Lord help me.
We move on to front raises, light weights, slow and controlled, Sab holding my wrist for the first couple of reps, like my physio used to, except really fecking hot.
“Easy,” he murmurs. “There you go, keep it smooth.”
I try, and honestly, there’s nothing new in these warm-up exercises. I do them all the time. But I’ve never moved my body in the gym with someone like Sab behind me. With a low, rumbling voice tickling my ear while it takes every ounce of restraint I possess not to toss the weights and pounce on him.
We finish up on an isometric press, an exercise I usually use a wall for. But Sab has a better idea. He braces a palm to my fist, his body a solid wall of muscle, and says wicked things with a gaze so serious I want to kiss himanddo what I’m told.
“Push into me,” he says. “Steady, until you really feel it.”
Been feeling it for the best part of an hour, boy. And the sweat I have on has nothing to do with the exertion of my grumpy shoulder, or the spinning top in my brain as I try and figure out if this was the best idea in the world or the worst.
“Let’s stretch you out.” Sab takes the dumbbells to the back door and puts them outside. So little lady doesn’t drop them on her feet, maybe. Then he comes back and steps in close. “Before you get stiff.”
Christ.
Sab cups my elbow with his warm hand. The other skates to my wrist. “Across your chest.”
I obey the murmured command, testing my shoulder until it hums with a sweet stretch, one I’ve needed all night but haven’t been able to find on my own. Not as deep as this, anyway, as Sab applies pressure to my arm, his thumb rubbing absent circles into my bicep. “You’re good at this.”
His gaze is already fixed on mine, alert for signs of pain, and something flickers in his deep brown eyes as he absorbs my observation. “My brother needed a lot of rehab after his accident, and he wasn’t great at letting strangers help him, even the professionals.”
“So you stepped up?”
“Mon frère, c’est ma vie—my brother is my life. And anyway, I owed him for not disowning me when I was a raging cokehead, back in the day.”
Sab’s gaze lowers as he makes his confession, one that doesn’t surprise me all that much. I knew this lad had layers.
I miss his bottomless stare, though, so I steal it back, gripping his jaw instead of swapping arms. “There’s no shame in addiction, boy. My family is rife with it, and I love them all just the same, even if I don’t hang out with them that often.”
Sab scrunches his face up. “I was a fucking nightmare for a hell of a long time.”
“How long are you clean?”
“Five years.”
I let my hand fall. “That’s a hell of a long time too.”
“You sound like Bhodi.”
“Who’s that?”
“Brother-in-law.” Sab shifts my arm into another stretch. One that has me gritting my teeth until he finds the sweet spot again, manipulating my battered body with deft ease. “He’s too nice to me.”
“Maybe you deserve it.”
Sab looks at me again and I realise how little space there is between us. How close his face is to mine, his mouth, his lips, as the air between us seems to shift.
He sees it too and his breathing shallows.
Or maybe that’s mine.
All I know is I’m torn between claiming his mouth like a caveman and nuzzling his throat, and what the feck is up with that? I get the claiming part. He’s hot as hell and I want to fuck him. But this intimate shit I can’t stop thinking about—I can’t stopwanting.It’s shifting something inme, and I’m not trying all that hard to stop it.
The moment stretches out too long. Sab slides his hands from me. He starts to move away, and I don’t have a name for the feeling that sears my chest.
I reach for him before I really know I’m doing it. Snap a hand around his wrist.
