by Whitley Cox
With the pace of a snail in the snow, Aurora made her way back to the elliptical machine and began to wipe it down.
Shadley stood there, tapping her foot, her eyes focused on the row of televisions at the front of the gym above the mirrors. A few TVs had various news stations on: one, a Christmas comedy sketch special; another, sports; and the last had a cooking show where the Santa-hat-clad host was teaching some football player how to make something that Aurora could have sworn looked like lard pie but was more likely something festive and fattening like a French-Canadian Tourtière. It was Christmas, after all.
Shadley let out a huff and ran her manicured hand over her bottle-blonde hair, smoothing it back into its long, straight ponytail.
Aurora took her sweet time cleaning the machine, rolling her eyes and making a face of disgust when the woman’s hot pink camel toe came into view as she bent over to wipe a few drops of sweat from the footholds.
“Can you speed up?” Shadley asked.
Aurora smiled sweetly. “I could, but I’m not going to. There are eight other machines, and yet you chose this one. There is no sign-up board, so technically, if I wanted to stay on this machine all day, I could. You don’t own this machine. You don’t own this gym. You pay your dues just like I do.”
Shadley’s face burned a bright pink beneath her bronzer, and her dark brown eyes turned fierce. “I could go and complain at the front desk.”
Aurora tilted her head. “Okay.” Then she hopped back up on to the same elliptical, turned it on again and resumed her workout.
Shadley let out an irritated growl. “You’re a bitch.”
Aurora shrugged, turned the music up on her phone and pointed to her earbuds. “What? I can’t hear you.”
She had to hide her smile for fear the woman in front of her might turn rabid and tear out her carotid artery with her Christmas-painted talons.
Aurora fought and argued all day long. Dealt with people slamming doors in her face and yelling at her on the phone more than she cared to count. Usually, by the end of the day, she had no more fight left in her, so she just rolled over and gave in, whether it be a person at the gym like Shadley or someone butting in line at the grocery store. She wasn’t going to pick that hill to die on. She had bigger battles to fight, bigger fish to fry.
But not tonight. Something about the way Shadley was looking at her, speaking to her made Aurora see red. She wasn’t the weakling of the pack. She wasn’t a wounded gazelle on the savannah, the first to be picked off when the hyenas came scrounging. She would be one of the first to get away, one of the fastest in the herd.
Shadley was still flapping her lips, but Aurora couldn’t hear her. The filthy rap in her ear was a welcome change from the shrill voice of Camel Toe Susan in front of her.
Aurora shook her head once again and pointed to her earbud. “Still can’t hear you. Sorry.”
Laser beams nearly shot out of the woman’s eyes. Aurora dipped her head down to hide her smile. Stomping her foot, Shadley growled again, then turned and marched away.
Aurora snickered and turned away from where the other woman had retreated to, only to find HIM of all people watching her.
Her smile dropped instantly.
His didn’t.
His grew bigger.
Her lips twitched as she debated whether to smile back. Now she just looked like she was having muscle spasms in her face.
His dark red eyebrow drew up on his freckled forehead, and he smiled even wider before shaking his head and glancing toward the front desk where, lo and behold, Shadley was making a complaint.
Ah, crap.
Aurora’s gaze slipped from the flushed-face guy behind the desk and a pointing Shadley back to Zak. He was shaking his head again and rolling his eyes. He seemed to find all of this hilarious.
Was he not with Shadley?
Had he turned her down?
The person at the front desk who was handling Shadley’s tirade glanced at Zak. Zak rolled his eyes again, shook his head and shrugged.
What was that about?
The employee behind the desk shook his head at Shadley, shrugged and made an apologetic face.
Shadley’s head nearly exploded. She stormed off toward the changing room, steam retreating from her ears and possibly even her camel toe, the woman was that mad.
Aurora snickered again. Served the bitch right.
Ah, but where’s your Christmas spirit?
Fuck Christmas spirit. Aurora had had a rough day at work, and all she wanted to do was jump on the elliptical at the gym, zone out and stare at Zak for ninety minutes. Was that too much to ask for? That was all she wanted for Christmas.
That was all she was probably going to get for Christmas.
She didn’t have enough money to fly home to New Hampshire for the holidays, and her parents were struggling to make ends meet after her dad’s heart attack this past spring and his now sudden retirement. She’d told them several times over the last few months that she didn’t want them to waste their money and send her anything. She didn’t need anything.
But of course, they hadn’t listened, and a parcel had arrived in the mail not two days ago.
She didn’t have a tree to put it under, so she bought a fake wreath at the dollar store and hung it on her wall, setting the parcel beneath it.
Merry Christmas!
So, yeah. Watching Zak bend and pick things up, flexing that ass of his, was her Christmas present to herself. And it was the only gift she was getting anybody this year, because things were tight—much like Zak’s ass—but not nearly as nice.
Once again, in her own head, she’d zoned out completely.
Zak had gone back to his workout, and Aurora spaced out on the elliptical, reading the closed captioning on the cooking channel show and listening to the dirty, dirty rap music in her ear.
For some reason, she loved to listen rap music when she got her sweat on. And the dirtier the better. Maybe it was because the words helped fuel her fantasies about Zak, that he was doing to her what the lyrics of the song described.
Oh, if only.
It was Thursday night. She would head in to work for two more days—because Saturdays off were for bankers and firm partners, not first-year associates, aka mere peons—then have a much-deserved two days off, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, only to burn the candle at both ends again come December 26.
Two more days of work.
Those days off could not come fast enough. Mind you, she was only getting those days off because the firm itself was closed, not because she dared to take any vacation days, no way. She only hoped that Santa was kind to her and she didn’t get a call from one of the partners with an emergency project that she had to do at home. She planned to spend those two days off in her bed with her vibrator and thoughts of Zak doing squats in her mind.
She was six months into her first-year associate position at her law firm, and already she was feeling burned out.
How did lawyers do it?
How did they work eighty-plus hours a week?
Their salaries are better than yours, so that cushions the blow of having no life. That’s how.
Right. Money.
A lot of her colleagues would also respond with the answer alcohol. Too bad Aurora couldn’t afford a bottle of wine from Trader Joe’s to save her life at the moment. No, any spare change she had went straight to her parents—or her father’s medical bills, to be more precise. Once she paid her rent, her utilities, her student loan payment and her food, she deposited the rest into her parents’ bank account and hoped to God they had enough saved up that month to get her dad the heart medication he needed.
Life should not be lived with your fingers constantly crossed.
What was wrong with this world that lifesaving drugs were more expensive than a mortgage?
A tap on her shoulder had her bracing for another showdown with Shadley, only it wasn’t Shadley at all. It was the guy from the front desk. “Just so you know, we close in a
bout fifteen minutes.”
Her eyes flew up to the clock. Holy crap, was it already nine forty-five?
She’d been pedaling the machine for another forty-five minutes and hadn’t even clued in.
She really was exhausted.
No, you’re burned the fuck out. You need sleep and lots of it.
Blinking, she nodded, yawned and slowed down her machine. “Right, thanks. I knew that.”
He smiled and then took off to inform the next person.
She hopped down off the elliptical and scanned the gym for Zak. He was nowhere to be found.
Probably showering.
Oh God, Zak in the shower. Yes, please.
She needed a shower to cool off after that image.
Only she’d never waste the free hot water on a cold shower. Even if she lived on the surface of the sun.
Free hot water was a gift.
Nothing like free hot water. Well, it wasn’t free. She’d paid a hefty lifetime membership for that hot water, so she was going to use it. Might as well save her own hot water bill at home.
Anywhere she could scrimp and save, she would.
She sprayed down her machine once again, wiping it clean of her sweat, then she headed to the changing room.
By the grace of God, Shadley was not in there. She must have left when Aurora was staring at Zak’s butt. Which time?
She peeled out of her clothes, wrapped a towel around her and headed to the shower, ready to shut her eyes and let the water and soap wash away the disaster of a day—the disaster of her life.
2
Aurora was a prune by the time she shut off the water in the shower and wrapped the towel around herself, only to emerge into a dark changing room.
Shit.
The gym was closed.
She’d gotten so carried away shaving and washing, fantasizing and daydreaming, that she let time get away from her.
Was she locked in?
How had the front desk guy not heard her in the shower?
Hastily, she dressed, not even bothering to dry her hair with more than a quick rub from the towel, then she was running—well, more like scrambling—toward the front door.
No. No. No. No. No. No.
She exhaled when her hand landed on the handle and it budged. The frigid wind from outside hit her flushed face, making it sting.
The snow was now coming down in what appeared to be big white cotton balls, and the parking lot was no longer a parking lot but various mounds where cars were, and holes where cars had been.
Her car was the former.
She was going to have to not only dig to find her car but also dig herself out.
And she didn’t have a shovel to her name.
Now I bet you’re wishing you didn’t go to a gym so far from home.
Her gloves were in her car too. She’d have to freeze her hands in order to even get to them.
Tears threatened, and her throat began to clog up.
What an absolute mess.
Was this karma for how she’d treated Shadley earlier?
The fates handing her her just desserts because she’d stood up for herself?
It was already so late, so cold, and now she wouldn’t be home for ages—if she ever got home.
She reached into her gym bag and grabbed her pair of sweaty workout pants, wrapped them around her right hand and began to clear the snow from the top of her car. She would be here forever. Probably freeze to death before she got it all cleared.
Should she call a cab?
Were cabs even running in the blizzard?
If so, they were all probably occupied, helping other stranded civilians get home for the night.
Besides, she couldn’t afford a cab to take her home.
Why? Because she lived across town.
Oh, what an absolute disaster. And all because of her libido. Because of a sexy man who had turned her brain to mush the moment she walked into the gym and saw his arms. She’d made the dumbest, most rash decision in her life, and now she was paying dearly for it.
Son of a …
She could barely feel her nose, let alone her fingers, when the rumbling, thunderous sound of a truck emerging from the reserved parking garage below interrupted the eerie quiet of the snowy night.
She paused her efforts and shielded her eyes from the blinding headlights.
The truck was big and powerful. The antithesis to her antiquated little Chevy Sprint with more miles on it than the speedometer had available—or at least it was close.
With nary a snowflake on it, a sleek gunmetal-gray beast with a shiny chrome bumper and wheels slowed down next to her. The passenger window slid down. “Need a hand?”
Aurora squinted through the wind and snow to see Zak of all people, with a black knit cap covering his red hair. But those blue eyes were unmistakable.
She nodded. “I’m buried. Can’t even get at my gloves.”
He turned off his truck, opened the driver-side door and hopped out. Before he made his way to her, he reached into the truck bed in the back of his Chevy and pulled out a shovel.
A Boy Scout!
Always prepared.
“I’ll have you out in a jiff,” he said, flashing her a big grin. Snowflakes began to gather on the short, dark red hair that covered his jaw and upper lip. She’d always had a weakness for a man with facial hair.
Licking her lips and blinking away the snowflakes, she stepped aside when he approached her. In her scramble to the front door, she’d caught a glimpse of the clock on the wall, and it said it was 10:05.
“Lost track of time, did ya?” he asked, beginning to shovel behind her back tires.
She swallowed and jammed her freezing hands into her coat pockets. “Something like that.”
It was a pity he was so bundled up in black sweat pants and a forest-green winter coat. She would have loved to watch his muscles pop out as he shoveled.
“Sorry for what Shadley put you through earlier. Stu at the front desk took care of it though, didn’t let her railroad you into giving up your machine.” He moved over to the other tire and started digging behind it.
Her brows dipped into a hard V in confusion. “It wasn’t your fault or in your control at all. You don’t have to apologize.”
“Looked like you handled yourself just fine anyway. I like when a woman isn’t afraid to stand up for herself.” The man wasn’t out of breath at all. If she was doing the digging, she’d already have sweat beneath her boobs and be needing to take a break.
“I don’t take kindly to bullies,” she said, hating that she had to almost holler over the wild wind gusts that kept pelting her in the face.
He stopped what he was doing and straightened up, his blue eyes fierce beneath the orange glow of the street lamp. “Neither do I.”
Well, that was strange.
He finished with the back tire, then moved on to the front tires.
In no time, her car was free, and he had shoveled her out a path and cleared the rest of the snow from the roof.
“Go start ’er up,” he said, tossing the shovel back into the bed of his truck. “I’ll wait until I see you’re safely on the road before I leave. Hope you don’t live too far. Those roads look nasty.” He kicked his front tire. “Need winter tires like me. Picked these puppies up in October. Splurged for the studded ones too, as I like to head up to the ski slope from time to time and board.”
Oh, to have the kind of wealth so that one could indulge in a weekend away at the mountain in a chalet.
What did Zak do for work? He was probably some high-powered something or other. Or maybe a stuntman in the movies. He certainly had the build for it.
“Thank you,” she said, slipping the key into the lock and opening the door. Then she put the key in the ignition, turned it on and set the heater to blast mode.
She turned back to face him, expecting him to still be standing by his truck, but he wasn’t. He was standing right behind her.
Oxygen fled her lungs.<
br />
He thrust his hand out. “I’m Zak. I feel like I should know your name, but right now it’s escaping me.”
Why should he know her name? He said some really weird stuff.
She took his hand. It was warm—how was it warm? He’d just shoveled in the snow. But it was— it was strong. It was big. It was perfect.
He cocked a brow. “Going to tell me your name or make me guess … Ariel?”
Ariel?
His smile warmed her insides. “You know, from The Little Mermaid? She can’t speak, so Prince Eric guesses her name until Sebastian the crab takes pity on him and whispers it.”
Who the heck was this guy? Now he was talking about a children’s movie. Did he have kids?
“Aurora. My name’s Aurora.”
“Aurora. Like Sleeping Beauty. I like that. It suits you.”
Sleeping Beauty?
They were still holding hands. She never wanted him to let go. Never wanted him to leave.
“Well, Aurora, it was nice to finally meet you. Been keeping my eye on you at the gym. You’ve had some real improvements in your posture and what you’re lifting.” He released her hand and grabbed her bicep, giving it a playful squeeze. “It’s showing too.”
Her stomach did a massive flip-flop, and her pussy clenched.
She moved her eyes down his torso to his feet, which were in bright orange running shoes. “Thanks.”
He released her arm and rocked back on his heels, shoving his hands into the pockets of his coat. “Better let this old girl warm up a bit before you head out.”
She nodded and pulled her gloves on over her frozen and cramping fingers, though she would have much rather held his hand longer to warm her up. She rubbed her palms together to get the circulation flowing again when a noise beneath the hood of her car made her jump.
He scrunched up his face in confusion and took a step back. “Uh-oh. That doesn’t sound good.”
