Page 37 of His Reckoning

And that turns out to be a mistake.

The shorts she’s wearing are barely long enough to qualify as clothing.

Black. Tight. Riding high on her hips every time her stride lengthens.

The sports bra isn’t much more conservative. It leaves very little to the imagination, which becomes increasingly obvious the longer I stand here, pretending I’m interested in dumbbells.

Kayla is not built like the women I usually date. The women I usually date look like they walked straight off a runway.

Tall. Thin. Carefully polished.

Women like that usually know exactly what men like me can offer.

They get attention and proximity to power. I get something uncomplicated for a few nights.

No expectations. No emotional entanglements. Everyone leaves satisfied.

Kayla, however, is something else entirely.

She’s all curves with full hips, a narrow waist, and a chest that makes the sports-bra situation … distracting.

She slows the treadmill slightly, brushing a strand of hair off her face. Her cheeks are flushed from the run.

Her eyes flick toward the mirror again.

Her gaze drifts slowly down my shoulders, across my chest.

I place the weights back on the rack. “You’re going to trip if you keep doing that.”

She looks genuinely startled. “Doing what?”

“Pretending you’re not watching.”

Her pace falters slightly. “I was not watching.”

“You were.”

She exhales and pushes the Stop button. The treadmill slows to a walk. Then a stop.

Kayla steps off and grabs a towel from the rack, wiping the back of her neck.

“Well,” she says, a little breathless, “in my defense”—she nods in my direction— “you are very distracting.”

I raise an eyebrow. “That’s your defense?”

“You’re lifting weights and doing pull-ups in the middle of the night, looking like that,” she says. “What exactly did you expect?”

“Focus.”

She laughs softly. “That seems unrealistic.”

Neither of us speaks. The gym suddenly feels smaller than it did five minutes ago.

Kayla tosses the towel over her shoulder and leans against the treadmill.

Her eyes run over me again. Slower this time. Less accidental. And when her eyes meet mine in the mirror, there’s no embarrassment in them at all.

Just curiosity which might actually be more dangerous.