“You have a wholearmory?” I blink at him in surprise. “Wow.”
“The shooting range is over there.”
He points off into the distance, but I can’t see it from here.
“This building is the gym. Weights and machines. There’s also a boxing ring in there.”
“Gideon. What do you do out here? This can’t just be for your entertainment.”
“Sometimes it is, depending on how bad my recruits are.” He smirks and crosses his arms. “I run a training center for new securityofficers who will be in high-profile jobs. Celebrities, the wealthy, that sort of thing.”
“So they come out here and you decide whether they’re badass enough to do the job?”
“Pretty much.”
“That’s cool.” I nod, looking around, and then I shiver again, because now that I’m not running anymore, the cold air is lowering my body temperature fast.
“Come on,” he says, gesturing for me to follow him into the gym. When he turns the lights on, I feel my eyebrows climb in surprise.
“This isn’t a gym. This is ... I don’t even know. Gideon, this is something you’d find in New York City.”
It looks like a massive warehouse, with two staircases on either side of the room that lead to a loft where cardio machines are. Down here are the free weights and the boxing ring. There are also punching bags, kettlebells, medicine balls.
You name it, this gym has it.
“We’re in the ring today,” he says as he reaches for what looks like tape and takes my hand in his. He brushes his thumb over the spot where the coffee splashed earlier. “Is this okay?”
“It’s fine. You’re going to tape my hands?”
He nods and starts to wrap it around my skin.
“Am I going to punch something?”
His steel gray eyes climb to mine. “You’re going to try.”
“I don’t want to punch you, Gideon.”
“Yeah, well, like I said, you’re going totry. If you manage to connect, I don’t want you to tear up your knuckles.”
Every inch that he touches tingles. He’s so close, I can smell that woodsy scent. He’s hardly sweating from our run, and I can only imagine how I smell.
“You didn’t have to slow down for me today,” I inform him.
“I didn’t.”
Scowling up at him, I shake my head. “Yes, you did. You didn’t get any workout in at all.”
“It’s not about me. I’m trainingyou. I’ll do my own thing later.”
I don’t like that.
But before I can argue, he finishes with my hands and then leads me to the ring.
“You’re not going to wrap your hands?” I ask.
“I’m not punching anything.”
I blink at him.
