Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 77249 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77249 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
That time his smile was ear to ear and adorable…but it was gone in a flash and the mischievous Dom gleam in his eyes sent a shiver through me.
Fucker.
“Thank you.” Moving closer, he stopped right as he crowded against me without actually touching me. “But I think you’re forgetting something important.”
Probably.
He was distracting as hell.
“Um, what?” Yes, I was supposed to respond to him.
“That I’m in charge and I don’t have to be logical or appropriate or remember that it’s not a porn set.”
Him being in charge was going to be dangerous.
Chapter 18
Cyrus
Friend and Buddy Weston might’ve tried to walk in the door, but I’d been planning on Boyfriend Weston being the one to stay for a while.
Sub Weston would’ve worked too but we needed a bit more privacy for that to be a good idea.
The Weston I had currently, though, scrunched up his face and nearly stomped his foot. “You can’t say that around here.”
“Bullshit.” It was my business; of course I could. “Owner. Boyfriend. Dom.”
I laughed as he peeked one eye open like he knew what I’d meant. “Owner of the business.”
Slut.
His cheeks heated as he opened his eyes and grumbled under his breath, probably calling me names. “What? I didn’t hear that. Were you asking about our plans later?”
Utter silence.
He was definitely still calling me names in his head, but he quickly realized saying them out loud would not be a good idea. “Yes. I.”
Pausing, he swallowed and tried again as he smoothed out his face, looking a bit like he was in a business meeting. “I just realized we’d left that kind of open, but we can come back to that point after we work out.”
Now seemed like a more enjoyable plan to me, but he glanced around and straightened before taking a step back. “I…yes…work out first and then we’ll…we’ll talk.”
Was that something I should push back on?
Was he thinking about that whole naked-working-out fantasy?
As I wondered what he was thinking versus what I should actually do, he inched back again. “How was work today?”
It was like I could see walls mentally going up, and it made me wonder what the fuck was going through his head.
“Good. It was busy first thing this morning when we were texting, but it’ll pick up again as more people get off work.” The middle of the day was generally quiet since we didn’t have a lot of the traditional mom crowd who went to other gyms during that time. He knew that already, but it seemed like we were basically talking about the weather. “Nico’s in the back getting paperwork done and he’ll come out on the floor later.”
We traded off doing terrible jobs and I’d spent a stupid amount of the afternoon answering questions from my accountant.
Nodding slowly, Weston looked like he was working to get his brain functioning again or maybe simply going in a different direction. “I didn’t really look around to see who was working.”
Too distracted?
Was I not supposed to tease him about that while we were at the gym?
Did he realize he was sending mixed signals?
He kept backing up and looking like we’d just met, but he was also licking his lips and stealing glances like he was picturing dirty shit.
“No competitions right now means everyone’s slacking off a bit.” Which was good sometimes because it gave me a chance to get caught up on the boring shit. “It’ll pick up next month and then it’ll be nothing but complaints about how they shouldn’t have slacked off.”
It was a cycle I’d been glad to jump out of since I wasn’t doing competitions any longer.
I thoroughly enjoyed lecturing other people about their bad habits and loved takeout with Weston. He certainly didn’t seem to mind the lack of a competition physique if I was judging by the way he’d worshipped my chest over the weekend.
Hmm.
Subtly tightening my chest and making my pecs jump, I kept up the neutral expression and boring conversation. “Depending on how busy we get, I was thinking about hiring a part-timer to give me more flexibility in the busy season.”
Especially now that I had a reason to make sure I had some fucking work-life balance.
Weston blinked like the conversation we were having didn’t match the one going through his head. He did that when work was frustrating him sometimes, but I didn’t think he was obsessing over paperwork at the moment. “That sounds like a good idea if you can swing it.”
Nodding, I inched closer again to invade his personal space. “We’ve been doing great with the baseline membership numbers staying stable, so I think it’s a good idea, but we’re crunching the numbers just in case.”
I would freely admit to numbers not being my thing unless they related to fitness or food, but Nico was better, and running the different scenarios was one of the things he was working on. “I’ve got a few people I’m looking at, so it won’t be hard to get them up to speed when we’re ready to pull the trigger on it.”