CHAPTER FIVE
On Saturday nights, Cheryl the bartender had fallen into a routine of kicking Emma out by ten or eleven if the brewery crowd was manageable. Emma didn’t mind putting in the hours, but she also understood the value of not working fifty-hour weeks.
She’d watched her father struggle with the impossible work-life balance of a single parent. He’d had three young daughters and a restaurant to run. Growing up, she’d spent more hours at her father’s restaurant than the family home.
To this day, every time she smelled simmering marinara and fresh basil, she felt awash in childhood memories.
Emma wrestled her gym bag from the backseat of her Escape and swiped her badge through Fitness Freak’s card reader. In Blue Moon, one’s options for late night entertainment were limited to drinks at Shorty’s or sweating it out at the twenty-four/seven gym. Inside, the gym was empty. No one else had decided that Saturday night was the perfect time to work up a sweat within the lime green walls lined with weights and machines.
She changed, cued up her workout playlist, and packed up her work clothes. She moved quickly, not that she was in a hurry to get on the rower, but it was just how she lived. Emma did everything at high speed. On busy nights at the brewery, it was a full shift of adrenaline. Even a finely tuned food service machine such as herself could be pushed to the limits on busy nights. No two shifts were ever the same, and that was what she loved about it.
While she ordered the rest of her life around measurable, timely goals, her desire for excitement and chaos, her own dirty little secret, was met in the restaurants she ran.
Emma pushed through the locker room door pulling her hair into a tail when she became aware of another presence.
Nikolai Vulkov’s leanly muscled frame was ruthlessly banging out pull-ups on the rig across the room. His gaze met hers in the mirror, and he muscled out five more reps before hopping off the bar and turning to grin at her.
“You just made my night,” he said in that throaty voice that served to both irk and arouse her.
Emma didn’t like the flitter of excitement that raced through her at being all alone with the wolf. She debated ignoring him but decided that would only make him try harder. And it was already impossible to ignore him. Dressed in dark mesh shorts and a gray sleeveless tee, he offered a view even Emma couldn’t help but enjoy.
“What brings you to Fitness Freak at this time of night?” She kept her tone polite, but the curiosity was real. If anyone should have Saturday night plans, it was the man before her. She was staring too long, pretending not to admire the sweat-slicked biceps and the hard-muscled thighs.
“My kind and generous hosts have been in bed since nine-thirty. I’m not used to such quiet, early evenings. Especially on a Saturday,” he confessed, swiping his arm over his forehead.
“Ah, the charming culture shock of small town life,” Emma nodded in understanding. “I bet they cooked dinner tonight instead of going out.”
He grimaced. “I’ve never seen anyone in New York use their kitchen for anything other than wine storage and catering space.”
“It’s a whole other world here,” Emma agreed with a half-smile.
Niko took a swig of water and grinned. “There. That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
Her eyes narrowed. “What wasn’t?”
“Having a friendly conversation.”
“I can be friendly,” she argued. “But I can also recognize your type from a mile away.”
“And what type is that?” he asked, stepping dangerously close to her.
Emma watched as beads of sweat trickled hypnotically over the sinewy curves of his shoulders and down his veined arms.
“The type that sees something shiny, plays with it until he gets bored, and then drops it when the next shiny object comes along.”
“So a cat?” he drawled out, amused.
“Look, let’s just get this out of the way, shall we? I’m not looking for anything—” she waved her hand at his spectacular torso, “that you have to offer.”
“Not even scintillating conversation and foot rubs?” He was teasing her and enjoying himself.
“Nikolai, I’m sure you’re a very good time. I’m just not in the market for a temporary good time. So the sooner you stop wasting your time with the flirting, the sooner we can settle into casual acquaintances.”
His eyes narrowed as he watched her. “I find you fascinating.”
Emma rolled her eyes. “It’s because I said I’m not interested. Believe me, the novelty of my disinterest will wear off soon enough,” she predicted.
“What can I say to make you like me?”
To prove that she could shove him as off-balance as he made her feel, Emma took a step closer. “Tell me you don’t do casual.” She felt a sense of satisfaction when he took a step back. “Tell me you’re looking for something long-term. Tell me you don’t date model after model after model because you’re looking for something real.” She advanced on him until she backed him into the eye-searing lime green wall behind him. “Tell me you’ve decided to pack it all in and move to Blue Moon to find a partner in life that will support you, challenge you, and be there for you day after day.”
She poked him in the chest. “Tell me all that without lying, and I’ll not only like you, I’ll ask you out.”
He opened his mouth, closed it.
“That’s what I thought,” she said, smugly. She felt like she’d won a small victory. At least until his hands lashed out, grabbing her by the shoulders. Nikolai spun her around, and now she was the one with her back to the wall.
“I don’t need to apologize for my life choices,” he told her. Their closeness, his dominance, had Emma’s system zinging. He was tall enough that she had to look way up to deliver her glare.
“I’m not asking you to apologize. I’m trying to illustrate our basic incompatibility,” she said snippily.
“Touché.” He grinned down at her, placing a hand on the wall behind her. “Since we’re putting it all out there, I find your distrust of me oddly fascinating.”
Emma let out a groan. “Let’s connect the dots. You don’t do relationships, right?”
Niko pursed his lips in thought. “I do mutually beneficial casual.”
“Good. Fine. Great,” she shrugged, waving a hand. “I only do relationships.”
“So I’m just supposed to give up?” he frowned.
“Yes!” Emma hadn’t meant to shout the word, but at least the volume seemed to have gotten her point across. “Sorry. But we’ve just expressed our differing points of view and now we—and by we, I mean you—can start respecting each other’s boundaries.”
The sexy grin that curved his lips sent a warm feeling sliding through her stomach. “Because if I continued to pursue you after you’ve made it very clear that you’re not interested, I’d be a douche.”
“The douche-iest,” she affirmed.
His smile was heart stopping.
“So then we’ll just be friends,” he decided.
“Friends?”
“You know, we’ll talk, we’ll laugh. You won’t throw things at me, and we won’t have sex. It’ll be fun.”
Emma remained skeptical. “In my experience, men and women who are physically attracted to each other never make it as friends.” She realized her misstep immediately and blamed it on his proximity. It was hard to think clearly when over six feet of pure, gorgeous male was looking at her with an underwear-dissolving grin.
“As a gesture of my goodwill toward our fledgling friendship, I’m going to ignore the fact that you just admitted to being physically attracted to me.” He gave her a wolfish look. “I want points for that, by the way.”
“Fine. Five points, pal. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to work out.” She ducked under his arm and made a show of shoving her ear buds in place as she strode over to the rowers. Niko could say the “f” word as often as he wanted, but that didn’t make her body stop reacting so strongly to his presence. She needed some space.
She climbed on the rower, set the damper, and tightened the straps around her feet. And frowned.
Even with ’90s pop blaring in her ears, Emma knew exactly where Niko was in the gym. She’d never met anyone so magnetic, not even Troy, the player who’d played with her heart, and the fact that she was so aware of Nikolai annoyed her. She had made a deal with herself years ago that she’d never again be that girl, falling for a handsome face and pleasure-promising lips that said all the right words.
She reached for the grip and noted the goose bumps that dotted her arms. “Seriously?” She yanked an ear bud out of her ear.
Niko was straddling the rower next to her. “What? We’re friends, and now we’re in the same boat.”
“Cute,” she said dryly, fiddling with the digital screen readout.
“Your sarcasm is one of the many reasons I treasure our friendship,” Niko said conversationally.
She laughed. She couldn’t help it.
“Friends work out together, you know,” Niko explained.
“Whatever,” Emma sighed and shoved her ear bud back in. The first few pulls served to wake up her arms and legs. Over her music, she could hear the steady whoosh of air being forced through the rower’s fan.
She hit her stride with deep, steady strokes and felt her muscles warm. She tried to focus on the digital readout, not the virile sex god pumping his steel hard legs on the rower next to her.
His pace was faster than hers, which Emma took as a direct challenge.
Together, they stroked side by side, their skin sweat-drenched and flushed with exertion. Next to her ivory paleness, his skin was a dusky gold courtesy of ancestry and recent tropical sun, she guessed.
She couldn’t hear his breathing over her music—now a Joan Jett anthem. But she could watch him out of the corner of her eye. He wasn’t slowing his pace, so she refused to also.
Her breath was coming in ragged but measured gasps as the meters ticked up. Pulling, pushing, reaching. She dug deep until finally, finally she coasted over the two thousand-meter mark. Damn. She’d bested her PR by a full eleven seconds. Maybe Nikolai Vulkov was worth knowing platonically after all?
She glanced over at Niko who looked as if he’d just finished a leisurely walk around the town square. Bastard. He swiped a eucalyptus scented gym towel over his face. “What’s next?” he asked.
“Look, I know we’re BFFs now, but I really do prefer to work out alone,” Emma said.
He paid no attention to her complaint and followed her to the weight rack where she chose a set of dumbbells. It was high-intensity interval night, and she really wasn’t thrilled about having an audience.
Niko grabbed a pair of dumbbells double the weight of hers. “So what are we doing, buddy?”
She crossed her eyes at him in the mirror. “Squat press burpees, pal.”
Emma had to hand it to him. Niko hung with her through burpees, squats, and press jacks. He used the plank intervals to fire questions at her.
“Did you get Reva to take the food last night?” he asked.
Emma tried to keep her voice steady even though her body was trembling in the plank. “She was reluctant until I told her it was a to-go order that no one showed up for. I asked Beckett about her since he knows everyone. He said in his diplomatic, mayoral voice that the mother is ‘troubled’—alcohol and generally poor life choices—and there’s a younger brother,” she told him, her abs vibrating as the seconds ticked down on her phone’s screen.
“I’m glad Joey gave her a job at the stables,” Niko admitted. He didn’t even sound out of breath, and that annoyed her.
“If she hadn’t, I was going to offer up a hostess job that we didn’t have,” Emma admitted.
“Softy.”
“Don’t let it get back to my staff. They’re all appropriately terrified of me.”
“As well they should be,” he laughed. “Did Sunny and Rupert make up?”
“Caught them making out in the walk-in cooler when they were supposed to be doing side work. So, yes for now.”
He shifted gears from work to life. “Where did you grow up?”
“How did you get involved in restaurants?”
“College?”
He didn’t press when he asked about her mother, and she told him she’d left. Instead, he smoothly redirected and asked her how she felt about her father’s upcoming wedding.
The physical exertion and the sweaty god-like scenery kept her walls down just enough that his persistent questions didn’t bother her much.
He asked her about life in Blue Moon versus L.A. About her youngest sister and about her own culinary skills. By the time the interval timer on her phone buzzed, announcing the end of their self-inflicted torture, Niko knew her GPA in college and how old she was when she found out that Santa wasn’t real.
Emma guzzled water from her glass bottle and felt her muscles vibrate. She’d pushed herself harder with Niko there, a lot harder. His mere presence seemed to challenge her.
“What’s next?” he asked.
She eyed him. “Yeah, you see that sweat angel I left on the floor over there? That means I’m done.”
“But the night is young,” he protested. “Emma, I beg you. Be a friend. Don’t send me back to the house yet.”
She glanced at the clock. It was nearly midnight, the dead of night in Blue Moon.
“Let me buy you a drink,” he said suddenly. “Please, just tell me there’s a bar that’s still open.”
She chewed on her bottom lip, considering.
“Just as friends,” he added. “I’ll let you ask me questions.”
“Just friends,” Emma clarified warily.
He held up his palms. “Platonic pals. I’ll even let you buy the first round.”
She was probably making a mistake. A six-foot two-inch, gorgeous mistake. But the offer was more appealing than burning off her post-workout buzz alone at home poring over sales reports.
Shit. When had that become her Saturday night? she wondered, horrified.
“Let me get cleaned up, and we’ll go. I get to ask the questions. We drive separately. And if we run into anyone named Ellery or Rainbow, you’re my first cousin.”
“Do I want to know what that last stipulation means?”
Emma shook her head. “You really don’t.”
“Deal.”
She was already regretting it when she pulled a hoodie over her sweaty tank in the locker room. Her hair was an unsalvageable nightmare, so she piled it on top of her head in a knot. She frowned in the mirror, remembering the care she used to take with her appearance for drinks on a Saturday night or dinner on her nights off with Mason. Mason, the nice guy who she probably would have ended up marrying had it not been for Jax’s job offer. She’d given him little thought since her move to Blue Moon. It felt like light years ago. A different life, a different person.
She wrinkled her nose in the mirror. She smelled like gym socks, and her abs were a quivering mess from the planks, and she was about to go out on the town with Nikolai Vulkov, famed photographer and model-dater.
He’d impressed her, hanging with her through every plank, every interval. She liked a man who wasn’t afraid to work hard. Those lean, hard muscles were clearly earned and not just from a genetic lottery.
She heard a loud thump beyond the locker room door and shoved her things in her bag before rushing out.
“What was that?” Emma asked, glancing around. “It sounded like a body hitting the floor.”
Niko, who was sitting on a weight bench near the door, shrugged. “I didn’t hear anything.”
“Weird,” she murmured.
He’d pulled on a long-sleeve tee that accentuated the broad expanse of chest and the rippled stomach beneath. The curling tips of his dark hair were still damp with sweat. There was no way around it. Nikolai Vulkov was perfection.
And she was making a huge mistake.
“You can follow me over to Shorty’s.”