Trained At The Gym: A Contemporary Reverse Harem Romance Read online

  Excitement tingled in my chest. “I’m listening.”

  “Nuh uh,” he waggled a finger in front of my face. “You’ll just have to use your imagination until then.”

  “You had better exceed my imagination, then.” I hopped off and gave him a kiss. “I’ll let you get back to the rest of your ride.”

  I left him there, pants around his ankles and eyes still lax with pleasure.

  As February went on, everything was going amazing with my three gym men. I couldn’t believe how lucky I was.

  If only I knew the secret one of them was harboring.

  23

  Finn

  The Rocky Mountain Fitness employee office was filled with trainers for the monthly staff meeting.

  “We’ve seen the typical decline in attendance that we always see for February,” one of the managers explained. “But our numbers for regular attendees is actually holding steady. Especially among our gold and platinum members, which is the most important part. The exceptional service offered by RMF trainers is surely to thank for that!”

  The room of trainers applauded itself. We all knew that customer service was what kept our gym head-and-shoulders above the competition.

  Our manager went through some of the machine updates for the gym. Two of the treadmills were down and waiting repairs, and three ellipticals. There were announcements about other things for us to watch out for. Apparently there was a new fad workout on Twitter that involved barbell exercises while trying to balance on an inflatable ball. We needed to watch out for any novices who would attempt the idiotic workout and potentially hurt themselves.

  “And finally, the points challenge,” he said. “The leader is still Brody Forrester, which isn’t a surprise. But right behind him is a new platinum member: Katherine Delaney. And they both happen to be coached by the same personal trainer. Let’s give Finn Hadjiev a big round of applause!”

  I smiled and nodded while everyone clapped. Max balled up a piece of paper and tossed it at me with a grin.

  “You always get assigned the overachievers,” one of the other trainers teased. “It’s not fair.”

  “Or maybe I’m just better at motivating our clients to reach their true potential,” I said smoothly.

  Max shouted, “Finn motivates me to stop looking in the mirror, because I know I can never look that ripped!”

  Everyone laughed. I gave Max a friendly middle finger. “If you think I’m muscular, you should see my brothers. I’m the baby of the family.”

  “You keep saying that, but I find it very hard to believe there’s anyone bigger than you.”

  For the rest of the employee meeting, I thought about Katherine. She had really improved in these two months, more than any client I had ever seen. The other trainer was right: I was lucky that she was assigned to me.

  I was glad we had been able to put the incident in the massage room behind us. But although things had gotten back to normal, we were teasing and flirting more than ever. It was a game between us now to see how much we could tempt the other person.

  She was winning.

  I yearned to be with her again. When I was at the gym, she was all I could think about. Even when she wasn’t working with me, I found myself walking back to the cardio room so I could check in on her. When I went home at the end of the day, I thought about her. When I slept, I dreamed about all the filthy, dirty things I wanted to do to her.

  It was becoming a struggle. I didn’t know how much longer I could go on.

  When the staff meeting ended, I sought out Max. “Hey man. You got a minute?”

  “Sure, what’s up?”

  I led him over to a corner that was away from the other trainers. “This is kind of a weird question. You’ve dated members before. Right?”

  He tensed. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, you dated that girl last year. The accountant who was taking swim lessons.”

  “Right,” Max said carefully. I could tell he was uneasy about the topic.

  “How did it go?” I asked.

  Max glanced around, then lowered his voice. “We dated for two months before breaking up. It was mutual. We weren’t a good fit, aside from physical chemistry.”

  “No, I mean… How did it go while you were dating?” I clarified. “Did you go out of your way to keep it a secret? Or did you just act normal and not worry about it?”

  He shrugged. “We didn’t treat it like it was a scandalous affair, if that’s what you mean. But we also didn’t flaunt it around RMF.” He eyed me carefully. “Why do you ask?”

  One of the other trainers walked by. I waited until she was gone before saying, “I really like one of the girls here.”

  His eyes widened. “Is it Kat?”

  Max and I had been work buddies for two years. I had a great relationship with him, and generally felt like I could tell him anything without fear. But hearing him say Kat’s name out loud…

  “It’s not Kat,” I quickly said. “It’s someone else. One of our older members.”

  “Older?” Max’s lip curled in a smile.

  “I mean her membership is older. Not that she is older. We’ve been flirting for a long time, and she has dropped some pretty overt hints that she wants me to ask her out. I’m starting to consider it. But I definitely don’t want to lose my job here, so I was wondering how serious they are about the rules…”

  “Oh, they’re serious,” Max replied. “Remember Lauren, the morning spin instructor? She was let go after she started seeing one of her clients.”

  “Shit.”

  “Granted, she was kind of dumb about it. She got caught kissing him goodnight in the middle of the cardio room. You believe that?”

  “Hah, yeah, that’s crazy,” I said with a nervous laugh. “You’d have to be stupid to fool around in plain sight like that.”

  Max put a hand on my shoulder. “I can’t tell you what to do with your life. But I’m a firm believer in following your heart. If you have the potential for something special, you shouldn’t let a job get in the way. I say, give it a try. Keep it secret and see where it goes. But be smart about it.”

  “Smart, right,” I said. “Thanks, Max. I needed to hear that.”

  He slapped me reassuringly on the arm. “Any time, pal. Whoever she is, I’m sure she’d love to go out with you. I wasn’t joking when I said you’re fucking shredded.”

  I laughed and returned to my desk to complete some paperwork, but for the rest of the day I felt like I had a mission.

  Katherine.

  24

  Katherine

  I started March by crushing my workout goals.

  Two months ago, I wanted to run a 10K—six point two miles—in under an hour. I didn’t think I’d be able to pass that milestone until the summer, at least. Especially since I started out in January running eleven minute miles.

  But on the first day of March, I completed my goal. I didn’t intend to. I started my run normally, at a ten-minute-mile pace. Halfway through the run, I felt good enough to increase the speed a little bit. Then a little bit more. At mile five, I realized I was within reach of the one hour goal. So I continued cranking up the speed, running much faster than I was used to. My lungs burned and my legs ached, but I kept upping the speed.

  And the odometer on the treadmill hit six-point-two with ten seconds to spare.

  I slowed the treadmill to a walk and sucked in air. Nobody around me noticed the accomplishment, but that was alright. It wasn’t for them. It was for me.

  Finally, I was starting to feel fast again. Not as fast as my days in cross-country, but getting there.

  It was incredibly motivating to see noticeable results every single week. When I started two months ago, I felt like a rhinoceros stomping on the treadmill. Now I felt like a gazelle, gliding along gracefully. It helped that I had lost another five pounds. That made eleven total. Just over a pound per week.

  I need a new running goal, I thought. Should I increase my speed, or the distance? Ten m
iles felt like a big leap forward. I would need to talk to Finn and see what he thought.

  After running, I took a shower and changed into my bathing suit. It wasn’t the pool that I had in mind—it was the hot tub next to it. I had begun soaking in the hot water to help my muscles relax. And as I walked into the pool room, I saw that I wasn’t the only one with that idea.

  Brody was stretched out on one end, with his arms extended along the rim of the hot tub. He opened one eye when he heard the door, then grinned. “Great minds think alike, huh?”

  “Apparently so.” I climbed into the hot tub across from him. The water was hot, too hot it felt like, but then my body adjusted. Slowly, I lowered myself into its depths and sighed. “There we go.”

  “Hot tub to relax, then the cryogenic boots to stimulate recovery,” Brody sighed. Steam floated above the surface and condensed on his cheeks and temples, dampening his blond hair. “You know, you’re kind of a jerk.”

  “What? Why?”

  He pointed. “It’s tough relaxing in here while I’m watching my lead slowly evaporate.”

  I glanced at the points screen on the wall:

  25-29 AGE GROUP

  BRODY F:_____12,020

  KATHERINE D: 11,798

  JONNY K:______8,233

  MARCIA J:_____7,449

  “Relax. You’ve still got a hefty lead,” I said.

  “We’ve both been earning about two-hundred points a day,” Brody insisted. “I’m one cold bug away from falling into second place.”

  I grinned. “I’ve been rubbing dirty tissues all over my Brody Forrester voodoo doll for the past month. If that isn’t working, then nothing will.”

  “So that’s why you took me skiing,” he replied. “You were trying to make me catch a cold.”

  “Guilty as charged.”

  “I’m going to need to kick things into overdrive down the home stretch to stay ahead of you.”

  “You can try, but I’m just hitting my stride. I ran a 10K in under an hour just now.”

  It was an insignificant accomplishment for someone like Brody, who I knew averaged seven minute miles for hours at a time. But his eyes lit up and he beamed at me.

  “Kat, that’s amazing!”

  “It’s no big deal.”

  “No big deal? When you first started, you could hardly run a mile without stopping to walk!”

  “How do you know? Were you stalking me?”

  He closed his eyes. “I may have noticed the cute new girl on the treadmill next to me.”

  “You know how you could get that cute girl’s attention?” I asked saucily.

  “I think I already have her attention.”

  I ignored him. “By letting her win the quarterly contest.”

  “Hah! You don’t need my help. Plus, do you really want to win that way?”

  “I like to win, and I don’t care how it happens.”

  He grunted. “Sorry. You’ll just have to do it the old fashioned way.”

  I stretched my foot out until I found his leg. Then I ran it up the inner part of his leg, toward the thigh. “What can I do to change your mind?”

  With his eyes still closed, he shook his head. “Not going to work. As the reigning champ, I had to defend my honor.”

  “Are you suuuuuuuure?”

  I kept going until my foot reached his crotch. He remained as implacable as a statue, so I rubbed my toes up and down against him. Soon I felt him harden underneath the bathing suit.

  He let out a sigh, and I knew I had him.

  I pushed off the wall and drifted over to Brody, planting my hands on either side of him. His face was flushed with warmth, and his blue eyes held a note of daring in them.

  “You wouldn’t.”

  “Why?” I reached down and found his bulge with my hand. “Because this is a public place?”

  “Kat…”

  I slipped my fingers into the suit. Up until this point, the most Brody and I had done was make out. So it was quite the leap forward when I wrapped my fingers around his hot, hard cock and began stroking him under the water.

  I kissed him softly. Our lips were dotted with warm condensation from the hot tub mist. “How about now?”

  “I’ll never surrender.”

  I stroked him steadily, and flicked my tongue out to lick his lips. He moaned softly, eyes searching mine. He was wondering how far I would take this, I thought. But after fooling around with Finn and Max in other parts of the gym, some hot tub groping didn’t scare me.

  His hand found my pussy under the water, and it was my turn to sigh with pleasure. “Two can play this game.”

  “That’s how most games are played,” I countered, stroking him faster. “Games aren’t fun when you play alone.”

  He kissed me hard, jamming his tongue into my throat. Doing it here in the pool room, where anyone could walk in… It certainly heightened the intensity of our act. At least when Max and I had had sex in the spin room, I’d locked the door.

  Brody kissed me more fervently, and his fingers rubbed against my pussy in wonderful, pleasurable ways. I pulled my bathing suit aside. Brody thought that meant I wanted him to finger me, but instead I lowered myself toward his crotch. I used my hand to guide his cock up and out of his bathing suit, rubbing the tip against my wet entrance under the water, and I could see the hunger in his eyes…

  “Wait,” Brody suddenly said. “Stop.”

  “I’ll stop if you surrender,” I teased back.

  With a forcefulness that reminded me of how much stronger he was than me, Brody grabbed me by the shoulders and pulled me to the side. “I’m sorry. I want to, I really do, but… I don’t want our first time to be like this. Here, in public.”

  I dropped the playful mood. “Shit, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to take it too far.”

  “No! It’s not you, it’s me.” He smiled reassuringly. “I want to. I really do. I just know I’d regret if it happened here, in the gym hot tub. You know?”

  I knew what he meant, but the feeling of being rebuffed still punched me in the gut. “Yeah. You’re right.”

  I must have looked dejected, because he cradled my cheek and kissed me gently. “Hiking date this weekend?”

  “Sure. That sounds nice.”

  “You sure?” he asked. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings…”

  I kissed him. “No feelings were harmed. I promise.”

  I exited the hot tub across from him, making sure to take each step slowly so he had a great view of my ass. I looked back at him, and he was grinning.

  “You’re mean.”

  “Just making sure you’re thinking about what you missed,” I replied.

  Yet as I went back to the locker room to change, I couldn’t help but feel like I had just been rejected.

  25

  Katherine

  On the way back to work after the hot tub incident, I noticed that there was a lot of excitement going on at the corner by Pacifica Vinyl. Extra cars parked on the street, and people chatting outside the store. I wondered what that was all about.

  I worked all afternoon catching up on stuff I had been neglecting around the store. Accounting work for a few hours, then payroll for this upcoming Friday. Paul stuck his head in the office around five.

  “Hey boss-lady, I could use your help when you get a chance.”

  “Give me ten minutes?” I responded.

  “Uh, we’re kind of busy.”

  I looked up from my laptop. “Busy? Really?”

  When I returned to the store front, I was surprised to see over a dozen customers browsing the aisles. One of them was holding a record and looking around for help.

  “Hi, how can I help you, sir?” I asked.

  “I would like to listen to this before I purchase it. But your demo turntable seems to be malfunctioning.”

  “Absolutely, let’s get you set up right here…”

  The rest of the evening was pleasantly busy with customers. Paul and I alternated manning the register and h
elping people find what they were looking for. Paul normally left at six, but ended up staying late to help with the rush.

  “I could use the commission, boss-lady,” he told me. “If that’s cool.”

  We ended up staying open well past our normal hours to accommodate the crowd. By the time we closed up, we had three times as many sales as our average day.

  “What happened?” I asked in wonder as we closed out the register.

  “One of the girls said our store was listed on a website about hole-in-the-wall places to visit in Denver.”

  “Nice!”

  On the way home, I passed Pacifica Vinyl. All of the exterior construction was completed, and the inside was nearly finished as well. And there was a new poster in the window:

  GRAND OPENING: APRIL 10

  Even though I had already known they were opening in April, seeing an official date made it more real. Instantly, all of the giddiness I felt about today’s sales were erased. In five weeks, Pacifica would be open and my store would be doomed.

  I looked at my watch. It was pushing ten o’clock.

  Even though I hadn’t eaten dinner yet, I turned around and returned to Rocky Mountain Fitness. I was hoping to find Brody inside. I didn’t want to wait until this weekend to take things to the next level with him. I wanted to do it tonight.

  But he was nowhere to be found, and his score wasn’t increasing. He was gone. The whole place was deserted, in fact. Just a handful of people on the cardio machines, and one guy lifting weights.

  I looked for Max next. As I approached the spin room, I could hear a machine whirring inside. I stuck my head in the door and said, “Mind if I…”

  I trailed off. A woman I didn’t recognize was spinning by herself, drenched in sweat.

  “I don’t mind,” she said pleasantly. “Plenty of room for both of us!”

  I mumbled some excuse and went back downstairs, then pulled out my phone.

  Me: You at the gym?

  He responded a few seconds later.