Page 70 of Gym With Benefits

Dane claimed an incline bench, lifting a pair of seventy-pound dumbbells into position. I moved right along with him, claiming the empty space at the head of his bench. When he leaned back to press the iron toward the ceiling, my face occupied his entire field of vision.

His dark eyes narrowed, a flash of irritation breaking through his icy exterior as he completed the repetitions. He dropped the weights onto the rubber matting with a dull thud and stood up, immediately moving toward the leg press machine at the far end of the gym.

This ridiculous game of fitness-labeled hide-and-seek reached its absolute limit.

Following him across the black rubber flooring, I stepped directly onto the metal footplate of the leg press before he could load his weight. I crossed my arms, blocking his access to the machine entirely, eliminating all pretense of a normal workout.

“Get off the plate, Jess,” Dane said, his voice a low, gravelly rasp. The words finally broke through his self-imposed embargo. “I'm trying to finish my set.”

“No,” I demanded, leaning forward so only he could hear me above the roar of the gym. “You ignored my calls, you ignored my texts, and you ran out of my apartment like a scolded teenager because Hunter kissed me. Look at me, Dane. Right now.”

Dane rested his forearms on the padded vinyl backrest of the leg press, his posture slumping as the fight leaked out of him. He looked up through a fringe of dark hair, a faint, weary crease bracketed his mouth. “You're really stubborn, you know that?”

“It's my best quality,” I barked back, leaning my weight into the metal footplate to ensure he stayed put. “After my intelligence and killer sense of humor, of course.”

“Of course,” he murmured. A tiny tug at the corner of his lips betrayed him, the hard corporate armor finally showing a hairline fracture. His dark eyes darted across the main floor, where a group of personal trainers stood chatting near the water fountain. “Let's go somewhere less... visible.”

I quirked a brow, a slow grin spreading across my face. “The underground parking?”

A genuine laugh broke from his chest, a brief glimpse of the man beneath the analytical exterior. He shook his head, thememory of our backseat tryst instantly softening the rigid line of his jaw. “The spin studio. It's empty until seven.”

The cycling room sat in total darkness, a forest of stationary bikes silhouetted against the black mirrors. The faint, metallic tang of industrial cleaning solution clung to the rubber flooring. Dane clicked the door shut behind us, cutting off the bass-heavy playlist bleeding from the main gym floor. He leaned back against the instructor's elevated stage, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Alright,” he said, his voice flat in the quiet space. “We're here. Talk.”

“You skipped out of my living room like you caught me committing a felony, Dane. Then you ghosted my phone for twenty hours. I deserve an explanation that doesn't involve a fictional restructuring meeting.”

Dane rubbed the back of his neck, his fingers digging into the muscle. The cool, detached facade dropped away, leaving something raw and frustrated in its place. “I have a hard time with it, Jess. Seeing you with Brock, watching Hunter press his lips to yours on your couch while your roommate plays referee. It doesn't work for me.”

“They're part of this, Dane. We talked about this.”

“Knowing it is different from sitting five inches away while it happens,” he countered, his voice rising slightly before he checked the volume. “I'm bowing out. You have them. They're your speed. They've got the history, the easy locker-room banter. You can have them.”

“I don't want to just have them,” I insisted, taking a step into his personal space, the heat from his skin radiating through the darkness. “I want you in this mix, too. You don't just get to quit because it gets uncomfortable.”

“I know what I want, Jess, and it's not a timeshare,” Dane said, his jaw tightening as he stared down at me. “I don't do joint ventures with my personal life. I don't share.”

“You aren't sharing a commodity, Dane. You're figuring out a connection with me.”

“By watching another man kiss you in your own apartment?” He stepped off the stage, towering over me, the frustration rolling off him in waves. “What is it you want, huh? What?”

“I want you to stop running away the second things get complicated!”

“That's not an answer,” he snapped, his dark eyes locking onto mine, his breathing deep and ragged as the space between us shrunk to nothing. “What do you want from me, Jess? What?”

“I want... I want... to go dancing,” I blurted out, the words flying into the empty studio before my brain could filter the impulse.

Dane froze. The intense, brooding fury on his face collapsed into total bewilderment. His arms dropped to his sides. “What?”

“You heard me,” I said, squaring my shoulders and refusing to back down from the absolute absurdity of the moment.

28

Jess

The humid evening hummed with the sound of traffic from the avenue as the black Ford Bronco pulled into the curb.

Leaning against the brick pillar at the entrance, the view from the sidewalk offered a perfect angle of the driver's side. The engine died, but the vehicle remained motionless. Dane sat behind the wheel, his silhouette frozen as his gaze flicked from my position on the pavement up to the neon monstrosity buzzing directly above my head:Sandy's Ballroom & Salsa Academy. The pink glow washed over his windshield in a garish wave.