Three Little Words (Fool's Gold #12)(55)

“Ice cream and sex sound great,” she told him.

He grinned. “You’re the best girlfriend ever.”

“I bet you say that to all your women.”

“Maybe,” he admitted. “But this time I mean it.”

* * *

“YOU READY FOR THIS?” Consuelo asked.

“Sure,” Kent said, even though he wasn’t.

Somehow he’d agreed to work out with her. It wasn’t his idea of a date, so he wasn’t sure how it had happened, but here he was, in the CDS gym. Any confidence he’d arrived with had been destroyed by the sight of Ford helping his friend Leonard to his car. Leonard had been shuffling, as if his legs hurt too much to walk regularly, and he’d held an ice pack to one shoulder.

Ford’s comment “Not a good place for civilians” hadn’t helped.

Now he faced a petite fireball who was very likely going to kick his ass. To make matters worse, she was dressed in formfitting workout clothes that left nothing to the imagination. He was in baggy sweats and a T-shirt, but even so, if he got an erection, the world was going to know.

Basically, he had a three-part plan. Don’t get injured, don’t make a fool of himself and keep his eyes off Consuelo’s ass.

“What do you want to do?” she asked, tilting her head so her ponytail swung toward the ground.

“You tell me.” Which was a better answer than the real one, which went along the lines of “I want to have sex with you. Anywhere, anytime, again and again.” He had a feeling she wouldn’t respond well to that line of conversation and that if he pursued it, he would end up with something broken.

“We have a basic workout we give recruits to assess them,” she told him. “How about that?”

“You don’t have a basic math-teacher assessment instead? Because I’d be good at that one.”

“You can take pi to eight digits?” she asked, her voice teasing.

“And beyond.”

“Impressive.” She grinned. “Okay, let’s start with jump-squats.”

She demonstrated by squatting down, then jumping high in the air before landing and then repeating the procedure.

“Ready?” she asked.

He nodded and they did them together. By the tenth, he was feeling it in his thighs. By fifteen, he was breathing hard. By number twenty, he had a vision of himself limping like Leonard.

They moved on to other exercises, each more challenging than the one before. Consuelo gave instructions as she worked along with him, barely breaking a sweat. He was thinking that he needed to up his game when it came to his four-days-a-week run. And maybe add a little weight lifting to his regimen.

“How about the ropes?” she asked, pointing to the ropes hanging from a crossbar.

“Sure.” Something he could do better, he thought. Men had more upper body strength than women. At least, he hoped they did.

They jogged across the gym. She reached for a rope as he did, then started to shimmy up. She reached the crossbar before he’d climbed more than four feet. He dropped back to the mats and started to laugh.

She joined him. “What?” she asked.

“You’re incredible.”

“I do this for a living.”

“Still, you’re in great shape. I’m completely intimidated.”

She got them each a bottle of water from a refrigerator in the corner. “You’re not. If you were you wouldn’t have wanted to work out with me. You knew I’d be good.”

“True, but I underestimated your ability.” He took a long drink of water and studied her. “Men do that a lot, don’t they?”

She shrugged. “Sometimes.”

“All the time. Because of your face and your body, they assume you’re a piece of ass and don’t bother to get to know you. They don’t take the time to understand you and they don’t offer you respect.”

The reality of what he’d just said struck him. He stared at her, horrified. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

“It’s the truth.”

“It was rude.”

She drank more, her dark gaze never leaving his face. Her expression was unreadable. “You didn’t call me a piece of ass. You said others do.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Like I said, it’s the truth. Very few men take the time to find out who I am.”

He wanted to say he was willing, but was afraid he would sound like even more of a jerk.

“If nothing else, you now have proof that I haven’t dated much since my divorce,” he offered.

“You think I’m mad,” she said.

“Aren’t you?”

She lowered the bottle and smiled. “No.”

He waited, but that was all.

They finished their water and completed a few more exercises. He had a feeling he was going to be crippled in the morning. Something his students would find amusing.

“Are you limping?” she asked when he staggered to his feet after a rousing round of push-ups. She’d done more than him.

“No.” He straightened, ignoring the fiery pain searing his thighs and biceps. “How about a flashy finish?”

She put her hands on her hips. “Are you challenging me?”