Page 27 of Honey Undone
Sunday broke out into the Little Mermaid song under her breath and found space between Kaia’s legs handing her a full cup too.
“We have three days off next week because Coach is at that conference,” Cosy suggested. “I know it’s not worth a lot but he’s pretty much willing to do anything at this point to impress you. He spent six hours going over cards with Van during dinner the other night. Van was ready to kill him by the end of it because he made him cancel on Zoey for it.”
“He didn’t tell me it was that long,” I sighed. Every stupid thing Jensen did made it harder not to melt into a puddle.
“Jensen is down bad,” Sunday sang and wiggled her hips.
“Can we just play now, I can’t handle this interrogation any more. And the idea of falling in love makes me want to vomit.” I held up both hands before downing my drink with a breathless pant and a twisted face. “More juice next time,” I whined as the rum hit my belly and warmed my chest.
Cosy and Rhea set up the table while I put out all of the snacks. Kaia stayed close to me and wrapped her hands around my face the first second she got.
“I love you and I mean this in the nicest possible way but you need to stop being afraid to be loved.” She stared me in the eyes and I could feel every single conversation her and I had ever had flowing through me at once.
I was terrified of getting attached. Of being dependent on someone else to respect my feelings and prioritize them. The reality was I saw my brothers once a month and I saw my parents even less. I had always been the forgotten one and it was preventing me from taking a chance on a guy that might make me feel special because I was scared that what could be given and felt, could be taken away.
“Okay,” I whispered to her and she pressed her forehead against mine. When Kaia got drunk, she got pushy and affectionate.
“Promise?” She asked.
“Promise.” I said, she backed away from me and grabbed the blender instead of her glass and chugged down more of the frozen drink before crying out from the brain freeze.
SARAH
The music pumping in my headphones made it hard to focus on anything else in the gym, but it was quiet for the first time in a week and I couldn’t help but let out all the stress by dancing around between my sets. I’d been taking it easy on my knee but Silas had given the okay to start working more leg days to strengthen the muscles now that it was healing better.
Although I was dancing more than I was working out.
I was avoiding the squat machine because I was afraid to blow out my knee but I knew I had to get back on it eventually. I watched Jensen come through the front doors like clockwork. I had been coming earlier so that I could get most of my workout done before allowing myself to get distracted by him. He consistently forgot to bring a shirt.
I couldn’t tell if he was actively trying to cause chaos or if he was genuinely just that unaware of how attractive he was but it was impossible to keep him out of my head when he walked around like that. His gym shorts hung low on his hips, every ounce of his tattooed skin on display under the harsh lights of the gym.
You’re staring.
I shook loose of the daze and tried to hype myself up for something a little more simple. I turned myself sideways on the mat and started my lunges as Jensen wandered around the gym landing on the deadlift platform. He had a hat low on his brows today and was already so sweaty from the heat outside that I could see the droplets running down his skin. I cleared my throat and continued to do my lunges, focusing on the mat in front of me so I didn’t lose my balance and embarrass myself again.
My knee stung a little in the deeper lunges and it took a second to warm up to the movement but eventually the pain dulled and the muscle loosened. My step stumbled a bit in the planting but it felt better than it had all season. I could feel Jensen’s eyes on me and it pushed me to stay up right as I worked across the gym in slow uncomfortable lunges. He set himself up on the opposite end, getting set up on the deadlift platform as I switched legs and moved at a grueling pace back across toward him.
I watched him load the weight on the bars, genuinely impressed as he totaled close to three fifty. He looked up at me as he wrapped his lifting belt around his taut stomach and stepped back to the bar. I positioned myself behind a long bench, grabbing some weights but never taking my eyes off of him as he readied for his first set.
Far gone past the shame of sharing, I started my step ups. The least I could do was look busy as my mouth went dry and my temperature rose higher. Jensen’s shoulders rounded out, the muscles in his arms flexing tight as he lifted the weight from the ground to his hips. His chest heaved as he worked to keep his breathing steady, his focus entirely on the bar between his hands.
His abs flexed under the strain, and a thick corded vein twisted around his forearms up into his biceps with every lift.
All I could do was count my own steps, almost missing the bench more than once. I felt like I was sweating through the thin fabric of my sports bra and the oversized t-shirt I was wearing over my bike shorts.
I chuckled, setting down the weights the second my set was finished before I stepped back from the bench in full view of Jensen. I grabbed the hem of the shirt, lifting it over my head and chucking it into my bag before continuing on with my next set of lunges.
Alternating the two workouts helped keep my knee moving in different ways, never placing too much stress on the same muscle. The lack of shirt had stolen Jensen’s attention from his own set and the bar crashing to the platform noisily. I turned over my shoulder to look at him as he snapped the clip on his belt and dropped it to the ground. He glared at me, his chest rising sharply as his head shook gently back and forth in amused disbelief.
I gave him a little shrug and kept doing my lunges well within his eyesight with more skin on display than before. Two could play the game he started, and I knew I could play it better. I giggled as he huffed something under his breath, his lips moving as he ran a hand through his hair, knocking his hat to the ground. He tugged on the fabric of his shorts and it exposed the hardened sweaty lines of his hip bones just enough for my head to get a little dizzy from the sight of it.
Fuck this man.
I wanted to tell him to leave, to give me some space to breathe but even the thought of telling him to go away made me lonely and sad. If what I felt was a crush, I didn’t want to feel it anymore because I was going insane.
How is it possible to be this horny?
I wandered back in a straight line, my lunges getting wobbly as my thighs started to become overworked. Taking a break I downed some water, my head tilting to the side as Jensen went back to his deadlifts. He hadn’t fixed the band of his pants and I was two minutes and one more piece of skin from finding out exactly what tattoo he had that high on his thigh with my tongue.
