The Artemis (McKinley Brothers Book 5) by Alexis Ashlie

Author:Alexis Ashlie [Ashlie, Alexis]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-11-18T16:00:00+00:00

SHABINA

After work, I picked up my duffel and hurried to the gym. I didn’t even want to take the time to go back to my quarters to change into my workout clothes as I usually did, because for the past few days, Laurent had been meeting me there and walking me over to the gym. We’d fallen quickly into a workout routine in which we were so intent on each other that it began to feel like foreplay.

Sometimes, he would come over to me and give me some pointers. He even talked me into trying my hand at the free weights, standing behind me to make sure my form was correct. Sometimes I thought he was doing so with all sincerity; others, I guessed he’d just wanted an excuse to put his hands on my ass.

Today, I was fed up. I was sick of those stupid letters, which kept on coming. Sick of the messages that ranged from the lewd to the insulting to the pleading. Don’t you remember? Don’t you remember us?

I couldn’t imagine who or what that was about. What ‘us’?

And Laurent, He-Man himself, somehow fancied that he was my protector, and sticketh to me closer than a brother, to an almost annoying degree. I looked forward to the man he was by night, meeting me at my room or his, looking clean and fresh-scrubbed sometimes, or grimy and sweaty if we’d just been working out.

But during the day when he strapped on his gun and clipped on his security ID, he was full of questions, swooping down on all the ghastly little presents my secret admirer kept leaving and poring over them minutely, like he thought he was Sherlock Holmes.

Today, I just wasn’t up to it.

So I snuck through the employees’ passage and sidled up the back way to the gym, glad for the breather . . . only to find Laurent at the sign-in desk, leaning against the counter, waiting.

“Hey,” he said.

“Uh-huh,” I answered, but in my head I was thinking, Godddd.

He cocked his head. His smile faltering. “Something wrong?”

Instead of answering, I turned to the gym attendant, Arturo, who was so accustomed to my gym routine that he already had my towels folded and waiting. He handed them over with a smile. “Mademoiselle Shabina . . .”

I reached for them, but hesitated. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to work out after all, now that I wasn’t going to be alone. . . .

Arturo was frozen there, his hands outstretched with the towels in his arms, so out of good manners, I took them, nodding. He gave me a tight smile and then began to rummage around on the shelves for towels to give to Laurent.

“What is it?” Laurent asked. “I know something’s wrong.”

“Do you?” I snapped.

“Yes. Tell me.” He took his towels without acknowledging the young man and tucked them under his arm. He looked at me, dead in the eye, with the focus of an interrogator.

“Goddd . . . I don’t want to .

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