by Lexy Timms
Aileen laughed. “So much for the clean language.”
“My bad.” Jani covered her mouth. “Why don’t you go home, maybe make us some pasta for dinner? I’ll jog over to the weight room and bum a ride back from someone who’s got a car there.” She grinned wickedly. “Maybe the football team’s lifting and I can ask Tyler to drop me off. Maybe tell him you’re cooking dinner…”
Aileen blushed and waved her hand. “I doubt he’ll be there.” She tucked a blonde stray lock of hair behind her ear. “But if he is, you can offer to invite him. I make a mean meatball and spaghetti.”
“I know. It’s one of my favorite meals.”
Aileen smiled. “Thanks!”
“Do you mind taking my phone back with you? It has a less chance of getting broken if you take it back.” When practice had finished, she had raced up to Coach Maves’ office and left her laptop and school bag locked safely inside. Her phone needed to come home. Jani took a deep breath and pushed the heavy door open. The air smelled wet and the steady drumming of the rain they heard inside the fieldhouse turned up to full volume. “I’ll see you in an hour!” she yelled at they dashed out in opposite directions. She turned and waved once to Aileen, who was running like a rabbit, her backpack bouncing up and down against her back.
By the time Jani stopped to wait for the first street light, she was drenched. Thank goodness she had asked Coach Maves to let her leave her high jump shoes with her laptop. They would reek if they got this soaked. Maves had ordered new ones for her, they were just on back order from Asics. The school wore Nike but Jani could not compete in the Nike high jump spikes. They were too flat for her arched feet. She loved Asics and luckily, Coach Maves didn’t make a big deal out of it. Probably because of the whole mental mind games she always goes on and on about.
Fifteen minutes later she stood just inside the doors of the football facility dripping wet. Her shoes squeaked and swished as she walked down the hall to the entrance of the weight room.
“Stay there!” the weight coach called out from his office as he hurried over and tossed Jani a towel. “You’re soaking wet!”
“It’s pouring outside.” Jani wiped her arms and tried to squeeze the water out of her hair with the towel. “I jogged over.”
“Sorry, Jani but you can’t work out in wet clothes. It’s too dangerous.”
“I’ve got tights on underneath. They’ll be fine.” She pointed to her dripping jogging pants.
“Your shoes aren’t. You could slip and fall.”
“I won’t.”
“But you might. Sorry, kiddo. I can’t let you.”
Seriously? She’d just jogged over here for no reason? “I could do it in bare feet.”
He shook his head. “Not allowed.”
“What if I just do the stationary stuff? Skip the cleans, snatches, and squats? I can do my arm stuff and core strength. I promise I’ll be careful.”
“I know, but I can’t.” He scratched his head as he stared down at her feet. “What size shoe do you wear?”
“Ten.”
“We don’t have any women’s runners here. What’s your size in men?”
“Oh, uh, maybe an eight and a half.”
“Shoot!” He shook his head. “Could you get away with a nine?”
“Probably with a pair of thick socks.”
“Give me a sec.” He stepped by her and opened the door to the weight room. “Wait right here.” He disappeared and came back a few minutes later with a shoe box in his hands. “You’re lucky.” He tossed her a pair of socks that were tucked under his arm. “Put those on and try these size nines.”
Jani slipped her wet shoes and socks off and sat down on a plyo box nearby. The socks were big and long. They came up to her knees. She slipped her jogging pants off, thankful her spandex capris were damp but not soaking. The shoes were brand new. A way better quality than the track team ever got. She put them on and gave the weight coach a thumbs up. “These fit perfect.” For once, big feet were a bonus. The runners were a bit large, but the thick socks stopped her from sliding inside of them. She tied them tight. “I’ll give them back to you when I’m finished.”
The coach laughed. “Keep ‘em. Nobody’s going to want them after they’ve been worn.”
“Seriously?”
He nodded. “You could have skipped the workout but you made the effort to come in, even jogging in the pouring rain. Get your workout in and I’ll make sure you’ve got a ride back.”
“Thanks!” Jani high-fived the coach and jogged over to the filing cabinet where the track team’s workouts were stored. She checked Aileen’s and marked down some of the weights she had used to try and stay about the same. Aileen had the strongest legs in the world, and Jani worked hard to keep up with her. The season’s workouts seemed to be paying off so far. Look how practice today had gone.
Jani pushed through her cleans and Olympic lifts before moving on to her squats. As she went through the cycle and was changing the weights for her last set, she remembered Carter. She slapped her forehead. How could she forget about him?
She turned to grab her phone and send him a message. “Shoot!” She had given Aileen her cell. Jani checked the clock on the wall. If she hurried, she might still be able to meet him at the swimming pool. After this last set of squats, she would be pretty much done. Just bench press, which for a high jumper was basically a waste of time, along with the arm stuff in her opinion.
Jani hurried through the remaining sets of weights and grabbed her wet stuff by the door that the weight coach had nicely put into a plastic bag. “Thanks, coach!” she called out as she pulled the glass door open.
“Hey, kiddo. You need a ride home?” The coach was working with the female rowing team. They all looked over at Jani. “I can get one of the footballers to drive you back.”
Jani waved. “I’m good. I’ve got a ride.” She ran through the door then suddenly swung around and slipped back through before it closed. “Thanks for the offer… and the shoes!” she shouted loudly. As she flew through the door again, she heard him laughing. It made her smile.
Until she got to the front door and saw the rain still falling without hesitation. She looked at her new shoes and dropped to the ground to change them. No sense in ruining two pairs in one day. She pushed her feet into her drowning wet shoes and grimaced when they immediately soaked her socks. Pulling her hair tight into its ponytail, she took a deep breath and dashed out into the pouring rain for the second time.
It took less than five minutes to get to the pool facility on the other side of the large parking lot. It took half that time to get completely soaked again.
Wet cement, chlorine, and other pool chemicals filled Jani’s nostrils as she struggled to catch her breath from the sprint around the parking lot. The basketball coliseum and pool facility were joined. It was also at the same place where athletes picked up their monthly stipend checks. Thankfully there was an entrance on the west side so Jani could head straight for the pool area.
She had been here last year a couple of times to watch Carter swim and was pretty sure she knew where she had to go. She took a short cut through the ladies change rooms. No one was inside it. All probably gone to eat dinner. She glanced at her watch; quarter past six.
The lockers led past showers and out onto the deck area of the three large indoor pools.
Empty.
Except for a custodian and a swimmer on the far side of the furthest pool from her, swimming laps. She smiled as she passed the custodian collecting towels. He stared at her soaking wet clothes and shook his head. Jani tried to peel the wet shirt away from her body but it clung back against it the minute she let go. She headed over to the swimming pool. It didn’t look like Carter, but she wanted to double check.
The boy popped his head up when he noticed her standing at the end of his lane. “Hey.” He wore a red cap and dark blue goggles that seemed to match his spandex swimsuit.
“Hi.” She smiled and shifted her weight, n
ot quite sure what to say. “Are you on the varsity team?”
He treaded water and checked his watch.
“Sorry!” Jani realized he was timing his laps and she’d just interrupted him. “I’m sorry. I was looking for Carter Daily. I…” she let her voice trail off.
The boy returned to his laps, doing the backstroke slowly this time. “He’s in the sauna.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
She turned around and glanced for a sauna sign. She had no idea where to go.
“It’s over this way,” the boy called out, laughing. “You look like you could use it.” He dove under the water before she could reply.
Tempted by the thought of jumping into the water and surprising the swimmer crossed her mind. She smiled and held back the urge. She might find it funny, he might not. Her shoes squished and squeaked in protest with each step as she moved in the direction the boy had pointed. She hesitated outside the door, not sure if the saunas were male only or if someone might be in there naked. It always happened like that in the movies.
She tried knocking against the door, but the warm material just muffled the noise. Shrugging, she slipped off her wet sneakers and tossed them by a vent nearby. She set her plastic bag with new shoes down beside the door and then pulled it open.
A strange smell wafted over her, thick with the steam of the sauna and smell of cedar. She scrunched her nose, unsure if she liked the smell. It wasn’t pleasant, more peculiar and sharp, like an oily herb.
Jani stopped herself from walking in. It was that smell. She had never done it herself, but it was one of those things you just knew. Like when someone says it smells like a skunk, you know exactly what they mean without using actual words to describe it.
This was that pungent smell that could only come from one thing.
Weed.
If Carter was sitting inside the sauna on his own smoking pot, she had no interest in joining him. She would risk a paper for study hall, but she was sure as hell not going to risk her scholarship for getting high.
“Hey! Whoever’s at the door, either come in or close it! You’re letting all the steam out!” Carter’s voice rang loud and clear inside.
Jani inhaled again and pressed her lips tight together. This is what he has planned for a nice surprise? She crossed her arms over her wet shirt and stomped inside.
The sauna had two rows of large wood benches on each side. The steam hung heavy in the air but not enough to hide Carter from his location on the right side raised seat. He sat with his legs stretched out in front of him and his back against the wood wall. “Hey… Jani…” He waved to her.
At least no one else was inside the sauna. No naked, unsuspecting old man like the movies. “Are you an idiot?” she snapped.
His half-closed eyes opened in surprise. “Excuse me?”
“Only an idiot would smoke pot in the school sauna!” She leaned forward, trying to see if she could tell if he was high. She had no idea what she needed to look for. “Do you want to lose your scholarship?”
Carter shook his head and dropped his legs down to the bench below him, his knees at the level of Jani’s chest. “I haven’t been smoking.”
“Seriously? You think I can’t smell it?”
“It wasn’t me. Some of the other guys were in here earlier. They lit up.”
“And now you’ve got some contact high?”
He rested his elbow on his knee so he could lean forward and look her in the eye. His towel shifted open exposing a long muscular thigh, all four of his quad muscles clearly defined against his tanned skin.
Jani tried to keep her eyes averted but kept sneaking glances, her mind wandering to the question if he wore only a towel or something underneath. Her wet clothes grew warm from the heat of the moisture in the air.
“I’m not high.”
Did she believe him? He could very well be telling the truth. She had no clue about pot. Maybe he had smoked it yesterday and was now trying to remove it out of his system by sweating it out.
He looked at her with one eyebrow raised. “Why are you all wet? Did you fall in the pool?”
She shook her head. “I ran over here. It’s pouring out.”
“Still?” He glanced toward the closed door as if trying to see outside it. “You ran here from the track? Why didn’t you take your car?”
“I ran over from the weight room.”
“Ohhh, that makes sense.” He didn’t look like he understood.
“It’s raining super hard. I got drenched.”
He patted the bench beside him. “Let’s get you warmed up, and then into dry clothes. You don’t want to catch a cold.” He motioned to her. “Strip down. Toss me your shirt and pants. Take ‘em all off.”
She stared at him, pretty sure he was high.
Chapter 9
“I’m not stripping for you in a public sauna!”
Carter flashed her a sexy grin. “As much as I would enjoy that, it’s not what I meant.” He stood and pulled off his towel.
Her gaze immediately dropped below his rippled abs. He wore a pair of red shorts. Possibly swim shorts but not the kind a proper swimmer would use. More like regular shorts.
“Here, use this. Strip down—I mean, take off your wet shirt and pants.” He held out his hand. “You’ve got a sports top/bra thing on, right? Just wear that and your panties. Wrap the towel around your waist. No one will notice.” He pointed his thumb in the direction of the door. “No one’s going to come in here anyways.”
He helped her pull her wet top off. “You bring your bathing suit?”
She crossed her arms over her chest as her lightly tanned skin exposed more than she was comfortable with in the tightly-spaced room of the sauna. When his lips were on her mouth or skin, the near-nakedness didn’t bother her. Now she felt just a touch shy. “I didn’t.”
“Is it in your car? I can run out and grab it.”
“My car’s at my place.”
His brows pressed together. “I thought you said you ran over here from the weight room. Isn’t your car in the joint parking lot?”
“I did run here, but I had to run to do weights from Wavertree. I had class before practice so I didn’t have time to run back and grab my car.” She enjoyed the view of his chest with the sheen of sweat glistening on it. She wiggled out of her jogging pants. She still had her tights on and realized this was the kind of thing she wore at track on a hot day. She didn’t need to feel uncomfortable, it was semi-normal. She dropped her shoulders and relaxed. He was near naked, she might as well be too. She pulled her tights off as well and stood in her pink panties and pink sports top. Kinda like a bathing suit. “How was practice today?”
Wide eyes watched her hop up to the bench he had just been occupying.
She chuckled at his inability to speak. It was good to know she was his oxygen as much as he was hers. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen the pool this empty.”
He glanced blankly behind him as if seeing the pool from behind the wooden walls. “Training’s done for the day. The place always empties at six, especially on Mondays for some reason. It’ll pick up again just after seven.” He leaned over and kissed her shoulder before brushing his lips against her ear. “You feeling warmer now?”
Her eyes fluttered closed. She ran her top teeth against her lower lip. “A little,” she teased.
She felt his mouth smile against her neck. “What can I do to help? Warm you up, that is.” His hand came up the inside of her lower leg, his fingers expertly curling around her long calf muscle and then teasing her inner thigh.
Jani caught her breath. What if someone came in? She knew where this was leading. The sweat building on their bodies, their near nakedness and the risk of getting caught heightened her senses. She liked life a bit edgy, but this was something she had never done.
There was the option to start a conversation and kill the mood. Except she wanted it. The high from her great technical workout needed to be treated with some kind of prize. She nearly laughe
d out loud at the excuses she was making in her head. Face it. You want to screw him. Stop kidding yourself.
Her fingers entwined together behind his neck and she pulled his head to hers so she could kiss him on the lips. Carter’s body moved fluently as he rested his knees on the bench below her and pressed his upper body between her thighs. She moaned into his mouth from the hot skin contact and scooted forward to try and get closer to him. They were both slick with sweat from the sauna’s heat.
Within moments, his shorts were off and he lifted her to pull her pink panties down. He slipped a towel under her so her bare bottom wouldn’t be roughed up from the cedar wood under her. Her breath came out in gasps. She wanted him inside of her, like a primal hunger that nothing but him could sate.
He wouldn’t let her close her eyes. Every time she did, he would stop kissing her or moving his hands against her. At one point, he lifted her chin and begged, “Look at me.”
She wanted to cry out but bit her lip to stop herself. She stared into his beautiful blue eyes. “What if someone walks in?” she whispered.
He didn’t answer her. Instead, he lifted her derriere and slid inside of her, his hands grasping her glute muscles trying not to slip off from their sweat.
Jani’s eyes widened in surprise. She felt them grow big as her mouth opened to exhale a hot breath. She moved her hips against him, trying to let the sweet torture building inside of her find some release.
Carter’s breathing turned ragged. “If you don’t slow down, I’m going to come,” he panted as his hands tried to grasp her hips to slow her down. They slid against her hot, wet skin with no ability to stop her.
Jani heard his words but was past the point of being able to stop. She was sure she’d die if she tried to stop. Her heart would explode or something if she tried. She clutched her hands tightly against his neck and ground herself harder against him. Her head fell back as she felt the familiar tingling in her thighs that would ripple to her center. It surged when she felt him grow harder inside of her. She climaxed and buried her face into his chest to muffle the cries of pleasure escaping her lips.
