I rolled my eyes and walked over to the bench, moving to stand behind it. This was ridiculous. I could lie down and have him bench-press my entire body weight, and I doubthe’d even break a sweat. Still, for some reason, I decided to entertain him. Not like I had much else to do today.
“Ready?” I asked, avoiding Gabe’s direct eye contact. This position, with him on his back and his face so close to my dick, definitely did things to me. Things I didn’t want happening to me right now. It didn’t help that Gabe lookedextraattractive. His cap was low, his light blue Under Armour shirt fit tight around his muscles, and his five-inch-inseam shorts were thin and bunching up around his crotch so that his meaty thighs were on full display.
Gabe pushed up on the bar. I ghosted my fingers underneath the center of the steel bar, but—as I had assumed—Gabe had absolutely zero trouble benching the weight. He finished his set and smiled up at me. “Thanks, buddy. Your turn.”
I ignored the tickle in my core. Gabe slid off the bench and swapped places with me.
NowIwas the one lying down, looking up at a cocky and annoyingly handsome man. He licked his full lips. The warm lights above him made his skin glow, traced shadows along the veins that went up his big biceps.
I sucked in a breath, as if preparing myself for the light weight, and inadvertently got a whiff of Gabe.
Andwow, did he smell good. It was an odd thought that I’d parse out later with a therapist, but I wanted to slide myself up and bury my face between his thick and hairy legs, drowning myself in his scent and having him squeeze me with his thighs until I passed out.
My dick pulsed. I closed my eyes.
“Want me to drop them down to tens?” Gabe asked, knowing damn well I could do double this weight, just like him. This wasn’t a real workout to him. This was a game.
“I’m good,” I said.
My dick twitched again. I was gettinghard. I tensed my legs, hoping that could stop my body from betraying me. Gabe inched forward so that his crotch pressed against the bar, just between my hands. I could see up his shorts, and—holy fuck, he wasn’t wearing underwear. I could see everything.
I went from a chubby to pitching a full-on tent in seconds.
Fuuuck.
Maybe he wouldn’t notice. I pushed the bar up and started my set. My cock throbbed, pushing up against my shorts. It ached. I closed my eyes as a way of avoiding Gabe’s gaze while I did my ten reps.
I got this. I got this.
I put the bar back on the rack and immediately sat up so that I could conceal my stiff dick.
“You sure you didn’t want to go down to tens?”
“Yeah, why?” I asked, looking directly ahead at the mirror. My eyes flitted downward at a quick second of movement.
Gabe’s dick throbbed again, andholy shit, did that look big. “Because it looked like you were having a hard time.” He smiled and rubbed himself over his shorts. I swallowed audibly. The room turned into a scorching oven set to broil. “I think we worked out enough. Want to relax in the steam room?”
I had to decide now if I wanted to play along with Gabe’s games or if walking away was the smarter choice. Maybe our rendezvous last night getting canceled was a sign? Knowing he wanted me was nice, and it was definitely a confidence booster, but from everything I’d picked up on, Gabe was clearly a DL gay or bisexual guy trying to hide behind a straight shield. Yes, we could hook up now and then and try to keep things simple with no strings attached,but that was never really my style. Strings always seemed to attach themselves to me. I found my ex on Grindr and hooked up with him one night under the pretense that neither of us was looking for anything serious. Three months later, I was telling him I loved him and looking up apartments for us to move in together.
That Grindr date gave me a four-year relationship full of drama and some serious emotional baggage that I was still unpacking to this very day.
The first year was great, and then it quickly went downhill once the fighting started. The shouting, the denigrating, the shit-talking, all coming from him. He had anger and control problems I hadn’t known about since, well, I knew him for less time than it takes to gestate a baby before I moved in with him.
That relationship had broken me down to a point where I had a difficult time seeing a life outside the storm. Like the wall of the hurricane was never going to pass over me, leaving me trapped inside, never knowing what day would twist from great to traumatic because of a simple mistake or silly miscommunication. The only thing I had that kept me happy during that time in my life was hockey.
So, knowing my propensity to fall for someone I was hooking up with, and knowing how complicated that would be if it happened with Gabriel Sanderson, a seemingly straight man andteammate, I started to think that maybe dipping the hell out of herewasthe right choice to make.
Gabe gave himself a squeeze. A drop of precum leaked through his gray shorts. “I’ll meet you in there.” He winked and walked to the other end of the room, where the thick glass door of the steam room was, leaving me behind with ahardchoice to make.
Chapter Eleven
Worked Up
GABE
The steam createda thick curtain so that I could hardly see my hand in front of me. The wood creaked underneath me as I leaned back, spread my legs, and waited.
I had taken off my clothes and hung them on the hook just outside the room, grabbing a white towel and wrapping it around my waist. Eli hadn’t moved like I’d expected him to. He stayed seated on the bench, not even looking in my direction. Judging by the way his dick wanted to rip through his shorts, I could tell he was into this as much as I was, so then why wasn’t that door opening yet? Why wasn’t Eli sitting next to me with his hand wrapped around my hard dick?
