Chapter 3
I spent the weekend trying not to think about him. I even considered hitting the gym on Sunday so I didn't require my Monday appointment with him.
But I wasn't one to run and hide.
Surely I could face off with this guy, no matter how hot he was, without one, getting a hard on, and two, being a gibbering idiot.
I was a detective, for fuck's sake. A fucking good detective. I just needed to get my act together when I was around him.
I steeled my resolve, and my Monday appointment started out just fine. I hit the treadmill first, as always, and when I'd done my five miles and it was right on five-thirty—and when I couldn't put it off any longer—I walked into the boxing room.
He was in there warming up with a skipping rope.
His cocoa-colored torso flexed fluidly and his feet barely hit the floor. He was agile for someone of his size. Not huge, but he was tall with great muscle definition.
He smiled when I walked in and hung up the
skipping rope on one of the hooks at the back wall. I tried not to think about his smile or his body, and needing a distraction, I started to strap my hands.
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Like he seemed to understand the effect he had on me, he was all business, though he still smiled. He was still fucking beautiful, but he wasted no time putting me on the bag, only this time he didn't hold it, so he wasn't facing me.
Which was much better.
I found it easier to concentrate when I wasn't looking directly into his eyes.
He stood at my side and corrected my footing.
Apparently my left foot turned in when I stood in position, making my right swing overcompensate.
By the time my half hour was up with him, he had improved my focus. I'd hardly had time to think about him.
He was good at what he did, of that there was no doubt.
When I was done, he threw my towel at me. "That's better, Detective," he said, with a one-dimpled smile.
He had a sheen of sweat over his shoulders, and his tank top barely covered him, his pecs, his shoulders…
"Yeah, it was." I pretended to wipe my face with my towel to cover the fact I'd just checked him out.
"More focused today," he said.
I let out a nervous laugh. "Something like that."
When I looked up at him, he was staring at me.
"Oh, I almost got a real smile," he said with a smirk.
I could feel myself blush. Fucking hell. I couldn't help smile a little. "Almost."
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"I think you should call me Kira," he said, matter-of-factly.
"Why?"
"Because it's my first name," he said with a shrug.
"And everyone here calls me Frankie."
He must have seen the confusion on my face,
because he clarified. "See, if you tell your friends at work you're having dinner with Frankie, they'll know it's me. But if you tell them you're having dinner with Kira, they won't have a clue."
And right then, someone else—another cop—
walked into the room, saving me from answering.
Kira smiled at his next appointment, and when I got to the door he called out to me. "Matthew?"
I turned and waited for him to continue.
"Think about what I said," he said, straightening out the mats. "And I'll see you for your Wednesday appointment."
Fuck.
He basically just asked me to have dinner with him.
He asked me to call him by his given name so the guys I worked with wouldn't catch on. It wasn't that I was really considering it—because a part of me was already looking forward to it.
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But I didn't get to see him on Wednesday. I got caught up with work and missed my appointment. My job was hardly Monday to Friday, nine to five.
But he was all I thought about, his smile, his lips, his eyes…
His offer.
And by Friday afternoon, after a long week, we headed to the gym early. I did my usual time on the treadmill before heading into the boxing room. I wasn't even sure what I was going to tell him, whether I'd take him up on his offer. I wanted to… God, I wanted to. But I had my reservations—something I knew I should tell him about before this went any further. If it went any further.
When I walked into the room, he was with another appointment. "Oh, sorry," I mumbled. "Didn't realize you had someone else in here."
He smiled when he saw me. Looking to the clock then back to me, he said, "No, it's okay. We're nearly done.
You can start on the rope for me, if you like?" he asked, nodding toward the skipping ropes on the far wall. "We'll be another five minutes."
Throwing my towel and water bottle onto the mat in the corner, I picked up a skipping rope. I faced him as I started jumping rope and watched him with his
appointment.
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It was a woman. She was a cop on the fourth floor, I think. I'd seen her around. She was quite attractive, in a female kind of way: blond, thin, and fit.
He had her, with her back to me, jabbing into the punching bag while he held it. He was facing me. Looking at me.
He still gave her instructions, like square your shoulders, chin down, move your feet.
But he was looking directly over her shoulder, straight at me, as I skipped rope. "Much better. Looking good," he said, almost smiling. His eyes were intense. Even though he was saying it to her, he wasn't. He was saying it to me.
It made my dick throb.
So I turned and faced the mirrored wall, hoping it would distract me enough. But as I watched myself skipping rope, I could see him in the reflection.
Even though I had my back to him, his gaze met mine in the mirror, and it somehow made it worse. He was watching me, inconspicuously, but still… I could feel his eyes on me, burning into my skin.
I watched him watch me, our eyes locked in the mirror, until the woman he was training said something, his eyes darted to her, and the connection between us was broken.
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He wrapped up his appointment, so I hung up the rope and started strapping my hands.
This appointment was going to kill me.
Needing to focus on the task at hand, I started on the bag while he talked to Jenny, Jane, Janette, whatever the fuck her name was. When she'd left, I knew he was standing behind me, just watching me, but he said nothing.
I knew we were alone in the room—my body
seemed to know it. I stopped hitting the bag, held it steady, and rested my forehead on the bag, not realizing how hard I was breathing.
"What are you doing to me?" I heard myself ask, not really meaning to say the words out loud.
He cleared his throat, seemingly at a loss for words.
"What do you mean?"
I looked at him then and figured maybe if I said this shit out loud, I'd get it out of my system. "You," I said, almost accusingly. "You're all I can think about."
He looked down to the floor mats. "You missed your Wednesday appointment. I thought maybe you were telling me you weren't interested."
So he not only noticed I wasn't here on Wednesday, but he also missed me. I liked that more than I should.
"I was working," I explained. "See, that's the thing with me, and why this would never work. My job."
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His brow pinched. "Is that a reason or an excuse?"
"Look, Frankie… Kira," I amended, and he almost smiled. "I'm a narcotics detective. I don't work set hours.
My job is hard on relationships. Just ask any of the guys—
their wives and girlfriends will tell you it's not easy."
He smiled shyly. "While I like the sound of a relationship, I thought maybe we could start with dinner."
I barked out a laugh, a little embarrassed. He stood on the other side of the punching bag and held it between us. "But let me guess," he said. "You got burned once, maybe even had your heart broken, and you swore you'd never do it again."
I ignored that. "Kira, thanks for the offer—and believe me," I said, looking him up and down, "I'm very interested, but I'm also not out—no one at work knows." I tried to explain. "In fact, they all assume I'm some playboy with a different girl every weekend."
He looked right at me. "But you've had other dates?
Other boyfriends?"
So I opted for the honest truth. I nodded. "Yeah, and it always ends the same." Then I quickly added, "I don't want to get involved only for you to turn around in a few months and leave." I finished quietly, "I don't expect anyone to step back inside the closet for me."
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Kira huffed. "Well, thanks for not even giving me the chance. You know, I thought you said you were interested."
I sighed. I was interested. Too interested. "Believe me, I'm doing you a favor."
"I'm a big boy. I can look after myself," he said with a hurt, somewhat defensive smile.
"I'm sorry," I told him. "I wish it were different."
"Do you think this is easy for me?" he asked seriously. "No one here knows I like guys. Do you think they'd hire me if they knew? In a cops' gym?"
I hadn't thought of that.
He walked over into the middle of the room, turned and looked at me. "I think I'll be the one to judge what's good for me." He held up his hand and curled his fingers, motioning me over to him. "Come on, put your hands up."
He stood in the ready sparring position. "This time don't let me win."
I chuckled. Jesus, he wasn't letting me out of this.
Okay, I told myself, I could do this. I walked over to him and mirrored his stance. With my hands up to protect my chin, I jabbed a few times with my left and landed a few with my right.
We sparred for a good five minutes or more. He gave me a few light taps to the face, and when I gave it
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back to him, he grinned at me. "Now, why couldn't you do this the first time we sparred?"
So I told him. "Because the only way for me to not get a hard-on around you was to let you hit me."
He laughed—really fucking loudly—and he
dropped his hands. So I jabbed at him with my right, not expecting him to be so close and my fist connected with his mouth.
"Oh, fuck!" he said, pulling back quickly, holding his hand to his mouth.
"Shit, I'm sorry," I said, but I also kind of laughed at the same time.
"Was that a diversionary tactic?" he asked.
I laughed again. "No, seriously. I mean, I meant what I said about the hard-on. But you shouldn't drop your hands."
"You shouldn't mention hard-ons."
I laughed again, and he chuckled. But he was still holding his hand to his lip, so I told him, "Let me have a look at it." I pulled his hand away to inspect his lip. It was split, there was blood, but his teeth were still intact. I smiled at him. "You'll survive."
I grabbed his drink bottle and threw it to him. And when I handed him his towel, he wiped his face, dabbing it to his lip.
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"Am I still beautiful?" he asked with a smile. His tongue darted out to lick his swollen lip.
I looked at him, split lip and all, and nodded.
He grinned then, making his lip bleed again. "Shit,"
he cursed, holding his towel back to his lip. "I don't know,"
he mumbled through the material. "I think this will cost you dinner."
I snorted, and he groaned. "Now, if you don't mind, I need to fill out an incident report," he said, holding up his towel to show me. "Blood spilled."
He walked out of the room, and I presumed our
training session was over. Jeez, it was only a split lip.
I pulled the tape off my hands, collected my things, and walked out into the main room, where Kira was behind the counter writing in some book. Chris, the gym owner, smiled and shook his head at me. "What are you doing giving my staff a bloody lip?"
I shrugged. "He zigged. He should have zagged," I said, making Chris laugh.
Mitch jumped off the cross-trainer. He tried to catch his breath. "You couldn't have done that last week? When it cost me twenty bucks?"
I rolled my eyes at my partner. He was never gonna let me forget that. Ignoring Mitch, I walked over to the
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counter, where Kira was still writing. "Do you really have to fill out an incident report for a split lip?"
He grinned and handed me a slip of paper.
"Something like that."
I opened the folded paper to find it wasn't any kind of incident report. It was an address and phone number.
And three words.
Dinner. Eight o'clock.
I folded the paper and couldn't help but smile. I hid it in my hand just as Mitch walked over. He was mumbling at me, something about it being my turn to buy at the bar.
"Frankie," my partner said, "you should come to the bar with us. Elliott here owes you a drink for the fat lip."
Kira looked at me then back to Mitch. His swollen lip curled into a smile. "Thanks. But it'll have to be another time, guys. I've got a date tonight."
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