AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She grinned. “Mmm…I have a feeling that he’s deliberately teasing me.”
“He isn’t the only one,” I mumbled, sure that she was too distracted to even hear me.
Carter turned and caught her licking her lips, his eyes darkened so I took that as my cue to leave them to it.
“I’ll be sitting over there.” I pointed toward the wall where I’d left my notebook. “I need to take some notes.” I wasn’t sure my words were heard, but what the hell. I moved away and dropped to the floor, my notebook open at a blank page. In fact, the only information written between the pages were notes on Stryker. I hadn’t been able to uncover anything that I’d really wanted to know—like his date of birth, his real name, or where he came from. So many questions were unanswered and my obsession with the dark and brooding man across the gym had only grown.
There was something about him, regardless of the fact that he made my belly quiver with fear…and so much more. I knew deep down he’d never hurt me and when he looked at me I felt like he could see straight through to the fraud I was.
No one other than Millie knew the real me. Sometimes, I wondered if my father did, but how could he…he spent most of his time in Washington these days and I rarely saw him. Sighing, I chewed on the end of my pen, and realized that I was going to have to call my mom to put a stop to whatever wedding arrangements she’d made. That wasn’t something I looked forward to, but it had to be done the minute I spoke to Patrick. He’d been evasive these last few days. Maybe he had been before and I just hadn’t noticed, but I’d started to notice now.
I knew that he was uncomfortable with me being inside his family’s gym, but since he started wear
ing a suit to his father’s office, he’d changed, and it wasn’t for the best either.
Looking around me, most of the fighters ignored me, which didn’t bother me. What bothered me, and shouldn’t, was that Stryker was one of those fighters. Other than when he’d arrived, when I’d felt his look to the tip of my toes, he’d gone cold.
He was the only one who continued to draw my attention. No matter where I looked my eyes found their way back to him.
His muscular physique drew my gaze.
His strength made my heart race.
The loneliness in his eyes made me want to wrap my arms around him and not let go.
Most of all, when his gaze landed and held on me, a slither of fear would slowly slide down my spine to finally erupt in my belly as desire.
He knew that I watched him, wanted him, just like I knew how much he held himself together so that he didn’t lose his concentration. Except today, I missed having his eyes on me. Yesterday he’d been fixated on me, like I him. I missed that even though I had no idea how to handle it…or him.
I finally glanced at Coach and realized he watched me, a deep frown on his face.
From what I had researched, the old coach had worked at the gym for sixteen years, but he’d spent at least forty years as a coach in the New York area; first as a boxing coach before he branched into kickboxing and several other martial arts and finally ending up coaching at the New York –East Coast Martial Arts Fighters Club. Coach would know everything that was going on in the gym even though I only wanted to know why me talking to Stryker would cause trouble for him. Patrick had told me to stay away from the fighters. At the time, I thought it was so I didn’t distract them from their training, but now I wasn’t too sure.
“He makes me tingle.” Millie slid down the wall and sat beside me. “Lots of other things as well.”
“Did I really need to know that?”
“You told me about your wet pantie reaction to Stryker and the guy at the bar.” She raised a brow.
I opened my mouth to deny it, but closed it again remembering. However, now that she’d mentioned him, I wondered if my mind played tricks on me because when Stryker was frozen in place, I saw the guy at the bar as well.
“As you’re ignoring me and watching the fine specimen across the room, I think you should let me read your notes. To make sure you haven’t missed anything.”
I laughed and smiled gratefully. “Nice try.”
“Evie, you’re annoying at times.” Millie grinned as she bumped against me in mock frustration.
“To be honest, I don’t have any notes. No one will talk to me.” I shrugged at the frown on Millie’s face as she turned to face me. “I introduced myself to his coach,” I added as I nodded at the old man across the gym. “I asked him if I could ask him some questions about the gym. He replied that he wasn’t sure if ‘they’d allow it’.”
“Why? I mean, I know we were told to stay away from the fighters. Carter seems to have made himself our keeper, which I’m not complaining about, but why wouldn’t they allow Coach to talk to you? You’re here for research.”
“I know.” I frowned as I glanced around at the fighters. They were all absorbed in their training and seemed to be ignoring me completely. It was like I didn’t exist but I could sense a tension in the room…they were definitely uncomfortable with us being here. “Something is going on and I’m going to talk to Patrick about it.”
“Do you think that’s wise? His family own the gym, he might be behind the silence.”
“I won’t push, but I’ll ask.”
“Be careful, okay? And call me if you need me.”
