Male Review (4 page)

Maud positively glowed. “You’ve heard of me, hot stuff?”

He leaned on the counter. “Absolutely, sweet thing, and we’ve all been dying to meet you. How about I escort you and give you a personal workout?”

Meg chuckled. No doubt he wanted to find out if the pair of them were as eccentric as Sam led him to believe. Added to that, he was obviously gay so he would be safe left alone with Maud, and if he watched Maud, she would be free to chase Sam down.

The young man vaulted the front counter and offered Maud his arm. “I’m Lance. Shall we?”

Maud linked arms with him and batted her enormous lashes.

Meg hung back. “If you two are okay without me, I might go find Sam.”

Lance patted Maud’s hand. “Leave her with me. She’ll have a blast. Sam’s in studio one. He should be finishing his class in about twenty minutes. When you’re done, we’ll be in the main gym putting this sweet thing through her paces.”

As they wandered off, she heard Maud asking Lance if his pecs were real. No doubt she would feel him up to find out. Gay or not, he’d have his hands full and would need to be rescued sooner rather than later.

Alone at last, Meg sauntered to studio one. People for the next class hung around outside. Some sat on couches and others leaned against walls. Meg excused herself and found a spot where she could watch the class in action through the full-length glass windows.

Sam lay on his back on the small stage and the members of the class were flat out all over the room. The music vibrated and she watched in erotic fascination as he scooted his feet under his knees and demonstrated pelvic thrusts in time to the beat. No wonder he had such amazing stamina and rhythm. She chewed her thumbnail in an effort to hold back a moan of pure lust. Her whole body thrummed with sexual tension and a pulse beat between her thighs in response to each of Sam’s thrusts.

A deep female voice whispered, “Wouldn’t you just love to have him do that to you naked and in bed?”

Meg glanced at the woman who had apparently been unable to stop herself from sharing her fantasy with a total stranger. The woman moaned softly when Sam pumped his hips upward again. The bike shorts he wore did nothing to reduce the eroticism in the move. His new fan could be anything from thirty upward. Plastic surgery might be involved, but either way her body put Meg’s to shame. If women like that made passes at Sam, how long would he resist? The man had a sex drive that could power a whole suburb. One way or another, she needed to make sure he was satisfied or risk losing him to someone else.

“He’s got a girlfriend.”

The woman chuckled. “Don’t I know it. He kissed her like his life depended on it a few weeks ago, but just because he has someone now doesn’t mean he isn’t interested in a fling. He is male, after all.”

The dark haired woman looked Meg up and down. “Although you might need to work out a little harder if you want to try your luck.”

Meg glanced down at her scruffy, baggy sweatshirt, which she knew hid a multitude of sins, including a midriff that could use some toning. Sam had been kissing another woman? Why not. She was hardly the catch of the century and he
had
been going without at home.

“Did you see the woman he kissed?”

“Sure. Tall, slim, and very blond.” Without another word, the woman who had been ogling Sam sauntered down the corridor. Meg glanced back through the window. Pain filled her chest. Sam wouldn’t cheat on her, would he? Maybe it was before they got together. Their relationship was still very new. Everyone in the class looked so toned and fit. Perhaps she should exercise and try to be more like the women he spent all day with. Sam seemed to enjoy working out and it wouldn’t kill her to make an effort, she hoped.

Meg wandered back toward reception and followed the sign to the ladies’ gym. She might be about to make a fool of herself, and she preferred Maud not witness her performance. A gym without men would be of no interest to the old lady.

Her heart hit the floor when she walked in to discover Sam’s dark haired fan running up a sweat on a treadmill. The gym was packed, but when the woman on the treadmill gave her a smile of recognition, Meg had no choice but to exercise. She couldn’t let her think she was intimidated. Her new friend slowed her machine and patted the one next to her.

“Jump on, don’t be shy.”

Meg climbed on board. An array of buttons on the console bemused her.

“I’m Claudia. I guess you’re new to exercise.”

Hmm, Meg wasn’t sure what that meant exactly. Was she saying Meg looked fat? It was the damn sweatshirt. She might be a little voluptuous but then who wouldn’t appear that way next to Miss Body Beautiful?

“Meg.” She prodded wildly at the buttons in the hope something would happen. “I’m just not used to a treadmill. I prefer to run around the streets. Feel the rush of the wind in my hair, asphalt beneath my feet.” The machine lurched into action, and Meg grabbed the sides and started to walk briskly.

Claudia reached over and pressed a button. “I guess this will be more your speed then if you usually run.”

Meg scrambled to move her feet faster as the machine powered up. Claudia was barely even sweating and she was running just as fast. Panting for air, Meg fought to keep her legs moving in time. Maybe if she imagined something at the front of the machine worth chasing she wouldn’t feel the burn quite so much. Ice cream, chocolate with warm fudge topping. Momentarily distracted, she started to slide back on the running pad and fought to catch up before she fell off the end. Ice cream was a bad idea. She pounded faster and reached for the control panel and the big button that said “stop,” but no matter how fast she ran it was out of her reach.

With a smarmy grin, Claudia reached over and hit the speed button twice sending Meg into a frenzy of action. She needed to stop. Her legs were turning to jelly. Her lungs ached as she dragged in one torturous breath after another. Claudia’s machine ground to a stop and she stepped off.

“Nice meeting you.”

“Wai—wai—” before Meg could pant out a whole word her toned torturer disappeared out the door and Meg was positive she heard her laugh. Now what the fuck was she going to do?

Chapter Eight

Sam climbed to his feet and thanked the class before bending to collect his towel and water bottle. He glanced at the space beyond the window where he had spotted Meg, or at least it looked like Meg. The room emptied and he made his way toward the door, eager to see if she was waiting for him.

The last woman he wanted to see halted his progress. Crazy Claudia had already driven one trainer away with her inability to take no for an answer. He sucked in his stomach and slid between her and the doorframe, but didn’t escape her running a finger down his arm.

“Hi, Sam. How’s your girlfriend?”

He frowned. As far as he knew, she’d never met Meg. He sure as hell had never introduced them, and Meg rarely came to the gym. She had other ways of burning off calories—his favorite being in his bed, or in his reclining chair, or the kitchen table, the top of the washing machine, the shower. Hell, if they ever got some time alone, she would be positively anorexic.

“What girlfriend?”

Claudia practically purred as she wrapped herself around him. “Oh sugar, if you don’t remember, she can’t mean much to you. Have you forgotten the cheap blond thing already? A real woman would have you thinking about sex twenty-four seven.”

With difficulty, he wriggled free of her grasp. She was talking about Laura. In all the excitement over Meg and Maud’s arrest, and having the harridan from hell move in, he’d forgotten he kissed Laura to get Claudia to back off. With Claudia set to pounce on him, and Meg somewhere in the near vicinity, now wasn’t the right time to correct her assumptions about who he was dating. “My girlfriend is real. In fact, I think I saw her just now. So, if you’ll excuse me.”

A quick check of the main gym came up empty, although he couldn’t hold in a chuckle when he saw Lance valiantly trying to wrestle Maud away from a guy lifting weights above his head. If she pinched that butt, she would be in danger of having more than a few kilos landing on her head. Mind you, it would teach her a lesson. He had bruises on his arse from her constant grabbing at him. If he didn’t love Meg so much, he would have moved out to get away from Maud, but the chance of a stolen moment here and there was better than nothing. Even if seeing Meg and not being able to touch her most of the time was his own personal hell.

Stepping back into the hallway, he pondered where else Meg could be. No way would she have gone home and left Maud behind. Regardless of what she said about her, he knew Meg had a soft spot for the old lady. She could drive a person to drink most of the time but she was still Meg’s great aunt. Things could be worse; they could be living with Meg’s mother. The thought made him shudder. She would either put him in a chastity belt or lock Meg in her room to protect her daughter’s virtue. Too bad Sam had stolen her virtue, and some. A stirring in his groin made him take a deep breath. No way in hell was he about to saunter around the gym in bike shorts with a boner big enough to poke an eye out. A few moments of quiet contemplation and he was good to go.

The ladies’ gym, was off limits to all male employees unless they were with a personal training client, but it was the only place he hadn’t checked.

Not willing to risk a disciplinary warning, he snuck a look through the glass in the door. A purple and red blob pounded away on the treadmill like she was running after an ice cream truck. What in heaven’s name was she doing? No one as sedentary as Meg should be going that hard. He shoved the door open and sprinted across to the treadmill. He pounded the stop switch with his fist just as she finally lost balance. With a quick move, he caught her in his arms and lifted her to safety just before she did a huge face-plant on the rubberized running track.

*

Eyes squeezed shut, Meg gasped for breath. Her legs were still making running motions, but she seemed to be floating through the air. She must have had the aneurism that kept threatening and now she was hovering above her prostrate dead body.

“Meg?”

Oh, one of the angels had lifted her in his wings and was calling her name. He sounded just like Sam. God really did think of everything.

“Meg? Are you okay? What the fuck were you doing?”

What kind of language was that for an angel to be using? And how dare it yell at her? Talk about no respect for the dead. She opened her eyes and her anger melted.

“Sam. My angel.”

He smiled. “Meg. Thank God you’re allright.”

She wrapped her arms around his neck and he hugged her tight to him as he carried her out of the room.

Still trying to catch her breath, she happily let him take her where he would. Right now, she could use a cool drink and a rest, but having the man of her dreams carry her around in his arms was a suitable substitute. He walked back toward the reception area, and when they passed Claudia, Meg couldn’t resist sticking her tongue out. The woman looked fit to bust a gut. Wanting to grind home the humiliation, Meg pressed her lips to Sam’s. He stopped walking and gladly accepted the fervent kiss.

When Meg finally pulled back, he grinned at her before shoving his butt against a door and carrying her into a side room. “Was she watching?”

Embarrassed at being caught acting like a child, Meg feigned ignorance. “Who?”

“Claudia. I assume that was for her benefit?”

He let Meg slide down to her feet. Not willing to make eye contact, she toyed with the front of his T-shirt. “Does it matter?”

Sam slid his fingers under her chin and tilted her face up to look at him. “I don’t care either way. The woman is a pain in the arse, but what do you have against her?”

Meg swallowed, remembering what Claudia had said about Sam kissing another woman and her antics with the treadmill. “She told me you had a girlfriend already. Some blond woman you were kissing the other day. I wanted her to know the only girlfriend you have is me.”

“It was Laura.”

“The woman you kissed?” Meg’s blood pressure rose. All this time Laura had been sneaking around behind her back with Sam and she had no idea. She tried to step back from him but his hands circled her wrists and held her in place. Her hands itched to slap him. Just when she thought she had found happiness, life punched her in the guts. Sam was cheating on her, with her best friend.

“I need to explain, and I need you to listen and not overreact. Can I trust you?”

Trust? He had confessed to screwing around and he had the cheek to talk about trust. Did she have
stupid
tattooed across her forehead or something? She struggled to free herself, desperate to escape to wallow in misery and chocolate ice cream. His grip tightened

“Meg. I mean it. You’re not going anywhere until you’ve heard me out, and then what you choose to do is up to you.”

Chapter Nine

She met his gaze. His eyes were dark and he had a determined set to his mouth. Her resolve to fight him off and run away like she usually did when life hit a bump in the road melted. Maybe she should listen to what he had to say before she made her escape to eat ice cream.

“Okay.”

He dropped a kiss on the top of her head. “That’s my girl.”

When he took her hand in his and led her across the floor, she finally noticed her surroundings. They were in a private changing room complete with a shower cubicle in the corner. Sam pushed her down onto a padded bench, then walked to the door and turned the lock. He opened a small white cupboard which concealed a fridge and handed her a bottle of cold water. Finally, he sat next to her and met her gaze. Not sure she was going to like what she heard, Meg opened the bottle and swallowed a big glug of the cool fluid. All that running had made her hot and thirsty.

“The day you got arrested, Laura dropped by. She arrived as Claudia was rubbing herself all over me. I wanted to get Claudia to leave me alone, so when Laura walked in I kissed her.”

Meg grumbled under her breath, “I bet she loved that.”

Sam let out a loud sigh and Meg pulled an apologetic face—she forgot, she was supposed to stay quiet until he finished. She took another mouthful of water and waited for him to continue.