Chapter 2: Two Weeks Later: Spot Me
The gym smelled of iron and disinfectant, and Carol hated how much she needed it. Two weeks of nights lying awake beside Chatura's even breathing, two weeks of feeling the cool stone of that terrace balustrade against her palms whenever she closed her eyes. The treadmill at least gave the guilt somewhere to go.
She had come at three on a Tuesday, when the place emptied out. Chatura thought she'd joined a pilates class. She wiped down the treadmill rail, checked her reflection in the mirror wall, and moved to the free weights before she could think about why she'd chosen the corner where the men trained.
"You're the terrace girl, right?"
The voice came from behind the dumbbell rack. She turned and found a big man folded onto a bench, towelling his neck. Thick arms, a jaw like a fence post, a grin that arrived before any greeting. His vest had been washed too many times, the cotton gone soft and thin.
"I'm sorry?"
"Caolain's friend. Kirk." He stood, extending a hand that swallowed hers. "He never shuts up about you. Well. He barely says a word about anything, and when he does it's about you, which is basically the same thing."
Heat climbed her throat. She glanced toward the mirrored wall, at the empty rows of machines, at nowhere to hide. "He talks about me."
"Talks. Brags. There's a difference and you know it." Kirk dropped back onto the bench and loaded plates onto the bar with a casual clank that seemed too loud in the quiet. "Relax, love. Nobody else here knows. I just wanted to see if you were real."
She should have moved to the treadmills. She picked up a pair of five-kilo dumbbells instead and started curls, watching him in the mirror, his body rising and falling under the bar, the effort scoring red lines down his neck.
"Do you go to his parties?" she asked.
"Wherever he goes. It's a habit." He racked the bar with a bang and sat up, forearms braced on his knees, looking at her directly. "He told me what you did. Not the details. Just that you surprised him, and he doesn't surprise easy. That's high praise from a man like Caolain."
Her hands had stopped moving. She made them move again. "He was very kind, actually."
Kirk laughed, a short bark. "Kind. Christ." He crossed the rubber floor to stand nearer, close enough that she could smell salt and clean sweat. He didn't touch her. He just looked, and the looking was not subtle, taking in her mouth, the damp collar of her top, the rise and fall of her chest. "You know I'm not saying any of this by accident, right? I asked where you trained. He told me. He doesn't share, usually, so make of that what you want."
The words sat in her stomach like swallowed stones. She set the dumbbells down. "You asked where I train."
"I did."
"Because you saw what happened on the terrace."
"I know what happened on the terrace." His voice stayed level, pleasant, and that was somehow worse than a leer. "And I've spent two weeks thinking about a woman I've never met, so yes, that's interest, stated plainly, because I'm not built for games."
She could feel her own pulse in her throat, in her wrists, lower. Ten years of marriage and she had never once been looked at like inventory someone actually intended to buy. It should have frightened her. It frightened her, and she did not step back.
"Spot me," Kirk said, nodding at the bench. "Then it's your turn and I'll return the favour. Fair's fair."
It was absurd, trading favours in a half-empty gym at three in the afternoon. She took her place at the head of the bench anyway, hands hovering under the bar, and when he lowered it and pressed it up she watched the muscles of his chest and stomach work, watched the soft worn cotton of the vest shift across him, and thought of nothing at all except weight and motion and the fact of being watched back.
The bar came down slow on the last rep. He held it there, arms trembling, and grinned up at her upside down. "You're staring."
"I'm spotting."
"You're staring." He racked it and sat up. "I like it."
Her phone buzzed against the bench beside her. She picked it up too fast, grateful for any interruption, and the screen showed a number she had never saved and would have known anywhere.
Still thinking about the terrace? Good. So is Kirk. Don't pretend you aren't thinking about us both.
Her breath went out of her in one slow push. She looked up. Kirk was watching her face, reading the message in it before she could say a word, and his grin widened into something patient and sure.
"He told you to come here," she said.
"He didn't have to tell me much." Kirk held out his hand for the bar, palm up, an offer. "Your turn on the bench. Or we can talk about that text instead. Up to you."
Carol put the phone face-down on the bench. "Neither," she said. "Both. I don't know."
"Then walk with me." Kirk picked up his towel, unhurried, as if the whole afternoon belonged to him. "There's a room out back. Stretching room, physio space, nobody uses it at three. Doors lock from the inside."
She followed him past the squat racks, down a short corridor smelling of rubber mats, her pulse counting her steps. He swiped a fob at a grey door and held it open. Inside there was a padded mat, a mirrored wall, one window high and frosted. The light came down soft and yellow.
"This is a bad idea," she said, and did not move toward the door.
"Probably." Kirk dropped the towel on a bench and turned to face her. "Say it again and mean it, and I'll walk you back to the car. I'm not Caolain. He'll read you and take what you won't ask for. I ask."
"Ask, then."
He stepped close. The heat of him reached her before his hands did. "I'm asking to kiss you. And if you let me, I'm going to ask for more, out loud, so you always know what you're saying yes to."
"Yes," she said. "Both."
His mouth came down on hers, warm, tasting faintly of salt. His hand found her jaw and held it, thumb along her cheekbone, and the kiss was slower than the terrace had been, patient, thorough. She heard herself make a small sound against his lips and felt him smile.
"You've been thinking about it," he murmured. "Two weeks. So have I."
"I'm married."
"You keep saying that like it's a reason." He pulled her top up over her hips, his knuckles grazing her stomach, and watched her face for the flinch that didn't come. "Is it a reason?"
"No." Her voice cracked on it. "It's just a fact."
He walked her back until her shoulders met the mirror. The glass was cool through her top. He peeled the top off her, then knelt and drew her leggings down her thighs, unhurried, folding them over the bench like laundry. She stood in the red silk she had not meant to wear again and watched him see it.
"Christ," he said quietly. "He didn't tell me that part."
"I bought them for myself. Before him. Before any of it."
"Good girl." He said it like a verdict, and her stomach turned over at how much she liked it.
He pushed her bra straps off her shoulders and took her breasts in his hands, heavy and careful, his mouth closing on one nipple until she arched off the mirror. His stubble dragged the soft skin between her breasts. Her fingers curled into his cropped hair. Two weeks of the balustrade in her palms, and now a different surface, a different mouth, a man who announced every move.
"I'm going to lay you down on the mat," Kirk said against her throat. "And I'm going to use my mouth on you first. Then I'm going to fuck you. Tell me now if any of that's wrong."
"None of it." She was already lying back before he finished pulling his vest over his head.
The mat smelled of rubber. He settled between her thighs and hooked his fingers into the red knickers, drawing them down slow, his eyes on her the whole way. She covered herself with one hand out of habit and he caught it, laced his fingers through hers, pinning it gently to the mat.
"No hiding," he said. "Not in here."
His mouth was wet and deliberate. He licked her slowly from bottom to top, then circled her clit with a flattened tongue until her hips rose off the mat on their own. He was not as fast as Caolain. He worked her like a job with no deadline, humming approval against her when her breath shortened, easing two fingers into her and curling them while his tongue kept its rhythm. The mirror gave her their image, her own flushed face, the broad pale curve of his back, and she could not look away.
She came with her hand fisted in the mat, hips stuttering against his mouth, his name breaking out of her in two syllables she had never learned.
He kissed up her body, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. "Now?"
"Now," she said. "I'm on the pill. I want to feel it. Skin."
His trousers came off fast now, the patience gone, and that small loss of control thrilled her more than anything. He rolled the condom-less weight of himself over her, pressed his cock against her and paused, one breath, watching her eyes.
"Yes," she said before he could ask.
He pushed in slow, inch by inch, her body opening around him, fuller than the terrace, thicker, and she heard him curse under his breath at the feel of her. He set a rhythm that shook the breath out of her on every stroke, his forearm braced by her head, his mouth at her ear.
"You feel what I felt," he growled. "Two weeks of this."
"Harder."
He gave it to her. The mat dragged under them, the mirror cold at her shoulder, his hips driving her up and up until she was climbing again, her nails scoring his back. She pulled her knees higher and he went deeper and she came around him, clenching, crying out without checking the walls, because there were no walls here, only the frosted window and his voice saying her name like it was true.
"I'm close," he said. "Where?"
"Inside me." She gripped his hip, the same gesture her body remembered. "Like him. Please."
He thrust twice more and groaned long and low into her neck, spilling deep, his whole weight sinking into her. They lay tangled on the mat, their breathing loud in the little room, his hand still laced through hers.
Somewhere down the corridor, her phone buzzed again against the bench. Twice this time.
Kirk lifted his head and looked at her. "You'd better see who that is."