Page 17 of Gigi and the Gym Rats

Red alert.

Houston, we have a problem.

We’re on fire.

“Hi, Gige.” He grins, runs a hand over his washboard stomach and…

“Are you trying to kill me?” I blurt out.Kill me of instant lust. But he only frowns, obviously misunderstanding me as he grabs the bread and pastrami from my hands.

“Kill you? Shit, no. I didn’t see you behind the fridge door. Here, let me help you.”

Guilt makes its late appearance, biting me in the ass. I glance at the goods in his muscular arms, watch him place them on the table. My appetite is skulking away, tail between its legs.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you eating pastrami,” he says, hiking up a pale brow with a silver hoop through it. “Or white bread. Are you sure you’re feeling okay? Wait… is it that time of the month?”

That snaps me out of my lust-induced daze. “Again with that? No. Why should it be?”

“Because it makes you want to eat unhealthy stuff? I read that somewhere.”

Why do I feel so weird about discussing topics like periods with Ronin? I mean we’re friends… not-friends. Already established how weird it is to be friends with someone you find hot.

Whoishot. Hot like hot sauce. Like the Carolina Reaper chili.

Whew.

And I’m sonotinterested in stepping over the trail of girls and boys left behind him or noticing how hard those pecs are, how defined that eight-pack, how the ink moves when he flexes… No way.

“… Gige, are you on drugs or something?”

“Mm… sorry, what?”

“I’ve been talking to you and you’re just blinking as if you’re high. You keep staring at my chest.” He glances down. “What are you looking at?”

“Oh. Nothing.”Just objectifying you, drooling a little, imagining you naked, that’s all. Nothing to see here.“You were saying?”

“That again you blew me off this morning,” Ronin says, an accusing look in those ice-blue eyes. He parks his ass on the table, grips the edge with his hands, andholy muscle flexing. Those biceps are to die for.

Can I say I have a muscle fetish?

“I’m sorry?” I whisper when the silence stretches again. “I mean… Iamsorry.”

“I thought you said we’d start jogging together again. What’s up with you?”

“I, uh.” I cast about for a plausible excuse. “I forgot my alarm clock… at the gym, and I…”

He snorts. “What?”

Oops.More like, I left my brain at the gym.

Boy muscles. Frying girls’ brains since the stone age.

“Look, forget it.” He pushes off the table, his gaze hardening. “If you didn’t want to go jogging with me, you only had to say so. Didn’t realize it was such a chore for you. I’ll ring up Zayne, see if he wants to jog with me sometime. I’ll leave you to your sandwich.”

“I changed my mind,” I whisper. “I don’t want it. It’s fattening and bad for the heart.”

He’s bad for the heart.

Now, why am I thinking that?

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