Page 15 of Hot and Bothered
I put everything back in the shopping bag and left it on the table. I didn’t want Evan to think I had been snooping, even if it had been meant for me.
I did, however, open the drawer Evan had pulled the phone out of. I needed to find a charger. The phone must’ve been old because the battery had drained quickly. I had barely used it all day and already the battery was at twenty percent.
There wasn’t any charger in the drawer, though, so I closed it, leaving the rest of the contents undisturbed.
I didn’t quite know what to do with myself and wondered if I should just turn on the TV and channel surf.
Maybe I’d see myself on a missing person’s report.
I looked around the living room but there were no magazines. I went to the bookshelf and examined the books. My eyes went wide.
Jackpot!
Sitting on the shelf was a boxset for my favorite book series, fantasy novels I’d read a handful of times already. I wondered if they were Evan’s favorite series too, considering he had the entire boxset.
I was just about to take it down from the shelf when I heard a faint grunt came from down the hall. I paused, listening closely. There was another grunt, then some heaving breathing.
My thoughts immediately went into the gutter.
Were those sex sounds? Had Evan really brought a girl home and I’d just walked in on them?
But I hadn’t seen an extra set of women’s shoes at the door. Evan was home alone.
My face flamed.
Did that mean he was…?
I thought about dashing to the front door and leaving, pretending I’d never come home and heard those noises.
But as the noises continued, I realized they were coming from the spare room. There had been weights in the room.
I didn’t want to disturb Evan, but I did need to ask if he had a charger for the phone. I made my way down the hallway and took a look through the half-open door.
As I had suspected, Evan was in there with a pair of headphones. I could hear the music blasting even from several feet away.
He wore a pair of dark grey sweatpants hung low on his hips and a tight black t-shirt. The t-shirt clung to his chest and torso with the sweat of exertion. The peaks and valleys of his abs were clearly visible.
I couldn’t keep my eyes from trailing along those abs, up his muscled chest, to the strong arms that were currently lifting weights up and down. The muscles shifted and flexed as he curled each arm.
He let out soft grunts in time with his movements as he exercised. The sounds were almost hypnotic. I watched as his chest rose and fell with every breath. My own breath began to rise and fall in time with him, as if we were in sync somehow.
Beads of sweat lined his brow, making his hair stick to his forehead in damp strands. My eyes greedily took in the sweat rolling down his neck and soaking into the collar of his shirt.
My heartbeat sped up to a rapid pace. Heat began to rise inside me, a slow simmering warmth that started in my stomach, flowing downwards to my belly button and then lower, centering at the apex of my thighs.
I had noticed Evan was handsome the first time I’d seen him. I had continued to notice how attractive as we ate breakfast and as we worked together.
But it was only now that these feelings turned from a casual thought at the back of my mind into a raging storm whirling in my gut.
This man was absolutely gorgeous.
I didn’t know how long I stayed in the hallway peeking through the door, watching Evan work out. It must have been for far longer than I’d assumed because he ended up finishing his work out while I still stood there. He plucked the headphones from his ears, grabbed a towel from a hook on the wall, and wiped the sweat from his face.
I took a step back, not wanting to be caught watching him like this.
I tripped over my own two feet, smacking against the wall and drawing unwanted attention to myself.
Evan stopped in the middle of toweling off his hair and glanced outside the door. He saw me trying to right myself. I hoped he didn’t notice the redness of my cheeks.
