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Augie looked over at me, revealing the quotation mark divots in his forehead above the dark frames of his sexy glasses. Was he confused or worried? Either way, I hated seeing them and had the now-familiar sensation of itching to press them away with my fingers.
Instead, I shoved my hands in the pockets of my pants and tried to maintain some professionalism.
We walked to the locker room, and I held the door open for him but didn’t follow him in this time. “I’ll wait for you here,” I said. As much as I’d have loved to watch him change, I didn’t think it was acceptable for me to sit and drool as a client revealed his hot little bod to me in the Twist locker room. I still hadn’t forgotten what his naked ass looked like or the smooth stretch of back muscle leading down to it. Not to mention his shapely calves and the soft slender curve of his hamstrings. Did he run? He looked like he ran. I wondered if—
“Dude, what are you standing in the hallway for?” I turned to see one of my coworkers from Landen in Dallas.
“Rex, what are you doing here?”
“Lanny sent me up here to upgrade the security system. I think it’s part of how he’s paying Twist for use of the space. The receptionist said I could take advantage of the facilities while I was here.”
“Oh,” I said, still thinking about Augie.
“Dude, you look like you’re daydreaming about Chris Hemsworth,” he said with a laugh.
“Caught me,” I said. “Totally daydreaming about a hot piece of—”
Just then the locker room door opened and Augie walked out. He was wearing well-fitted gray trainer pants and a black tank top that revealed small but muscled rounded shoulders and shapely biceps.
“Ready?” he asked, before noticing Rex. “Oh, hi. Sorry.”
Rex’s smile turned predatory as he glanced over at me. “Well, hello,” he said in his sultry Rexian way.
Fuck.
“We’ve got to get started,” I said quickly, grabbing Augie’s wrist and pulling him toward the training room. Augie almost tripped before catching his balance and falling against me. He craned his head back around to make eye contact with Rex.
“Sorry. Ah, it was nice to meet you,” he said.
“Likewise, Chris. Hope to see you around much more in the future.”
Goddamned jackass. I was going to challenge him to a shooting contest later just so I could beat him at something.
Augie followed me through the doorway to the room with the training mats, and we found ourselves blessedly alone like the last time. I realized I was still holding his wrist and dropped it like a hot potato.
I let out a breath and ran my hands through my hair. “Sorry,” I mumbled.
“What for? He seemed nice. Although maybe not so good with names.”
“Who, Rex? Nice? Nah. Not really,” I said.
Augie coughed out a laugh. “Really? It looked like you two were friends.”
“We are. Well, more like brothers, really. We served in the navy together. Several of us did. We came to work for Lanny’s security company at the same time. As a team.”
“That’s cool. It must be fun to work together with your friends,” he offered with a raised eyebrow.
I felt myself relax. “It is. Unless one or more of them are on a dangerous assignment, and then it’s just as stressful as it was in the service.”
“I can’t imagine. They’re all bodyguards? Is that hard for you?” Augie asked.
“What do you mean?”
He looked down and brushed a wrinkle out of his shirt. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to make you feel weird about it.”
“Weird about what?” I asked, feeling confused about what he was getting at.
“The fact that your friends all work in the field and you’re stuck doing fitness classes.”
I stood there and just stared at him while I tried reworking his words in my head to make sense.
“What… what do you mean fitness classes?”
His cheeks bloomed a deep red, and he kept his face down. Fuck, he was cute as hell.
“Sorry, self-defense.”
“I’m a personal security specialist,” I corrected.
“Landen lets you have that title?”
“Augie, what are you saying?”
He looked up at me, the divots on his forehead again. “I didn’t mean to make you feel bad. I just wondered if it was hard for you to be stuck teaching civilians like me while your teammates are out on security details or whatever. Especially since you seem to have the same background.”
“I’m only ‘stuck teaching civilians,’ as you put it, for a few weeks as punishment for something stupid I did. I’m normally out there with my guys in the field.”
Augie looked up at me, eyes widening. “Really? They let you go on missions?”
“Why wouldn’t they?” I asked.
“Oh my god. Never mind. I shouldn’t have said anything. I feel like an idiot. Forget it.”
The red splotches on Augie’s cheeks moved down to his throat.
