Making Him Sweat. Meg Maguire

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СКАЧАТЬ hopes were dying, just as her own were blooming. The energy between them shifted, that lustful sensation deepening to something more tender. More vulnerable. She shivered.

      “That was always a pipe dream, though. Especially since I’m stuck as the GM, now—not much time left over for implementing any of my grand plans, even if we did have the money.” Mercer stood. “Sorry to startle you. I just needed to grab a bite before the noon session starts. I guess I’ll see you around later, roomie.”

      “Yeah. Sorry again. For snooping.”

      “If it ain’t hidden, it ain’t secret, boss-lady. But thanks just the same for the apology.”

      “Sure.”

      Seconds later she heard the front door click and she released a giant, guilty breath.

      “Smooth, Jenna. Very smooth.”

       3

      WHILE SHE WAS out scrounging lunch the next day, a call on Jenna’s cell confirmed her mattress and box spring would arrive in the afternoon. She moved sheets and covers to the top of her shopping list, checked her mapping app and memorized the short route to Macy’s.

      She felt back in her element as she stepped inside the store, with its perfume smells, its colors, its familiarity and civility. And bedclothes! She hadn’t shopped for sheets since she’d been getting ready to move away to college. She ran her hands over the samples—smooth cotton, flannel, clingy jersey, sateen and its ritzier, pricier cousin, silk. She wondered what sort of man she might meet here in her new city, someone worthy of inviting to enjoy her new sheets. A silk man, surely. Or satin. What sort of sheets did Mercer favor, she wondered—

      Her phone buzzed in her pocket, batting the dangerous query aside. She checked the screen, greeted by another heartening taste of the familiar.

      “Hi, Mom.”

      “Hey, Jen! What are you up to? Is this a good time?”

      “Yes, fine. I’m sheet-shopping.”

      They chatted about Jenna’s initial impressions of the building and the gym, and her mother sighed noisily, a sound she reserved exclusively for whenever the topic of her ex-husband came up. “Just don’t let this Mercer person bully you into compromising too much. Those types can be very pushy.”

      “He’s remarkably civil, considering what a threat I must seem like to him.”

      Another sigh. Jenna could supply the unspoken words for herself—he sounds much more reasonable than your father ever would have been. But since his passing, her mom had finally found it in herself to censor her opinions on the matter.

      “Well, that’s a relief. And a surprise.”

      “Yes, a very nice surprise.” And a very nice-looking surprise, Jenna added to herself. Oops. “He was actually living with Monty, up until he died.” It always felt funny, calling him that. But he wasn’t her dad. Her stepfather was Dad. She considered mentioning she was letting Mercer stay for the time being, but that wouldn’t earn her any maternal endorsements.

      By three-thirty she was back at the apartment with her acquisitions. The place was empty again, and dark, the sun behind the tall buildings now. She headed for a lamp and turned the switch, but nothing happened. She tried another with the same luck.

      “Huh.” She’d have to hope Mercer was working. Before she left the apartment, she tossed her new bedclothes in the washer and checked her face by the last of the day’s light. She ran a brush through her hair, rolling her eyes at herself. Silly impulse. The fact that she wasn’t bleeding from an open wound ought to impress the barbarian horde.

      Downstairs in the humid gym, she found Mercer in trainermode once again, though luckily with a shirt on. Far less distracting that way. He was observing some of the younger guys working out on the bags, and shouting the odd pointer. He spotted her as she approached, speaking loudly over the hip-hop music playing from unseen speakers.

      “Heya, boss. How you doing?”

      She had to admit, he was awfully nice. Awfully polite and accommodating, considering her intentions for his beloved gym. Though he did have every reason to butter her up. She’d be naive to go misdiagnosing his kindness as anything too personal.

      “I’m fine, Mercer. How are you?”

      “I’d be better if this kid would quit dragging his feet.” He nodded in the direction of the young man he’d been working with the previous afternoon. “I didn’t introduce you guys yesterday. How rude of me.”

      Mercer shouted and swept an arm to beckon the man over. He put on a fight announcer’s voice. “A-a-a-nd from Boston, Massachusetts, nineteen years old, two hundred fifteen pounds, De-e-e-lante Waters! Jenna, this is Delante—Mattapan’s answer to a young Holyfield. Delante, this is Jenna, Monty’s daughter.”

      She was struck again by the young man’s size—broad and meaty, way heavier than Mercer, though three or four inches shorter. Jenna shook his hand, feeling hesitance in the gesture, a shyness in his averted gaze not evident in any other aspect of the kid. “Hey,” he mumbled. His hair was braided into a labyrinth of cornrows, ending into two puffy tufts at the nape of his neck.

      “What’s feeling lazy, pigtails?” Mercer asked him.

      A shrug. “Footwork?”

      “Couldn’t agree more. Go to it. I’ll catch up in a few minutes.”

      Delante left them to head for another part of the gym and Mercer turned to Jenna. “I didn’t ask you the other day, but what do you think? Is this place what you imagined?”

      She made a grudging face. “It’s different than I expected. Less awful than my mom and the old news stories had me assuming.”

      “Be still my heart.” Mercer smirked, and it made Jenna’s middle squirm pleasantly.

      Wait. Were they flirting?

      “What were you expecting?” he asked. “A meth lab?”

      “It’s nice, I guess. I don’t have anything to compare it to.”

      Mercer’s gaze dropped. “Mind taking your shoes off?”

      “Oh, sorry.” Just as she stepped out of her flats, she caught sight of a young trainee running a mop over the mats beneath a row of punching bags, sopping up sweat. Note to self—wash feet.

      Another man approached, dressed to fight in shorts, barefoot, with fingerless gloves on his hands. He had longish hair and dark, aristocratic features, a Spanish prince with an aquiline nose and a raging black eye. He and Mercer clasped hands and gave one another matching shoulder slaps before they looked to Jenna.

      “Jenna, this is Rich Estrada. Rich, this is Jenna Wilinski.”

      Rich smiled—an easy, deadly, sigh-inducing smile, and took her hand in his gloved one. His smooth foreign airs evaporated the second he opened his mouth. His accent was pure Boston sandpaper, even heavier than Mercer’s. “Good to meet ya. You must take after your mom, huh? Your dad was a fugly son of a bitch, God rest СКАЧАТЬ