Page 10 of Training Maisy

“Okay, first things first. What are you wearing underneath the tracksuit?” he asked her as he proceeded to rearrange the exercise machines. For a few seconds, Maisy’s mind went completely blank as the question took several different interpretations in her brain. Kicking her brain out of the gutter when she saw he was looking at her, she replied, “A tank top and yoga pants.” She hoped by now he would assume the bright red color that seemed to randomly appear on her face when she spoke to him was a physical ailment she was suffering from and not her blushing furiously at the pictures her mind painted of him.

“That’s good. Do you mind taking off the tracksuit then? I need to weigh you. Fill in some information on your data form so it can help me track your progress.”

“Okay,” Maisy said, suddenly feeling embarrassed. She slowly unzipped her tracksuit and took off the top, trying not to imagine how he was seeing her now. When she had finished, she stood straight and looked down and little bit to the left of Carter, unable to meet his face. She could see perfectly every extra fold. Every roll of fat on her body. She remembered quite clearly how the bottom of the yoga pants had bulged a little in front when she wore it this morning and, even though she wasn’t looking at him, she knew Carter was looking at her, that piercing gaze of his taking in every single one of her flaws.

“Step on the scale,” he told her, his voice sounding totally professional, without a hint of emotion, and Maisy was taken aback a bit. Maybe she was reading too much into the situation. Maybe he was different and nothing at all like Eric. Besides, he was a personal trainer; helping people like her was what he did for a living. She was probably nothing to him other than a job. The depth of disappointment she felt at the fact that he saw her as just a job was so acute and clear that it shook her out of her thoughts. Why was she disappointed by the fact that he saw as her nothing more than just a client? It wasn’t like she was expecting anything more from him, or was she?

Carter looked at the reading on the scale and wrote it down beside the part of her form where she had filled in her target weight. He noticed the drastic change in her mood since he came back from putting a shirt on and wondered what might have been the cause. He unconsciously admitted that he much more preferred the humorous, peppy, talkative Maisy to this quiet and slightly defeated version. The look in her eyes was that of someone just going through the motions, like someone who had lost a fight and was in no mood to try to fight back. Thinking about her eyes, he remembered when he had first seen her that morning, standing in the hallway looking at him, or maybe she was just daydreaming. Something it would seem she did on a regular basis, just stand in the middle of the room and zone off. It was weirdly cute, and Carter wondered exactly what it was she thought about. Shaking his head to bring his mind back to the room, he stepped back and told her to come with him to the center of the room.

“Okay, we’re going to go through some stretches before we start anything,” he said as he stood in front of her, his hands out to the side and feet firmly planted on the floor.

“Just do what I do, and I’ll correct you if you’re making any mistakes.”

He proceeded to lead her through a series of simple stretches, touching her toes with her back perfectly arched, spreading her legs as far as they would go before bringing them back together. As the poses became more complicated, he noticed her difficulty in following some of them and came around to help her into them. He put his hands around her waist to steady her as she lifted her leg backward as high as she could. The action was normal, but his reaction to it wasn’t. She wasn’t the first female he had worked with, and his job required him to maintain contact with his client, so he was used to touching female bodies professionally, some with fewer articles of clothing than was between his hand and Maisy’s waist. Yet the moment his hand met her body, his gaze immediately dropped down to the curve of her derrière as he silently decided it was one of the sexiest he had ever seen or touched. The thought was made without any hint of lust or sexual undertone, more like a casual observation that nevertheless sounded so alien to him he immediately looked up. What’s wrong with me? He tried to distance himself from the heat between the palm of his hands and the waist he was holding, a heat he alone could feel.

“That as far as you can stretch it?” he asked her, noting the strain in her back and knees.

“Yes,” she mumbled from her position, and Carter had to look at her to ascertain what her answer was. He saw her teeth clenched in a slight grimace from the physical exertion, her face framed by her hair. He would have to tell her to get a headband for her locks, or maybe tie it up so it wouldn’t disturb her. The minute the thought crossed his mind, he instantly hated it. He preferred her with her hair down. Imagined running his hands through the long, subtle blend of golden and honey-colored tresses that fell in a cascade to stop somewhere just north of her perfect—

Okay, that was inappropriate, Carter thought, stepping back a bit to collect himself, his hands dropping from her waist. Should have slept a little while longer, because there was no way he was entertaining any erotic thoughts about Maisy. For one, she was a client, and he had never, ever crossed the line from professional to personal; he sure as hell wasn’t going to start now. Besides, he doubted she would ever be comfortable with his own style of sex.

Maisy felt equal parts disappointment and elation when Carter’s hand dropped from her waist. The contact had elicited a visceral response in her that, for the moment, she wasn’t ready to begin to even try to figure out. When she heard him tell her to get on the treadmill, she happily complied. Hopefully, the ache would be enough to silence the part of her brain that was hell-bent on imagining his hands around her waist like it had just been but without the buffer of her clothes this time.

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