Page 145 of Play Dirty

It was loud.

Metal clanged. Boots thudded. Breath came hard and fast.

Ares drove the bar up like Mercer had personally ordered him to suffer. Again. And again. And again.

“Easy,” Sebastian said from the bench beside him. “It’s not Sutherland.”

Ares didn’t answer. He just racked the weight harder than necessary.

“I’m fine.”

“You’re murdering iron,” Sebastian said. “Loudly.”

Grayson didn’t even look up from where he was working the cable machine.

“Let him,” he said. “Better than him hitting one of us.”

Ares cracked his neck.

“That’s still on the table.”

“Good to know,” Sebastian muttered.

I picked up the pace on the treadmill, watching the whole thing. I admired the way they moved. The way they burned through it, without hesitation.

I also noticed that something darker had settled, under all that focus.

And of course, I couldn’t help but notice them.

Ares lifted so smoothly and effortlessly he was like a well-oiled machine. Watching those thick pectorals crush together during his dumbbell flyes was doing something to me I couldn’t explain. Ditto for Sebastian’s shoulder presses, which flexed every delicious muscle across his glistening, shirtless back.

But it was Grayson’s arm extensions that nearly had me flying off the back of the treadmill. He did them slowly, with crushingly heavy weight. Flexing and unflexing his biceps and triceps, until he’d pumped them into yummy-looking rock formations rather than actual muscle.

I got caught looking more than once, before I realized I didn’t have to pretend not to.

Not after last night.

Not after our little agreement during breakfast.

So I kept running, soaking it in. My eyes wandered happily, letting my sex-addled mind take all the mental Polaroids it wanted, for future reference.

There was a loud bang as Grayson’s latest set finally reached failure, slamming the weights together as he stepped back from the machine. At the same time, Ares slammed another set of plates home.

“Feel better?” I asked.

“No,” Ares answered.

Honest. Like always.

Sebastian sat up, rolling his shoulders.

“Same.”

“We will,” Grayson chimed in.

Ares glanced at him.

“When?”