A navy tank top covered his torso, leaving his arms and shoulders bare. Sweat gleamed over lean muscles. He rolled up to a sitting position and stood. Gray sweatpants hugged his hips. His hair was pulled back into a low ponytail and a few strands were loose around his face.
Oh, man. This was going to be torture. He refused to kiss me last night and now he was parading around in gray sweatpants?
His head came up and those gorgeous green eyes focused on me. A tremor originated from my belly, and I tried to hide it by lifting my coffee cup to my lips again.
He twisted his wrist, tapped the screen of his smart watch, and the music cut off abruptly.
“Morning,” he said. “How’d you sleep?”
Were we really going to do this? Pretend like nothing happened last night?
“Fine,” I lied after I lowered my mug. “You?”
“Like shit.”
I shrugged but remained silent. He had no one to blame for that but himself. No way in hell was I going to apologize for it.
“Feel like working out?” he asked, heading back to the weight bench he’d left a few moments before.
My mouth went dry when he bent over to add more plates to the bar.
I realized he’d just asked me a question. “No, thanks.”
He finished adding the plates and slid his body on to the weight bench beneath the bar. He placed his hands on the bar and lifted it. I wasn’t sure how much weight he was lifting, but it looked like a lot. I remembered the coffee in my hand and drank some because my mouth wanted to hang open at the sight of his muscles shifting and bunching beneath his skin.
I needed to get out of here before I did something ridiculous. At the same time, I was aggravated that he was acting as though nothing had happened last night. That the moment between us was nothing. That I was nothing.
He finished his bench presses and sat up, snagging a white towel off the floor. As he swiped it across his face, he asked, “Did you need something else?”
His tone was so aloof, so distant, that something within me snapped. It just broke.
I marched over to the weight bench and looked down at him. His expression barely changed, but I had a feeling I surprised him.
“Why are you acting like an iceberg today?” I asked, straight out.
Since I’d met Daniel, my filter had disappeared. While I wished I had the ability to just state what I was thinking to everyone I dealt with, it seemed to be just him that brought it out in me.
He stared back at me, his face looking as though it were made of stone.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“That’s a load of bull,” I shot back. “You’re freaking out about last night and you’re taking it out on me!”
“Nothing happened last night,” he argued, getting to his feet.
The air around us compressed. He seemed closer while he was standing but I would be damned if I would back down.
“Yeah, because you chickened out.”
“No, I made the right choice.”
“So, I get no say in this?” I asked. “You get to decide what Bethany would approve of or not?”
He opened his mouth, and I lifted a finger to point at him.
“She was my great aunt, and I don’t care how long you knew her, you didn’t know her as well as I did! She was always asking me about my love life and lamenting the fact that I barely took time to date or meet men. She’d be ecstatic that I was interested in you.”
He tried to say something else, so I used that same finger to poke him in the chest, which made his eyes fire and begin to glow.
