That meant that I wouldn’t almost get run over by a car, or be attacked by any stray dogs.
After I was done stretching my calves, I pushed play on my phone, put my earphones in, and then stowed my phone in the carrier around my waist.
Once I was ready, I cued up my watch and started out.
My podcast started out, and I was laughing about the woman’s reaction to peanut butter on a race day when I felt more than heard someone coming up behind me.
I swallowed hard and turned to look.
Nothing was there.
Turning my head back around, I was just turning the corner of the road that would head to the lake when I all but ran into something solid.
Something solid in the middle of the street, in the dark, where no people should be.
My pulse skyrocketed.
Before I could fall to the ground due to the collision, strong arms encircled my hips, and pulled me in tight.
“Shit!” I cried out, my hands going to sweaty, muscular, bare shoulders.
“You okay?”
And even over the podcast in my ears, I could hear that dark, deep and menacing voice.
All my terror fled as if it never were there to begin with.
“You scared the hell out of me,” I grumbled.
“Why are you running in the dark?” he growled, pulling out one of my earbuds so that I could hear him better.
I knew he hadn’t done it for any other reason other than that.
“I’m running in the dark because if I don’t, then I don’t have time to run at all,” I explained, wondering if I should be pushing myself away from his sweaty chest.
Normal people would, right?
But hells bells.
I liked the way it felt being in his arms.
“I don’t care,” he growled. “You should really be doing this a safer way.”
I did push away then.
Or tried to. He didn’t let me go.
“I could’ve been anybody,” he said, squeezing me into him a little tighter. “It’s not safe out here for you to just be running without paying attention. What if I were a robber? A man wanting to rape you?”
I had my small twenty-two pistol in my hand and was pressing the butt of it up against his throat when I said, “I would’ve shot you. Right in the fucking eye.”
He stilled, feeling the cool metal of the handle, and even though it was too dark to see him clearly, I knew that his eyes were wide.
“Is that real?” he rasped.
I felt a distinct hardening of a certain part of his anatomy and knew that he was just as turned on now as I was.
“Yes,” I answered. “Why would I carry a fake gun?”
He let me go, then reached for my hand and placed the earbud that he’d taken out of my ear into my palm.
“Where did you stow it?” he asked curiously.
I put it back in the small pocket that I carried it in when I ran and then told him where it was. “Near my right hip. There’s a pocket that most people use for a key. I use it for my gun.”
His hand went up, and all of a sudden it was on my hip, right where I’d just told him that I kept my gun.
It wasn’t ‘intimate’ by any means, but damned if it didn’t turn me on anyway.
Having his hand on me at all was enough to have me panting in excitement.
Or maybe I was panting due to exertion. Whatever the reason for my panting—and for now I was blaming it on exertion—I needed to get out of here.
Having his hands on my body didn’t take away from the fact that he didn’t like me.
And being in his presence made me want him. A lot.
Hell, it felt just like it did that first day that I’d seen him. We’d been electric then, and the feeling sure hadn’t changed with space and time.
If anything, it seemed like it had built up.
“You know how to use that?” he asked curiously.
In answer, I turned around and jogged away, shoving my AirPods in as I went.
I looked down at my watch and cursed. Not only had his sudden appearance startled me so much that I hadn’t stopped my watch, but now I only had less than an hour to finish this run, get my shower, and get to work in time to meet a client.
I ran harder than I’d ever run before, and still the man caught up to me and looked barely winded as he held pace at my side.
We didn’t say a single thing after that.
Not one single word or look passed between us.
The only ‘almost’ touch was when I stopped at mile three and a half and turned around.
He hadn’t been expecting me to stop, so when I stopped and turned, he ran past me.
He had to put on the brakes and haul his ass around in the opposite direction and catch up to me. Which he did quite easily.
I ignored him as I moved, feeling the hollow ache in my hip start like it always did.
The ache intensified to a dull throb, and then to a sharp stab by the time I arrived back at my office/place.
I came to a sudden halt right outside the front doors of my office and leaned over, my eyes closing thanks to the pain.
The scrape of a shoe on concrete had me turning to look at the man that’d held a steady pace with me the entire way.
He was already walking across the street toward the bar.
Except, when I expected him to go inside, he walked to a bike that was right outside the alley that led to the back of the bar, swung his leg over it, and settled his fine ass onto the chrome and black beast.
He started it up with a roar, and even over my podcast I could hear the throaty rumble of it.
Had he always ridden a motorcycle?
As he pulled out onto the street a few seconds later, I looked away and then limped back up to my apartment.
Once there, I took a shower, got dressed, dried my hair, and then applied a small amount of makeup before slipping into my favorite jeans.
Even though I was a lawyer, and was probably expected to wear nice clothes, I didn’t bother.
There was no reason to.
I’d learned the lesson of pretending to be someone who I was not a long time ago.
Now, I dressed to impress myself. Which was why I slipped on the faded jeans that felt comfortable as hell, a yellow t-shirt that said ‘thank you for leaving me alone’ and my favorite pair of tennis shoes.
Though not as comfortable as sweatpants would be right now, I was relaxed in them nonetheless.
Limping my way back down the stairs and into the alley, I walked around the back of the building to the back entrance where I produced my keys and slipped inside the building.
Once there, I locked it behind me and limped my way into the main office where I contemplated keeping the door locked since I could already see Jayco’s smiling face pressed against the glass waving excitedly.
Why was he so freakin’ happy all the time?
Still limping, I moved toward the front door and unlatched the lock, not bothering to wait for him as I turned around and headed to the little kitchen where I made myself a cup of tea.
I also pulled out my salad that was supposed to be for lunch today and walked to my office where I proceeded to wolf it down.
It was only as I was slurping up the last ranch-drenched lettuce leaf that I realized I had someone in my office with me.
Not the whole time, luckily. But sometime in the last few minutes, Jayco had stopped at the door and started to watch me.
“Hungry?” he teased.
I ignored him and licked my lips, using my hand to wipe my mouth free of any residual ranch before tossing the entire thing into the garbage by my desk.