At the very end of a row, I swung my locker open, immediately stripping off my sweat-soaked shirt. One of the men called a goodbye to the other, and the door leading out into the main room opened and shut.
Naked, I slung a towel around my hips and grabbed a small pouch with my shower stuff. I preferred working out at the gym in my building, but sometimes it was important to change it up. It was never good to be too predictable. Because of this, I had several memberships around the city so I could stop by any of them on a whim. When the year was up on this place, I was going to move my membership to a boxing club. Keeping my fighting skills honed was important.
My shower shoes slapped lightly on the tile as I moved. A sense of urgency pushed me faster, as I was determined to get back to Haz. I couldn’t figure out what could have happened for his mood to change the way it had. He’d practically been a walking zombie. Almost got run over by a car for shits sake.
After turning on the water and pulling the white curtain closed, I grabbed my soap and allowed myself a brief moment to enjoy the water sluicing over my exerted muscles before shoving my head under the spray to saturate my hair.
Maybe it was the concussion.I considered this as suds bubbled between my fingers as I scrubbed my hair. What if the doctor at the hospital had somehow missed something? What if the physical exertion from me fucking his throat like a madman increased his symptoms?
I scrubbed my body roughly, cursing myself and my lack of control. I knew better. I had no plans to do anything sexual with him last night. Fuck, he made me weak. He tested my control unlike anyone else.
And now he’d been at work for hours. Probably on his feet. That asshole of a boss probably berated him all day. I shouldnever have let him out of the apartment. It was just more evidence that I was wrapped around his hazardous little finger.
I had to be stronger than this. For both our sakes.
Something caught my attention, and my head lifted, tilting to the side. There hadn’t been a sound, per se, but all the thoughts in my head silenced. The switch inside me flipped instantly, the line between man and assassin very fine. Shutting off my humanity was a skill I wasn’t particularly proud of but one I used to my advantage. With emotion out of the way, there was more room to assess the environment and act accordingly. Action was much easier when I didn’t have to think about its consequences.
Again, there was no sound except for the shower raining down behind me, but the energy in the room had shifted. My heart thumped as adrenaline diluted the blood in my veins. There was no reason to think that whatever changed had to do with me, and that was exactly why I was alert.
Slow and deliberate, I palmed the body wash, overturning it to pour almost the entire contents onto the tile. The shower curtain fluttered, and anticipation turned me almost twitchy.
In an explosion of movement, the curtain burst in, the cheap plastic material slapping against the tile. A body lunged for me, but the soap I’d dumped all over the floor between myself and the stall door made him slip. Kicking out, I swiped his unsteady legs out from beneath him, and he went down hard with a grunt.
I leaped on him, locking my hand around his throat, mercilessly cutting off his air. Eyes bulging with shock, he fought to get off his back. The more he tried, the more he failed, the scent of panic and soap thick in the air.
Water rolled off my shoulders and dripped from my hair as I leaned over him while he slapped and grappled against my forearm with both hands.
“Who are you?” I demanded.
He slapped my arm again, his tongue bulging out from between his lips. I was loosening my grip so he could answer when the distinct cock of a gun filled the air. The flash of metal barely registered as the muzzle of a pistol came close.
I acted on instinct, releasing the man I’d been choking to throw my arm out and wrap my hand around the gun.
The man brandishing it sneered. “You think I won’t pull the trigger? Bullet will go right through your hand and into your face.”
I yanked, and his feet slid out from under him. Flailing, he let go of the gun and landed on his back, all the air whooshing out of him.
Using the gun they’d brought to the party, I rose to my full height and turned it around on them. “Who are you?” I repeated, barely out of breath.
A body leaped over the tile wall from the stall on the other side, dropping on top of me. We both went down in a tangle of limbs, water spraying everywhere. I hit with a grunt, the wet, unforgiving tile a jolt to my sore muscles. The gun lost to the floor, I scrambled up as the third man swung his fist. I ducked just before it landed and caught him around the waist, bulldozing him backward into the tile. We grappled for a few minutes, the water making it hard to get a good grip or solid punch.
“Get off your assess, morons!” he hollered when my knuckles grazed his nose.
His friends jumped to their feet, and I grabbed the third by the front of his jacket and swung him around, using him like a battering ram to knock them back.
All three men landed in a groaning pile on the floor. Keeping my eyes on them, I squatted and picked up the gun.
I wouldn’t shoot them. We were in a public gym, for fuck’s sake. But they didn’t know my limits.
“Who are you?” I spat, shifting from one foot to the other.
The guy with a ring of bruises around his neck moaned and lifted his head, eyes going straight to my exposed dick. “Put your fucking dick away.”
“Jealous?” I said, not bothered in the slightest that it was hanging out.
His face turned scarlet, and he leaped up, rage twisting his face. “You son of a—ahhh!” he screamed when I slammed my foot into his knee, crippling him instantly. He dropped to the floor, pulling his dislocated kneecap into his chest while whimpering with pain. “You broke my fucking knee!”
One of the other guys lunged, and I swung the pistol, clocking him in the temple.
