He restrained her by cupping the back of her neck. “No. Stay there. I didn’t tell you to move.”
“Luke…” Her hands fluttered up for an instant, like restless wings. “I can’t talk like this.”
She sounded more than a little distressed, which told him she felt vulnerable now that the predictable punishment was over. And that’s how he wanted her—vulnerable, unable to anticipate what came next, and less likely to muster up her typical countermeasures.
“That’s unfortunate.” Tempting his fraying control, he knelt and placed a whisper-soft kiss on a mark that hadn’t quite faded. A spot where he suspected the sting still lingered. “I thought you could handle this, Trouble. Apparently we’re just going through the motions.” He straightened and backed away.
“Okay, okay. Wait.” She lowered her head and wrapped her fingers around the handles, accepting his requirement. “What are we discussing?”
The compulsion to demand to know whom she’d been talking with hit him hard, but he banked it for two reasons. First, he wasn’t sure she’d tell him, and she’d be within her rights not to, because certain areas of her life were private. Second, the thirst to know originated in an uncharted part of him—a jealous, territorial part of him he hadn’t even known existed before he’d met her—but it sure as hell existed now. It didn’t care about rules, and he feared giving in to it at all would be like putting out a fire with gasoline. He didn’t need the information to get to the heart of her motives for cheating on her diet.
“Why did you break the rule?”
“I was hungry and distracted.” She lifted her hands in a jerky, exasperated gesture. “I barely even realized I was eating, much less what I was putting in my mouth.”
He came around to the front of the machine, crouched, and lifted her chin until their eyes met. Then he shook his head. “Uh-uh. You dug through all kinds of healthy options to get to those cookies. You sought them. Chose them. Try again.”
“Luke…”
“Quinn.”
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “I don’t know. I was weak, and I thought I could get away with it. Satisfied?”
“Not at all. Look at me.”
When she did, every ounce of her acute
misery shined like unshed tears. She honestly didn’t know. He steeled himself against her plea for him to tell her the answer, and continued. “We’ve got five weeks to figure it out.”
“Can’t wait.”
Because he heard the exhausted relief behind her go-fuck-yourself bravado, he let it slide. He’d pushed her far enough for one day. Just to remind her he was on her side, he hiked her shorts up and snapped them into place, before making his way to the door. At the threshold he paused. “You don’t like to show weakness to anybody. I get that. You prefer to handle your problems privately, on your own terms. I get that, too. But your coping mechanisms flat-out suck.”
Somehow, despite her position, she managed to roll a shoulder. “Add it to my list of flaws.”
“It’s not that simple. This particular flaw jeopardizes your goal, which makes it my problem. Luckily, I have a solution.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You don’t say?”
“I do. For the duration of our time together, Quinn, you don’t have the privilege of exercising your own discretion. When you have a weak moment, you don’t attempt to deal with it on your own. You tell me. When you need help, you ask me. Day or night. Got it?”
“Yes.”
Her capitulation told him he’d wrung the fight out of her for today. He decided to press his luck. “Want to color in the rest of the picture about how sprained your knee?”
“There’s nothing to tell.”
Nope. She still had some fight in her. But he didn’t. “I think you do better with clear expectations, so let me make one more thing absolutely clear. I’m giving you my best, and I expect the same from you. Our contract requires you to follow the diet and exercise regimen I’ve designed to meet your goals. Anything less than full compliance and that deal isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. You’re not just wasting our time, you’re wasting your money, and we might as well cut our losses and call it quits. Take the rest of the afternoon to think that over.” He sure as hell couldn’t train her right now. He’d be spending the foreseeable future jacking off like his life depended on it. “I’ll see you here at nine tomorrow.”
…
Was praying for death a sin? It probably didn’t matter, because prayers or not, she was going to die. Soon. Sweating like a pig, while sitting spread-eagled on a godforsaken torture machine. The only hope Quinn clung to was that she wouldn’t beg for mercy first. With her eyes squeezed shut against the pain of that possibility, and the pain of her straining thigh muscles, she reinforced her hold on the grips by her sides and slowly pushed her knees together one more time…held for five seconds, and released…
The clang of the weights slamming back to their stack covered the sound of her groan. More or less.
“Keep your abductors engaged the entire time.” A strict finger drew a triangle high along the inside of her thigh while Luke’s cool voice issued instructions. “I don’t want to hear weights bang. I expect you to stay in control as you return to the starting position. Ten more. Proper form this time.”
Ten more? Oh God. She couldn’t do it.