“I have more blankets in the car.” He paused. “And we can snuggle to keep warm.” He paused. “I just don’t like being around this many people.”
I reluctantly agreed.
But, when we finally got to the tent, I was surprised to find it a lot warmer than I expected.
Piling inside without opening the tent flaps all the way, I all but fell into the warm heat, happy to find it warm when I expected it to be cold.
“I’ll be right back,” he called out.
I smiled and fell onto the gray roll-out mat that he’d brought along, burying my face into the pillow that he’d insisted I bring today.
I was glad he’d asked me to grab it, because it was about to come in very handy.
I was lying there, my arms wrapped around myself, fallen over on my side with my head on the pillow, when I heard the first whispers.
“Did you see who Taos was working out with?” someone asked.
“Is that her?” someone else, a woman instead of a man this time, whispered.
They must’ve seen Taos taking off, but hadn’t seen me come inside the tent, or they wouldn’t be talking right next to our tent, loud enough for me to hear.
“I think it is.” The man paused. “I recognize her from the paper.”
The paper.
The damn Paris Herald.
I hated that fucking paper.
I hated even more that they’d published my life story, including an old race photo of me, to their front fucking page, without first asking me if I was okay with it.
Even worse, everyone in town knew what almost happened to me.
Everyone but one certain hero police officer that I couldn’t work up the courage to tell the truth.
I would tell him.
I really, really would.
When I worked up the courage.
Until then, I just hoped that he didn’t hear the story from someone else.
“I think that they’re cute together,” I heard said.
“They are.” The woman paused. “The only thing is, how do you think she’s doing with that type of relationship with what happened to her?”
Not wanting Taos to overhear their words, I said, “I’m handling sex just fine, thank you!”
There was a long pause, then a manly, ‘oh, shit,’ before I heard feet carrying the two farther away with a rush of whispers and apologies.
Snorting quietly to myself, I reached for Taos’ blanket—why didn’t I remember to bring one again?—and practically wrapped myself up like a burrito. It wasn’t the best. I was still cold.
But it was okay enough to allow me to get somewhat comfortable.
I was dead to the world by the time Taos got back.
I woke what felt like five minutes later to hands running up and down the length of my calf.
I blinked an eye open and came face-to-face with a muscled back.
“What time is it?” I wondered.
I sounded drowsy as hell.
I could really use a cup of coffee.
But I would stay away from anything that would make me need to shit.
That would be my luck.
The next workout would be deadlifts, and I’d have to…
Taos’ hand moved higher, and my breath hitched.
“What are you doing?” I rasped.
“Working the lactic acid out of your thighs,” he answered as he massaged me. Higher and higher. Until he might as well be running his fingers along my private parts.
It was erotic as hell, and if I could just get him to go a little bit higher…
“…there’s thrusters in the workout next,” he said.
And as if his words had an instant dampening effect, whatever excitement he’d managed to scrounge up out of my tired body fled with that one word.
Thrusters.
“Ewwww,” I grumbled. “That sounds awful.”
Thrusters were squats with a weight of some sort. When you stood up out of the squat, you would thrust the weight over your head. Which was how the name came to be.
“I’d rather die,” I grunted.
He chuckled and switched to the other leg.
“The sad thing is, you’re really good at them,” he mused as he moved to the top of my leg.
I let out a sad sounding squeak, causing him to laugh.
“Sore?” he wondered.
“As hell,” I groaned.
We’d only done half of the day’s workouts so far.
The first workout had hit me hard.
It was a ten-minute workout that had a fuckton of double-unders, paired with a shit ton of calories on the assault bike.
It’d been a brutal ten minutes, and I never wanted anything more than to sanitize that assault bike by setting it on fire.
Obviously understanding my thoughts, Taos had been the one to wipe down our areas with me glaring at the piece of machinery the entire time.
After the first workouts, I had no desire whatsoever to do anything that had to do with thrusters.
I did anyway, though.
“Let’s get up,” he suggested, standing up with me in his arms, and then letting my feet slowly drop until I was pressed almost fully against him.
Sadly, I still had the blanket wrapped around most of my body, meaning that I could barely feel him where he pressed against me in all the right places.
I did, however, feel how he could kiss seeing as my face was mostly the only thing exposed.
I was expecting a small kiss from him. A chaste one that wouldn’t lead anywhere.
Instead, what I got, was a kiss that had me panting and gasping by the time he pulled away, and an ache in my core that had me questioning my life choices up until now.
“What was that?” I asked between breaths.
His eyes twinkled as he said, “I just wanted to make sure you were well and truly awake.”
Well, I sure the fuck was.
And so was my vagina.
He put me down, and I kept the blanket that I’d managed to stay wrapped in, but reluctantly left all the others where they lay discarded after that kiss, and then slowly shuffled my way out of the tent.
He made sure the zipper on the door opening was closed really well behind us.
I smiled at his methodical preparation, all because he didn’t want me to be cold where we were stuck outside.
“It’s snowing,” I surmised as we walked through the busy parking lot toward the gym again.
“It is,” he agreed as he threw his arm around my shoulder. “It started when I was walking back to the tent. I came in and started talking about it before I realized you were asleep.”
I snickered. “My body isn’t used to doing exercise. It’s taking me a long time to get back into the groove.”
“You’ve been exercising for almost seven weeks now,” he countered.
I had.
We had finished up bootcamp, and I was kind of sad that I would no longer have him as my coach once it was over. So sad that I was going to sign up to continue this torture voluntarily.
I changed the subject to keep the sadness from leeching into my voice.
“I’ve never driven in snow, either,” I told him. “I barely drive in the rain.”
“You barely drive at all anymore,” he countered.
He was right.
When Taos wasn’t at the gym, and we were together, he was the one driving.
I loved it so much.
I had zero interest in driving, which was a fucking riot seeing as that was what I now did for a living.