming unbearable.
But as much as it excited me, it scared me just a little more.

“Stop,” I breathed against him.

Eight

I hadn’t spoken to Shane since the kiss. I hadn’t contacted him and he hadn’t contacted me. I had also decided that avoiding CrossFit was a good idea. Until Wednesday. By Wednesday, I needed to see him. He had become a craving, an addiction that burrowed under my skin and gnawed at me from the inside until I gave in and sought my next fix.
Totally still just a crush.

I trudged into CrossFit Force and as my eyes surveyed the room, I stopped dead in my tracks, my jaw nearly hitting the floor.

“You’ve gotta be shittin’ me,” I said with a smirk to the intruder in
my territory.

“Shut up,” Kyle said as he turned his head away from me.

“Oh my God, it’s happened. I never thought I’d see the day, but here it is. Kyle Merrick is pussy-whipped.”

“Shut.
Up,” he growled as he looked around to see who else may have heard me.

“How’d she do it?
I’ve been putting out for years and never got you here. Goddamn, her coochie must be made of solid gold.”

“Or maybe you’re just not a very good lay.”

“Holy shit, you’re smoking crack now too?”

“Very funny.
Now lower your voice.”

“Why?
Since when do you care what people think?” As I bent at the waist and stretched my hamstrings, my head turned toward Kyle, awaiting my answer.

“Since my girlfriend works here and has no idea about the nature of our,” he hesitated, motioning to the space between us, “relationship.”

“Aww, your girlfriend,” I said in a singsong voice, smiling wide. Then, I suddenly turned serious. “Have you told your mother? The shock
may
kill her. Come to think of it, can
I
tell her?” Kyle’s mother has never liked me. And the reason is totally ridiculous. You get plastered at one family gathering and steal a piñata and suddenly you’re an outcast. I mean, those kids stopped crying eventually. It was her son’s idea, but I don’t see her hating
him
.

“No, I haven’t told her yet.
I've only known her for two weeks.”

“And you’re already lying to poor Kate.
The mark of any sound union.”

“What do you mean?
I’m not lying to her.” Kyle seemed incensed at my accusation.

Damn, he’s in deep.
“Don’t get all huffy, princess. You not telling her about our ‘relationship,’ as you so eloquently called it, is a lie, no?”

“No.”

I laughed aloud, “How isn’t it?”

“I just haven’t told her.
I didn’t lie about it. There’s no point in bringing up ancient history.”

“Ancient history!”
I screeched before lowering my voice to a whisper. “You fucked me in my office like three weeks ago. Since when does that fall into the realm of ancient history?”

“Amanda, please drop it.
Don’t mess this up for me.”

My face fell instantly. “Do you really think I would ever do that?”
He couldn’t have stung me more if he had tried. I sat down on the ground, probably looking like a pouting five year old, but I didn’t care. Kyle was one of my best friends. How could he ever think I’d hurt him?

“Hey,” he knelt beside me.
“I’m sorry. No, I don’t think you’d ever mess anything up for me. That was a dick thing to say. I’m just uncomfortable in this boyfriend role. I don’t want to fuck it up. I really didn’t mean what I said. Forgive me?”

“The golden coochie has changed you,” I said dryly, trying to hide my smile.
I couldn’t stay mad at Kyle. He was . . . Kyle. And I loved him like a brother.
Well, maybe not a brother. That would be weird. And illegal.

He cocked an eyebrow at me, waiting for me to answer his question.
“Yes, I forgive you,” I exhaled, as if saying that had taken great energy.

“Good.
Now get your ass up and explain this workout to me. I have no clue what any of that means,” he said, motioning to the board that detailed our workout. “And thanks for not showing up yesterday. I had to endure my first class alone. I thought you usually came in on Tuesdays?”

“I try to get here four days a week, but there are no set days.
I come in when I can.” I silently prayed that Kyle didn’t push me further. The truth was, I was almost always here on Tuesdays. I was usually too exhausted on Mondays, so I made the effort to be here Tuesdays to get my four days in. “You could’ve called me. I would’ve told you my schedule.”

“That would’ve ruined the surprise.”

“Some surprise. Shane usually insults me enough. I don’t need you here for that.”

“Hey, you said you forgave me, liar.
Just so I can mentally prepare, how long do you plan on holding my comment over me?”

“Hmm, probably a really long time.”

“Nice,” Kyle said sarcastically, though a grin spread across his lips. He knew he deserved payback. It probably even made him feel better.

The previous class finished up and started gathering their things as Kyle and I traded jibes.
I hadn’t even realized Shane was next to me until he spoke. “Kyle, I recommend you find someone else to shadow. Bishop here doesn’t do any of the movements correctly.”

I looked back and forth between the two smiling faces on either side of me.
“Two smartasses, just what I need. I guess it’s time to go out and join a real gym. This place is starting to take anyone on as a member.”

“Well, yeah.
We took you on, didn’t we?” Shane’s eyes lit up, impressed with his own wit.

“Maybe if you weren’t such a
shitty instructor, you’d have more impressive clientele.”

“If I’m so shitty, how co
me you keep coming back?”

And there it was.
The proverbial elephant had just crashed into the room. Shane still wore a smile, but his eyes were intense. We both knew what his real question was: since the kiss had gone further than initially intended, could we still be friends? I had stopped him, so clearly I didn’t want our relationship to progress beyond a certain point. But had the kiss ruined what we had?

I didn’t want it to.
So, I reassured him in the best way I knew how. I walked close to him, putting my face inches from his. “Because torturing you makes it all worth it,” I said as I tapped him twice on the cheek with my hand. “Now let’s get this shit-show started so I can laugh at Kyle,” I declared loudly as I walked away from Shane. As I found a spot on the mat, I glanced back at him. He was smiling as he ran his hand through his hair.
Guess he liked my answer.

***

Class only continued to get better as Kyle decided to impress everyone by putting a ton of weight on his bar for overhead squats. He immediately tipped over backward as he tried to stand, landing solidly on his ass. Then, Kyle nearly kicked Shane in the crotch while attempting to do a pull up using a band. As soon as he put his foot in the band, he clearly underestimated the resistance it would give, causing his foot to wrench up
.
Priceless.

It wasn’t that Kyle wasn’t in great shape.
He was. But he wasn’t in CrossFit shape, and he definitely wasn’t familiar with the exercises. When the workout finally ended, I looked over to see poor Kyle sprawled out on the mats. Kate looked over and shook her head. She had kept her distance from him since we’d been here, and I wasn’t sure if it was because she was trying to keep their relationship on the down low or if she was trying not to
make Kyle feel pathetic in front of his girlfriend. I tended to think it was the latter.

I . . . have . . .
just one . . . question,” Kyle forced out between desperate gasps for air. “What the hell is a WOD?”

I giggled at the question. Shane and Kate were always referencing the WOD:
“Put more effort into your WOD." “Reach max potential during the WOD.” It sounded kind of gross now that I thought about it. “It stands for workout of the day.”

“Oh . . . okay.”
He took another deep breath and sat up. “It just sounded like a weird thing to be yelling out every five minutes.”

I laughed out loud at how alike we were.
“You gonna get up at some point?”

“Just give me a second so that feeling can return to my legs.”

“Oh, there’s going to be feeling alright. It’s called pain. Deep, unmerciful pain.”

He looked up at me in horror.

“You’ll get used to it,” I shrugged.

“To pain?
I kinda doubt it,” he grunted as he used his hands to push himself from the ground.

“
Aren’t your muscles already sore from yesterday?”

“Not really. Shane took it pretty easy on me.”

“Well, it’ll eventually become a perpetual soreness,” I reassured him.

“Awesome.”

I laughed at his sardonic tone as Kate walked up to us. I left when Kate mentioned taking an ice bath and Kyle suggested some other uses for the ice.

I walked to the mat where I had left my keys earlier, since I had been too shocked by Kyle’s presence to put them in a cubby.
I looked around, calmly at first, but then wildly as I realized they were nowhere to be found. I ran outside to look for my car. It was still where I had left it, so no one had stolen it. Not that I expected that from a fellow gym member, but you could never tell. Some of these people were shifty. As I paced the mats, I suddenly heard a tinkling in my ear, followed by a voice.

“Lose something?”

I spun around toward Shane and grabbed my keys. “Thank God, I thought I lost them. Where did you find them?”

“You left them sitting on the floor.
I didn’t want someone picking them up.”

“Thanks.”

“No problem.” He held my gaze, causing the memory of our kiss to flood back into my mind. I grew warmer, which I didn’t think was possible since it was ninety degrees in this damn building, and my nipples puckered against my sports bra.
Goddamn he’s sexy.

“Okay, well, I’m outta here,” I finally spoke, breaking our trance. “See ya tomorrow.”

“See ya tomorrow,” he said as he began walking away.

And
as I watched the distance grow between us, I felt myself nearly overwhelmed with the feeling that I didn’t particularly like Shane walking away from me.

***

Unsettled. That’s how I felt. I couldn’t figure out exactly why, but had a general idea. I had been feeling this way ever since leaving CrossFit last night. Since leaving Shane.
But I left CrossFit four times a week. Why was last night different?

There was only one logical explanation: I was bipolar.
And now I sat at my desk about to Google symptoms of bipolar disorder, rather than admit the truth.
It’s more than a crush. Shit.
I had just lowered my head into my hands when Danielle barged in.

“Hey, I have . . .
what’s wrong? You look like someone just told you there was no Santa Claus.”

I looked up at her questioningly, “I look like I’m five?”

“You know what I mean,” Danielle huffed as she sat down in a chair across from me. “So, what’s up?”

Part of me wanted to confide in her; get it off my chest and out into the open.
But I couldn’t. I had a few more layers of denial to build first. “Nothing, just a bit of a headache. What are those?” I asked, gesturing to a stack of papers in her hands.

“Ugh, a new account Mr. Bader wants us to start running numbers on.”

“Hey,” I scolded, “that’s Master Bader to you. Show some respect.”

Danielle giggled as she put the papers down on my desk.
Jesus Christ, there was a mountain of them. And as I quickly scanned them, I could tell that there was no semblance of order to the mass before me.

“Steph has been tasked with organizing them for us.
She told me to bring them in here so we could hide from Bader.”

I eyed her harshly.

“Sorry, sorry. So we could hide from
Master
Bader,” she corrected. “Do you know that he told me a story about how he slept in the same bed as his parents until he was fifteen? That’s probably why he’s so fucked up.”

Steph walked in as I howled with laughter at Danielle’s anecdote.
“What’d I miss?” she asked.

Danielle caught her up to speed as we sat around my desk and began sorting through the papers.

“This looks like a small account.
Why are we handling this?” I asked. I wasn’t trying to be conceited, but typically accounts like this went to accountants in their first couple of years with the company. I had bigger fish to fry.

“I don’t know.
Master Bader just told me to see that it got done.” Danielle explained.

“Well this doesn’t make sense.
Let me call the weasel and see what the deal is.” I typed in the extension of Bader’s assistant. Even though intra-office calls were easily identified because the extension the call was placed from popped up on the ID, Bader still insisted that his assistant field all of his calls.