Page 63 of Caelum

Genny’s mouth tightened. “She’s a priss.”

I shrugged. “My priss.”

Nostrils flaring, she ground out, “I’ll be sure not to let you know the next time we have a party.”

Smirking, I told her, “Thanks.” She retreated with a huff, and I didn’t even watch her tight ass sway away. Instead, I turned to Eve and saw that her focus was on me.

Instantly, heat hit me.

Sweet Jesus, what she could do to me without even fucking knowing it.

It was crazy how easily I could get a hard-on. Only the jock strap protecting my family jewels was going to get in the way of that.

Because I hadn’t seen her since breakfast—see, pussy-whipped—I headed over to her and asked, “Hey sweetness, why are you on the treadmill? You hate it.”

She winced. “Coach said I have to.”

When I saw Coach’s reflection in the mirror at her back, I glowered at him. Not that he saw. And if he had, he wouldn’t listen anyway.

No one would listen until I was twenty-one.

Which sucked.

“How long?” I empathized instead, but I knew she’d seen my grin and she was beaming at me as a result.

My heart went boom, dropping straight to my stomach at the sight.

“Forty minutes,” she said with another wince.

“Ouch. Well, you can watch me beat the shit out of Reed. So that should be entertaining.”

“Fuck you, Divosec,” Reed retorted, not even pretending that he wasn’t eavesdropping.

“Pace yourself, yeah?” I told her, ignoring him. “Even if he wants you running HIIT, just take it easy. Forty minutes is a long time when you still don’t have that great a stamina.”

She nodded, and her face was flushed but not from embarrassment this time, just exertion.

With a small smile, I left her and heard the beep as Reed’s treadmill stopped working.

Within five minutes, we were both in the ring. We knew the drill, so Coach left us to it. He had some of the younger years in here today and was teaching them some of the basic moves that Eve would have to learn soon.

Annoyed that he’d been checking Eve out, I enjoyed the sparring. Even though he was a Hell Hound, we were evenly matched when he wasn’t angry, and it was a fun workout.

In the background, I kept myself attuned to Eve. It wasn’t something I actively did, more something that my souls did, and I was relieved the claiming worked that way ten minutes later.

I took a hit to the shoulder and then the belly when Eve, who was theonly person running in the gym, shut off the treadmill earlier than she’d said.

Reed took advantage of my distraction, of course. The prick. And I grunted as I dropped to my knees when I took the heat of his punch. Even though it hurt, my focus switched to Eve who had run from the treadmill, over to the water fountain, where she was puking into a wastepaper basket.

I grimaced at the sight as I turned from Reed to her.

“She won’t appreciate you watching,” Reed rasped, his voice husky with how hard I’d been working him over.

“Just making sure she’s okay.”

“She will be now that she’s puked.” He shrugged when I glowered at him. “Coach has set her up for too much. If she doesn’t level out within the week, I’d have her talk to Nicholas. He wants her to be at the same fitness level as someone in her year, but she isn’t.”

No, she wasn’t. Reed was right.

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