Page 44 of Vivacity
‘No, honestly, I?—’
He bears down harder, and I grimace. ‘Jesus, that’s painful. You went hard on me today.’
‘Because I knew you could take it, beautiful girl.’ He’s still smiling, and I’m putty in his hands. This man is delicious.
My new personal trainer, Caio, is the polar opposite of my boss: warm, smiley, and emotionally competent. He’s also as big a whore as I am, if his stories are to be believed.
Sadly, I’m not his type. Nowhere close.
‘If I can’t walk tomorrow, I’m coming to find you,’ I warn him.
‘You’ll be fine. Caio’s stretches are infamous. And don’t forget an Epsom salt bath tonight. You did great today.’
We beam at each other, and I know he’s right. That’s why I’m taking this pain now, allowing my hamstrings to scream at me as he bears down on me, pushing my right leg so far forward that I could lick my knee if I wanted to. I force myself to breathethrough the discomfort. The more confronting it is now, the less tight I’ll be tomorrow.
Caio hinges his weight forward and pushes my leg a little further. If he were straight, this position would be incredibly dirty. I’d forgotten how fun it is flirting with gorgeous gay guys.
‘I want an arse like yours by the end of the year,’ I tell him.
‘You’ll get it. But it’s a lot of work, baby. I didn’t just get this in the gym, you know.’
I sigh. I know. Caio is a go-go dancer at Electric Dreams, a fabulous-sounding, Eighties-themed gay nightclub in Soho. His buns of steel are the product of hours and hours of shimmying up and down poles (and, presumably, hot guys’ bodies) as much as they are of weights.
‘I’d come and dance there if I didn’t think I’d clear the room,’ I say with a pout.
He laughs. ‘Everyone would fucking love you. You should come one night. Bring your girlfriends.’
That’s not a bad call. It’s exhausting to go out with the seraphim. We get hit on everywhere we go. A gay club would be gold—we could dance all night, safe in the knowledge that we have zero sex appeal for any of the other punters. Maybe it’s an outing for another weekend. Tomorrow night we have a group outing to the elite Mayfair sex club, Alchemy. One of its founders, Genevieve, is married to Anton Wolff, billionaire entrepreneur and the dirty bastard who dreamed up—and founded—Seraph. Gen gave all the seraphim membership over the summer.
I think she figured that having objectively hot women go there to blow off steam could only be good for business.
‘Seriously?’
‘Anytime. Breathe, baby. It’s a lot to take.’
‘That’s what he said,’ I quip, as he stays braced above me in this weirdly intimate and totally asexual position. I turn my headto stare at his arm. ‘If I were you I’d spend far too much time measuring the girth of my biceps.’
‘I spend far too much time measuring the girth of a lot of things,’ he admits with a grin, and I full-on cackle like the classy chick that I am. I’m still sniggering to myself when a shadow falls over my face, and I look up to find my boss glaring down at us, arms crossed over his chest.
He looks cranky and morally outraged and hot as hell.
Ugh.
‘What the fuck is going on here?’ he demands, and my mouth drops open. The nerve of this guy. He’s been a total cunt to me since our hotel interlude on Tuesday, distant and dismissive and demeaning, and now he’s trying to muscle in on my downtime?
I don’t think so.
‘Um, excuse me? I’m on my lunch break. What the hell is your problem?’
Caio eases off me and helps me lower my leg down. Fuck, my hip flexors are tight. He scrambles to his feet and holds out his hand to Ethan as I rear up onto my elbows with difficulty.
‘Hi, Mr Kingsley. I’m Caio. We haven’t met. I started four months ago, I...’
He trails off as Ethan shakes his hand in the rudest and most cursory way possible before glaring back down at me.
‘It doesn’t look like you were working out.’
‘Caio was stretching me because he just worked me like a motherfucker.’ I can’t help it if that sounds risqué. Ethan is entitled to precisely zero disclosure about what I do in my lunch hour, whether I’m on his premises or not.
