“I had to drive myself home last night,” I countered.
He grinned and pressed his cold nose to the side of my face. “You did. But you were the one who insisted you sleep at home and not in my bed.”
That was true, too.
I wanted to sleep with him at his place, but I also didn’t want to make myself too… clingy.
I wanted him to continue liking me. I didn’t want to burn him out on me.
I’d practically move in with him if he let me.
But again, he was a very private person. I knew that he needed some time away from me. At least, he got these long, silent periods that equaled to me time spent apart was needed.
Not that he’d ever come right out and said it.
Maybe I was making too big of a deal about it?
I didn’t know. But until he could give me a clearer picture of how things were to be, then I’d be quiet, keep my nose out of his business, and enjoy the time he did give me.
For now.
“What’s the rest of the workout?” I asked, shivering slightly as a tiny snowflake fluttered from the sky and landed on my eyelashes.
Without stopping, Taos reached over and plucked the snowflake off my eye and then smiled at me before saying an even worse word than thrusters: burpees.
Ew.
I supposed that the workout started out okay.
I was trudging along, doing my thrusters at a nice, even pace, and making sure to keep doing them and not stop seeing as the longer I took, the more burpees that Taos had to do.
I didn’t realize just how slow I was moving until I heard the teams beside me switch out with their partners.
I winced when I looked over at Taos to see sweat pouring out of him and onto the mat below him as he did yet another burpee.
I groaned and kept moving, trying to block out just how fast the men were able to knock out the thrusters in comparison to me, who was still going.
Finally, I finished, and then dropped the bar from about head level, causing Taos to drop down onto the mat and turn his head to stare at me.
“I’m sorry,” I cried between pants.
He pushed himself up, and I watched as the muscles of his back started to ripple beneath the surface of his skin.
Yum.
It was good to know that, even tired and feeling bad, I could still find the man absurdly attractive.
Finally, we got ourselves switched, and I watched in awe out of the corner of my eye as Taos did his thrusters—caught the men that were still going—and then surpassed them all while I did the slowest burpees on the planet.
Yet again, we still had to wait until I got to the number that was required, and we switched all over again.
This time with me having a very small lead.
A small lead that turned into a larger one when the weight jumped up.
See. That was the good thing about my legs.
They were well muscled and toned and could withstand just about anything that I put them through.
Like adding thirty more pounds.
My slow and steady approach wound up being the perfect thing to do, because when I finished, the girls that’d been ahead of me still had over half of their reps to do.
This time, Taos was smiling even wider, still sweating profusely, when we switched.
Just as I thought we were about to pass easily and switch positions, he stopped me with a swift kiss right to the lips.
The crowd around us started to titter.
I didn’t blame them. I was all tittering, too.
At least inside.
On the outside, I was doing burpees and cursing whoever invented them.
And when we switched again, with an even bigger lead, I felt like I was on top of the world.
Until I got to the first thruster and realized that it was hard.
Very hard.
The heavier weight made it to where I was doing them one rep at a time.
My arms were shaking from fatigue, my legs hated me, and I was fairly sure that my lungs were smoldering on the inside.
I was surprised that I wasn’t breathing smoke with how badly they were burning.
Just when I thought I couldn’t do another, Taos’ voice rang out, jolting me into doing the next rep.
And the next.
And the next one after that.
Until finally I was done.
We switched, and this time Taos’ hand slapped down on my ass. “Good job, baby. Keep going. We’re almost done.”
My face flaming, I flopped on the floor and did my first burpee.
I kept doing them until the judge screamed that I was done.
I blinked. Looked around. Then smiled huge.
Because we’d won.
We’d won by a lot.
I flopped over onto my back and felt my head whirl.
It whirled even more when I was hauled to my feet by big-grin-wearing Taos.
“You did it, baby.”
Then he picked me up by the waist and kissed me.
CHAPTER 14
If I pass out, write my time on the board.
-Coffee Cup
TAOS
It was way later that day when we finally made it home from the competition.
“I’d have sex with you,” she whispered. “But I don’t think that I could bend my legs and do anything right now even if I wanted to.”
I would’ve smiled, but even my cheek muscles hurt.
Instead of saying a word, I pulled her into my arms, then led her to the shower.
No foolery went on in that shower.
We barely had enough strength to make it to the bedroom before both of us collapsed.
“In just a minute, I’ll get dressed and leave,” she whispered.
I grunted as I rolled, not stopping until she was tight to my side.
After wrapping my arms around her, I said, “You’re not going anywhere.”
Her beautiful eyes opened and they glowed with mirth.
“I’m not?” she teased.
I shook my head. “No. You’re staying in bed with me.”
She closed her eyes and said one word, “Okay.”
Was it always that easy? Was that all I’d had to do this entire time? Tell her she wasn’t leaving?
As the woman fell asleep in my arms, I thought about how easy it was to get her to stay.
That meant that she’d wanted to.
Had she wanted to all this time, but forced herself to leave?
I didn’t quite know the answer to that, but what I did know was that I was more than willing to ask her to stay, all the damn time, if it was what it would take to get her to sleep in my arms every night.
I was just drifting off to sleep when my cell phone rang.
The particular tone belonged to the chief, and I knew without answering the phone that I wasn’t going to like whatever he had to say.
I was right.
“Hello?” I answered, sounding just as groggy and tired as I felt.
“We had another one.” He paused. “Well, technically, we had one a while ago, and we just found it.”
I felt my head throb with unease.
“What’s the problem?”
I moved to place my hand on the woman’s leg that was next to mine, but ended up placing it more on her ass, causing her to squirm.
I moved it upward toward her back, pulling her in closer for a quick kiss, before letting her go. “It’s the chief.”
She sighed against my lips, then let me go, just before I heard her groan as she started to get up.
I once again caught her by the hip, pressing down so she would know to stay.