Page 45 of Breaking the Sinner

“You’re talented. You’re advancing. You’retraining me.” She furrowed a brow, searching out his gaze. “So, you’re just gonna disappear one day and leave me in the lurch? You’re my trainer. You can’t do that.”

Doubt shimmered on his face for a moment, but then his hard mask slid back into place. “Travis would get you someone else. It wouldn’t be a big deal.”

“I don’t understand why you’d walk away from a job that you enjoy,” Gen muttered, crossing her arms over her chest. There was something sulky and black in his mood that she didn’t like. “You say you’ve been poor your whole life, and making ends meet was hard. Then you’d get yourself fired from a place that helps lift you up.”

“It doesn’t matter how much money I make,” he countered. “I’ll always be poor. You can’t escape it by adding a few zeros to your paycheck.”

“That’s ridiculous.” She shook her head. His opposition to success infuriated her. “If I thought like you, I’d have never left my community. I’d still be in central California slinging water from a well and praying for my one true God-given spouse to grant me the sanctity of children.”

Cobra glanced at her but didn’t say anything. She could tell he was listening, though.

“Your past doesn’t dictate your future,” she went on, passion thrumming through her. This was what she’d counseled herself with over the past year. The only way she’d been able to hedge the judgment and disappointment and snark radiating from her community. “Sure, it influences it. But you’re in control. I’m in control.” She looked around, pointed at a Chinese jet lifting into the sky. “We could be on that plane, you know. We could go buy a ticket tomorrow and leave.”

“Maybe you could,” he muttered.

“No,youcould too. And that’s whatyoudon’t get. You don’t have to be the same person you’ve been for the last twenty-some years. You can be whoever you want to be.” She leaned back against the bench, feeling the wind go out of her sails. She couldn’t convince him to take control of his life. To not get fired even though it was as habitual for him as waking up.

Cobra swiped his thumb over his knuckles a few times, then looked back at her. A sparkle returned to his eye. “All right, Red. So I could get on a plane to China with you tomorrow. I’d do it, too. Only because I’m afraid of what you might do if I didn’t.”

She laughed in spite of herself and slapped his shoulder. “Oh, stop.”

“You chewed me out,” he said, a grin overtaking his lips. He leaned back, slinging his arm over the back of the bench.

“You needed to hear it,” she said, trying not to soften under his magnetic heat. She needed to stay firm. To make her point. So that hegot it.

“Heard. Noted.” He cinched his arm around her shoulders, yanking her closer. “Now I need to hear you say, ‘fuck it,’ and then I think the lesson will stick.”

She giggled into his shoulder. Burying her mouth in his T-shirt, she said, “Fine. Fuck it.”

Cobra nodded, squinting toward the runways. “A little muffled, but I’ll accept it.”

Chapter 19

A week blurred past on a conveyor belt of work, dinner dates with Gen, and texts to saygood night. He itched for her like that one time he’d gotten poison oak on his only trip to the woods with Carla and his stepdad.

Nothing sated him. Except he had an idea of what might get him close.

“What are you doing tonight?” Cobra nudged Gen with his shoulder as he fell into step beside her. She was on her way back to the offices, clutching some file folders to her chest. She looked so cute when she worked, her polo shirt perfectly pressed, her long ponytail without a hair askew. It made him never want to leave this place, so he’d never miss a chance to see Gen.

“Waiting for you to tell me what we’re doing,” she said, nudging him back.

He smirked. They slowed to a stop outside of her office door. She reached for the doorknob and looked up at him.

“Your place?” He pushed at her hip with his hand. He was eager to get out of work for the weekend, but he could have crawled up the walls with how badly he wanted to cross the line with Gen. It was time—every part of him felt it.

“Okay. Bring your pencils.” She winked, then slipped into the office. He smiled dopily at the door for a few moments before snapping back to reality.

It was three o’clock. He still had two whole hours to get through before he even had a chance at Gen.

Cobra returned to the weight room. The crowd was light this afternoon, unusual for Friday at Holt Body Fitness. At just over three months here, he already had a hang of the rhythms. Could sniff out the bad seeds like Travis had trained him; could tell when to intervene when a male weight lifter got too close to the female weight lifters.

The routine was…nice. Cobra smiled as he pushed into the weight room, assessing the room with grateful eyes. It was more than nice, actually. It was a relief.

Cobra got to work wiping down equipment and straightening up before launching into his own regimen. In his short time under Travis’s wing, his own physique had drastically improved. His abs now popped, when before they were dull indents in a mostly shapeless torso. His biceps raged. Thighs made of rock. All due to daily practice and a slightly better diet. Looking better made him feel better.

Amazing what a week could do for one’s outlook. Cobra grunted through his pull-ups, mind wandering to Gen in the space between reps. He would have walked out and never looked back last Thursday, if not for her. And now here he was, slinging pull-ups like he owned the place.

And what if he could own a place like this someday?

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