“You shouldn’t tease me this early in the morning,” he says, but the lazy smile pulling at his lips tells me otherwise. Tells me that he might like being teased, among other things in the morning.
“I’m not teasing,” I say and sit up, letting the covers fall off my chest and poolinto my lap.
“Now you’re definitely teasing.” He doesn’t even try to hide that he’s staring at my chest.
I repeat my words from our first night in this room. “Do you like what you see?”
“You know I do.”
“Do I?” I ask. “We haven’t discussed types. Maybe you’re into bears, or twinks, or ultra femmes. You probably watchDrag Race, don’t you?”
“God, no.” He scoffs and actually looks insulted.
I chuckle at him. Why is teasing him so easy? And, worse, enjoyable.
“Dick,” he says again, laughing.
“Come on,” I say, getting up. I hold out my hand to him. “Let’s go.” He grabs my hand and I yank him out of his bed.
Connor
It’s possible that working out with Gavin this morning is a mistake. To start, he’s distractingly strong. Each time he sets up a new exercise for us and demonstrates it, I miss what he’s saying in favor of watching his muscles stretch the fabric of his workout shorts and tee shirt. Which is ridiculous. It’s not as if I need to be taught how to lift weights. I have my own trainer I work out with back in Chicago. I’m convinced at this point that he’s doing it to tease me. To make me look at his thighs as they pull tight with each squat, his chest as it expands and contracts with each lift, his biceps harden into stones of muscle with each curl. And I let him do it. Repeatedly.
“How much do you weigh?” he asks me, pulling me from my stupor as I watch him load a bar up with twenty-pound plates.
“What?”
Pointing at me, he asks, “What are you? About a buck eighty?”
Good guess.I nod at him. “Just about.”
He grins and continues to place plates on the bar. “Lightweight.”
“I’m sorry.” I laugh. “Not all of us are built like trees. Nor do I play my position in a way where that would be useful.”
“Nor do I,” he says, laughing, with a haughty shake to his head and shoulders that looks ridiculous on him. “Do you always talk like an aristocrat?”
I hit his elbow with mine as I move to take a seat on the bench. “Do you even know what an aristocrat is?”
“Yeah.” He laughs some more and there’s mischief in his eyes. “It’s a fancy term for rich dudes who say things like ‘nor do I’ when they’re trying to prove their point.”
I can’t help but smile and tease him back. “Apologies. Some of us have evolved past the ancient language of grunts and growls to express ourselves.”
His mischievous eyes turn dark and daring. My stomach flips. “Don’t challenge me, Connor. I can get you grunting and growling in no time.”
Heat flares in my cheeks and his smile returns with a lick of his lips. He pokes at my cheek with his finger. “I meant with the bench press, but it’s cute that your mind went somewhere else.”
I narrow my eyes at him. Is he flirting with me? “Don’t act innocent. You knew what you were saying.”
“Yeah.” He points at the bar with a flip of his hand. “That you’re going to grunt and growl as you lift that weight. Let’s go, Kennedy. Time is wasting.”
I lie down on the bench, and he moves to stand beside the top of my head, giving me the perfect view up his body from crotch to chin. Thank God he’s clothed right now. Not that that’s stopping me from thinking about all the fun we could be having in this position if he wasn’t. Which are thoughts I shouldn’t be having. I should be focusing. Focusing on lifting these weights, and more importantly, preparing for the Olympics. That’s what we’re here for. I’m here to train to win gold, not drool over the team goon while practicing my minimal flirting skills.
He places his hands near the bar to spot me, readyinghimself for when I lift, then looks down at me and smirks. “Enjoying the view?”
“Fuck off,” I say and grab the bar. How is it that he can see right through me? “Oof,” I grunt as I try to lift it off its supports.
“Nice grunt.” He laughs and helps me lower the bar closer to my chest. “Now all I need is a growl.”
