Page 20 of The Hacker
“I’m not clear on why she would be able to pinpoint the computer expert.”
“Right. She owns a hair salon here in Cofferwood and she trains at the gym. She pretty much hears everything about everyone at the salon and she knows all the gym’s staff. Not to mention that she’s a great judge of character.”
“I think the fewer people who know about our project, the better,” Leland said.
“She’s totally discreet.”
He gave her a sardonic look. “Except when you ask her not to be.”
“That’s different. We’re friends and I’m just as discreet as she is. Okay, you’re done.” Dawn curled her hands around the bar of the weights so her palms met the backs of his fingers. She’d done the same thing with a hundred other clients, but never had she felt such a shock of awareness. She had to remind herself not to drop the weights on Leland’s head as he released his hold. Something made her look down, and she saw the same awareness in his eyes. Heat flashed through her and she almost staggered as she stood up.
“Um, let’s get to the lower-body work.” She winced as the unintentional double entendre of her words sank in. Or maybe it was her primitive subconscious being quite deliberate and enthusiastic.
His lips quirked into a half smile. He must have had a similar thought. She stalked over to the weight rack and slotted the weights into place, closing her eyes for a moment to calm herself.
“What new torment are you dreaming up for me?” His deep, slow voice sounded as though he was murmuring directly beside her ear. When her eyes flew open, the mirror showed that he stood right behind her, watching her in the reflection. She had an intense desire to press herself back against his sweat-darkened gray T-shirt and hope he would wrap his arms around her.
“Traveling lunges,” she blurted out, even though she had no memory of including them in her plan for today’s session. She sidestepped to get away from the gravitational pull he exerted over her. “With a barbell on your shoulders to challenge your balance.”
He blew out a breath and nodded. She managed to get through the rest of the exercises without touching him again, a good thing for her concentration. “Okay, time to stretch,” she said, as he finished a series of squats to cool down.
A look of what she could only interpret as pain crossed his face. “If I swear to stretch after I swim, may I skip this part?”
She stiffened as hurt jabbed at her. It was the second time he had tried to dodge her training. Had she overstretched him yesterday? Or was he trying to avoid her touch because he reacted to her physically? The possibility sent heat sizzling through her.
“If you’re not going to stretch now, I should add more exercises so you get your full hour in.” She put a little bit of seduction in her smile.
He grabbed his sweat towel and scrubbed at the back of his neck. “I need to get back to the office sooner rather than later, so even my swim will be brief.” He softened that by giving her a rueful look. “Believe me, I got my money’s worth from you. Chad was right about you being the best.”
“Thanks.” She gave him a tight-lipped smile, still unsure why he was leaving early.
He bent down closer. “Let me know what Natalie says.” Then he pivoted and strode toward the locker room.
She refused to allow herself to stand and watch him go, so she grabbed a spray bottle and began to wipe down the weight bench, giving it a hard scrub in frustration.
However, she volunteered to help a newish member program her treadmill so she could keep an eye on the pool. Luckily, she had just saved the program to the machine’s memory when Leland walked into the swimming area, wearing a pair of dark-red swim shorts.
Dawn forgot about the treadmill’s speed and incline as her gaze traveled over the beautiful planes of Leland’s body. She’d guessed at what he looked like under his workout clothes, but seeing him stripped down to bare skin made her gasp in a breath and hold it as desire burned through her veins. She imagined skimming her hands down the ridgedrectus abdominisof his abdomen, tracing the line of his quads from his thigh to his knee, flattening her palms against the powerful deltoids of his shoulders. His skin would be warm and smooth over the hard press of muscle and tendon.
He stopped on the edge of the pool, tensed for a moment, and then arced into the water in a shallow racing dive, surfacing with his arms already thrusting like a piston-driven engine, perfectly calibrated and propulsive. He cut through the water without apparent effort, his strokes never varying as the wet-slicked, flexing muscles in his back caught flashes of light. She waited for him to resurface after he hit the pool’s far wall in a perfect flip turn, taking much too long to emerge from under the water so she could savor the sight of him again.
The alarm on her smart watch sounded, making her jump. Glancing down at it, she saw that her next client was due in ten minutes. Maybe it was a good thing that she had another commitment to drag her away from drooling over Leland.
Leland fell into the familiar, mind-freeing rhythm of moving through the water. Except his mind kept taking cues from his body, which was still humming with arousal. He’d seen the baffled look in Dawn’s eyes when he’d turned down stretching, but he didn’t want to risk the strong possibility that his desire for her would become visible when she put her hands on him. The day before, it had been a near thing. Today the intensity of his attraction had been amplified by nothing more than her proximity during their training session. The few times her skin had come in contact with his, her touch had sent a streak of arousal straight to his groin.
He’d taken a cold shower before putting on his swim trunks, but that had offered only a temporary fix. Now her face, her body, and her voice—rough velvet with a weirdly sexy touch of Jersey accent—clouded his mind with lust.
Summoning every ounce of mental self-discipline he possessed, he focused on the Fincher RFP he’d promised Derek. Tully had been right, damn him! Leland didn’t really have time to do it justice. Especially not with Dawn undermining his concentration at every turn.
What the hell was wrong with him?
He hit the wall and flipped feet over head, launching himself in the opposite direction underwater.
He had to stay focused on the job. That’s where he knew who he was. That’s where people depended on him. Where he didn’t have time to think about the hole in his heart.
Although Dawn was proving to be an effective distraction from his grief. Maybe he should go with that. No, he couldn’t use her that way. She deserved to be more than a sort of temporary bandage.
He forced himself to work through the next step in solving the mystery of the dark web node. That was what he was here for, after all.
