Chapter Seven
Luke stalked toward the same open doors he’d entered through a minute ago when he’d been looking to track down his tardy client. She’d worked hard this morning, just like she had the entire week. He had no complaints about their momentum. Her conditioning was kicking in, and he planned to push her until they hit a wall, then back off and come at her from a different angle. He hadn’t seen the wall on the horizon yet, but that was before he’d walked into her kitchen and found her sneaking cookies while on a personal call with some fucker. Some fucker she missed.
The knowledge simmered inside him, uncommonly volatile, and for the sake of his sanity, he chose to condense it down to, No. Just no. Then he mentally shoved the mess into a compartment, slapped a “Later” label on it, and closed the lid.
Sneaking sweets to get through a difficult personal moment, though? That was something to tackle now, as well as something to draw a line in the sand over. The habit undermined their chances of success, and, more importantly in the long run, wasn’t an effective way to manage stress. He intended to put a stop to it, and he was prepared to use whatever method proved most effective.
He heard the patter of her cross-trainers against the cobblestone as she chased him across the courtyard.
“Wait. Luke…wait.”
He continued into the gym, picked up his tablet and water, and turned to face her.
She held up her hands and offered him a disarming smile. “Look, I’m not going to make excuses—the kitchen didn’t drop off my lunch.”
Impeccable timing. Great delivery. He didn’t return her smile. “Maybe you’re not taking this seriously, but I am. I have a business to run, and I put a vacation on hold for this.” His anger wasn’t entirely manufactured, because everything he said was true, but he’d expected the cheating. Most clients deviated from the plan at some point—often early in the process when the food cravings hit hardest and the results of challenging workouts and a better diet weren’t yet visible. “You’re not willing to do what it takes to succeed.”
“I am. I swear.” She rushed to him and raised her hands to his chest, as if her paltry hundred and twenty-five pounds could prevent him from moving. “I just lost track of myself for a moment.”
“I can’t monitor you 24/7, Quinn. Nobody can, other than you, and if you’re not up to the job, then we’re both wasting our time. This won’t work if I can’t trust you.”
“You can trust me. Please, Luke.” She looked up at him with a rare show of genuine panic in her eyes. “Give me another chance. I promise I’m not wasting your time. Let me prove it.”
This was exactly what he wanted from any client at this stage—the wavering stage—a renewed commitment to fight for the goal, and the determination to prove she could do it. But for some perverse reason, with Quinn, he couldn’t let it go at just words. “Prove it? How? Losing the role clearly isn’t a sufficiently immediate and motivating consequence for you. What possible consequence can I impose that’s more persuasive?”
Pink tinged her cheeks. She droppe
d her lashes, took a shuddery breath, and looked up at him again. “You’d have to…punish me.”
No. No, this was going down the wrong path, and yet he felt the inevitability of it even as he tried to put on the brakes. Gently, he warned, “You couldn’t handle it.”
“Try me. Let me prove you wrong.”
She licked her lips after she tossed out the suggestion. No. Not a suggestion. A dare, which was essentially a default setting for Quinn. He walked toward the door.
“Please.”
Etched-in-stone rules faded like weathered hieroglyphics on an ancient ruin. The exquisitely fucked-up convergence of exactly what he shouldn’t do, and exactly what she needed him to do twisted inside him, becoming a single, inescapable imperative. He closed the door and clicked the lock.
“Bend over the hyperextension bench and pull your shorts down.”
Her breath hitched, but a glimmer of relief shone in her eyes. “You dirty pervert.”
“Over the bench. Now. You’ve got five seconds.”
Hands slapped the sides of her thighs as her eyes darted around the gym. “Which one is the hyperextension bench?”
He pointed. She marched to the angled apparatus, hooked her heels behind the crossbar, and leaned into the padded bench designed to support her hips. Then she draped herself over it and gripped the handholds while she squirmed around looking for the least demanding position. Finally she reached around and slid her tight, white shorts down to expose the top half of her ass.
He drew in a breath to clear his head. Get his bearings. “Lower.” His voice sounded gruff to his own ears.
She made a compliant sound, and pushed the shorts down to bare her ass properly. He stepped up and ran a fingertip along the back of her knee brace—a reminder to both of them that she wasn’t as invincible as she liked to project. “Comfortable?”
“Just ducky. Wake me when you’re done.”
“Don’t worry. You’ll be very awake by the time we’re done.” He brushed his fingers up her leg, along her hip, and brought them to rest at the base of her spine. “Head up.”
All her muscles tightened as she obeyed.