Very slowly, they looked at each other and nodded.
“From this moment on,” Carter growled, “he needs to know to leave you the fuck alone.”
~ 24 ~
HAYDEN
I tiptoed down the hallway, which was silly, considering my choice of footwear. I was in my fuzziest pair of socks. They didn’t make so much as a swish on the smooth hardwood floor, and the slight creak of my weight wasn’t something I could control anyway.
Even so, it was well past midnight and I couldn’t sleep. I’d spent the last couple of restless hours staring up at a strange new ceiling, in a strange new bed, that wasn’t my own.
That wasn’t why I couldn’t sleep, though. Mostly it was guilt. Guilt at having taken the spontaneous thrill of an amazing weekend, which I’d now turned into a major imposition. Yes, I knew the guys didn’t exactly see it that way. But I did. I knew what Cole had already done, and not just to Carter’s truck. Even worse, I alone knew what he was capable of in the future.
It was Carter’s bedroom door that was my destination now, and I reached it without incident. The knob turned. The door was unlocked. It swung open on silent, well-oiled hinges, into what I expected to be a moonlit room of blue darkness. Only there was no moonlight. There wasn’t even darkness.
Carter was up, and not just up, but in the corner of the room. He was on his back, shirt off, doing crunches. And not just crunches, but crunches with leg extensions.
And holy shit, he lookedhot.
I don’t know if it was the perfectly sculpted look of those ridged, washboard abs, or the thin sheen of sweat that covered his entire body. Either way, my eyes caused my legs to stop moving as they drank their fill.
Damn.
Back and forth he went, touching each knee to his alternate elbow. His legs pumped steadily in and out. They barely wavered at all, as he extended them straight, hovering above the floor.
“You wanna join in, or you wanna just watch?”
He asked the question without even looking my way. All I could do was laugh sheepishly, and close the door behind me.
“Sorry, got distracted.”
“Uh huh,” he breathed.
“Please. Finish.”
Without hesitating or breaking his motion, Carter laughed. “Does it look like I’m stopping?”
My eyes traveled down his shoulders and over his biceps, lingering on those impressively wide forearms that were still in motion. Eventually he finished his crunches, sighed, and collapsed back to the floor.
“So what’s up Angel?” he turned to look at me.
“Nothing much,” I admitted. “I— I guess I couldn’t sleep.”
“I can’t sleep either,” Carter replied. “And when I can’t sleep, I work out.”
He brought his knees to his chest, then crossed those delicious forearms over them. Maybe his eyes were on mine, but I couldn’t stop looking.
“Is it your truck?” I asked. “Is that why you can’t—”
“Hayden, fuck that truck,” Carter made a face. “I never liked that thing anyway. It broke down all the time.”
He patted the floor beside him. I made my way over and sat down.
“It’s because of you that I can’t sleep.”
My stomach lurched. I was suddenly hyper aware that our legs were touching.
“I—I’m sorry.”
