Page 13 of Set on You

He stops me as I lunge toward him, placing his hands square on my shoulders. He turns me swiftly yet gently against the lockers. “Keep trying all you want. I can do this all day.”

The coolness of the metal against my back offsets the warmth of my skin. I desperately try to ignore how he smoothly circles his right thumb over my shoulder. His hooded eyes hold my entire body captive, despite the fact that his grip isn’t all that tight. He’s not holding me here against my will. I could probably leave at any time. In fact, I probably should. But I don’t, and I don’t know why.

I don’t dare blink. Blinking is for the weak. We only break eye contact when his gaze flickers to my lips. I glance at his too. They’re not too thin and not too thick. In fact, they’re perfect. My inner cavewoman desperately wants to feel them against mine. And that’s when I question my sanity. If there was an appropriate female equivalent to “thinking with your dick,” my mug shot would be right alongside. The real Crystal, a woman of logic and all things practical, would never be attracted to this infuriating asshole.

Unexpectedly, his lips brush against mine, stealing my air. Heat flushes through me like a violent tsunami, ready to obliterate everything in its wake. All of my internal organs clench. My muscles seize. My eyes close. My toes curl.

Am I even still alive? Did he really just kiss me?

I’m frozen in place and time. I can’t physically move.

His kiss is featherlight, testing, as if he’s unsure if he should continue. He tastes familiar somehow, minty and fresh, bringingme alive slowly but surely. His hands loosen on my shoulders, as if confident I won’t pull away from him. His right hand drifts up the nape of my neck and into my hair.

I panic, because my hair is a tangled, sweaty rat’s nest. But as I feel the pads of his fingers stroking up and down the back of my skull, I’m lost in this moment. I want to savor it forever. I tilt my chin upward to deepen the kiss, which he takes greedily. There’s a tremor in his hand as the pad of his thumb skates over my cheekbone. No one has ever touched my face like this, as if treasuring every curve and line.

It’s only now that I realize my arms are hanging like dead noodles. I snake my hands up his hard stomach, over the ridges of his shoulders. His muscles clench under my palms. I’m practically on my tiptoes when I lock my fingers behind his neck, pulling us completely flush. He lets out a tiny sigh of relief into my mouth.

His lips open and close against mine in a slow rhythm. I moan into him, and he pulls back for half a second. There’s a stormy change in his eyes as they darken to an electric mossy hue, my new favorite color. The air shifts around us, as if we’re in the eye of a chaotic twister.

It’s desperate, needy, wild. I pull him down, closer to me until I can feel him, hard against my stomach.

Our kisses devolve into a frantic flurry of hair pulling, teeth clinking, and lip biting. The further his tongue goes, the deeper I slip into a haze, a daydream that I never want to wake from. Every time his lips dare to leave mine for a split second, I pull him back to me, harder, closing the gap between us, wanting more and more.

Who am I and how did I end up making out with a stranger in the men’s locker room? I really ought to tear myself away and run.

But the feeling of his lips on mine is like an explosion of euphoria. Of everything I want and need. The perfect taste. The perfect sensation. The perfect pressure. The perfect everything.

His hand dips around my bottom, hooking underneath my right thigh, lifting it around his waist. A low groan escapes his mouth, vibrating into mine as my hips roll against his, sending a blinding jolt to the forgotten corners of my body. His lips dart hungrily to the side of my mouth, down my jaw, and over my neck as he hoists me off the ground completely. He backs me up against the locker again, my legs hooked around his waist.

I’ve never been picked up by a man before. To call this “exhilarating” is the understatement of the century.

“Fuck,” he whispers in my ear as I rock against him, one hand linked around his neck, the other gripping his hair. He’s lookingatme, not through me. In all my hookups, I don’t think I’ve ever held eye contact for longer than two seconds before looking away. In fact, I don’t even remember linking eyes with Neil.

Squat Rack Thief’s expression is the perfect mixture of pleasure, adoration, and sincerity. I didn’t know he was humanly capable of this. I revel in it. I lose myself in it.

I’m about to spontaneously combust from the pressure alone when the changing room door squeaks open.

His head jolts back in the direction of the door. His muscles clench and seize underneath me, holding me in place for a breath. All I want to do is capture this moment and freeze it in time. Our eyes are still locked as he sets me down more gently than I’d expect, flashing me aShit, we’re bustedlook.

A stout, balding man barely covered by an impossibly tiny towel strolls around the corner, whistling. Red-faced from the sauna, he stops dead in his tracks when he catches sight of me, chest heaving, lips swollen, caged against a locker. I only see the man’s stunned reaction for a fraction of a second, because Squat Rack Thief shifts, as if protecting me from sight.

I blink, the silence yanking me back to reality. Cheeks burning like the fiery flames of hell, I inch past Squat Rack Thief and scramble out of the changing room without looking back.

On my way to take shelter in the women’s changing room, I nearly bulldoze one of the gym ladies from earlier. The one with the visor.

“Excuse me, hun. Is this your phone?” She holds my white iPhone in her extended hand. “Accidentally took it from the mat area, thinking it was mine. I left my phone in the car today. Guess it’s just habit.”

Instead of being ecstatic to be reunited with my beloved phone, all I can think is,Crap.

I was dead wrong.

Squat Rack Thief is innocent.

“Oh, uh, thank you for returning it,” I manage through my fog. I can barely look this lady in the eye without blushing.

With my phone safely in my possession, I spend at least half an hour in the changing room, hunched over on the bench in a daze. I can’t leave. The risk of crossing paths with Squat Rack Thief on the way out is too great. He probably thinks I’m a total loon, falsely accusing him of stealing my phone and climbing him like a ladder in the changing room.

Despite my best efforts, even after I’m showered and dressed, my heart rate stubbornly refuses to settle to a resting BPM.

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