Page 43 of Control (Everyday Heroes 3.50)
Chapter Eighteen
Desi
Of course I show up to class.
The same gym. The same smell of sweat permeating the air. The same hot-ass instructor standing on the far side of the gym gently guiding women how to do what they need to do to defend themselves.
Then why do I suddenly feel completely defenseless when it comes to him?
Maybe for the same reason I’ve kept a low profile at the house for the past few days.
Because there’s something about the man that makes me think about him when I shouldn’t, want more of him when I should have already had my fill, and watch him do meaningless things outside his house when I have a ton of things to do myself.
Whew.
Get over there, Des. Quit standing and staring and wanting him when you keep telling yourself you don’t.
“Ms. Whitman?”
Reznor’s voice calling me from across the gym breaks through my thoughts and has me immediately on the defensive. I internally roll my eyes at him.
Our gazes meet briefly. “Glad to see you’re here for today’s class.”
I snort—it’s my only defense against that damn flutter his smile causes. “I was afraid if I didn’t show that I might come home to my roof being re-shingled or something.”
But damn...him in that snug shirt...his tight ass...and the smile he flashes my way. I swear he makes the women watching our interaction’s panties wet...so, yeah, he can re-shingle my roof any damn day.
“I’ll keep that in mind. Having a backup plan is always important.” He steps toward the center of the mat and when I stand there, he lifts his eyebrows. “I require active participation, in case you forgot.”
Oh, I didn’t forget. Don’t bother giving me excuses. Just practice saying yes.
“Coming,” I mutter, but the deepening of his grin is all I need to know he heard me across the space—and exactly what I just said.
A couple of the women say hi to me as I step up to the edge of the mat and take a deep breath for Reznor-102.
“Shall we?” he asks before stepping over to me and grabbing my hand without another word.
“What?” I fight the knee-jerk reaction to yank my arm back—the one that tells me his touch is too much to bear—when just last night I woke up with my hands between my thighs again, thoughts of him in my dreams.
“I’ve been missing my sparring partner,” he says with a flash of a smile that to me says he wants to eat me alive.
Dear God.
Can everyone else see it? Or is it just me?
Because when Reznor uses me as a means to demonstrate to the rest of the ladies what to and what not to do, I have a hard time concentrating. His body is against mine—the heat of it, the feel of it, his cologne—and it’s a tactile memory of when we had sex.
Every. Single. Time.
I know he knows it too.
“So let’s run through another scenario,” Reznor says, as he instructs me to lie down on the mat. “Let’s say you’re home alone, sound asleep in your bed.” The hairs on the back of my neck stand up. “You wake up in the dark of night and there’s someone standing over you.” I clench my jaw and close my eyes momentarily as anger fires through my veins. What the fuck? “What would you do?”
Someone told him.
Not only did someone tell him, but rather than ask me about it to my face, he’s confronting me here in front of strangers. Anger. Shame. Hurt. All three reverberate through me just like the question does: Why would he do this?
Maybe because if you’re alone, he knows you’d dodge and avoid his questions like you have several times already.
