Page 57 of Turn Me On

“I’m not sure I’ll ever be done with that.” It comes out serious. Intense.

My dick hardens. Great, now I’m bench-pressing with a boner. I’m a world-class idiot. But you know what? I don’t fucking care, because the man I want is here with me, getting sweaty.

We move through chest presses, lateral raises, upright rows. As Maddox levers the weights for a triceps extension, a bead of sweat slicks down his neck. I groan low in the back of my throat.

Maybe he hears me, because he dips his face, hiding the start of a smile.

Damn. This man makes me smile too. The fact that he showed up here makes my whole week. “So, you’re such a rules guy you justhadto do weights today,” I muse as I begin dead lifts.

“I like lifting,” he says as he picks up the twenty-pounders.

“You’d have been a wreck if you missed arm day,” I tease.

“Muscles don’t make themselves,” he says drily.

I roll my eyes, laughing. “Just say it. You fucking came here for me.”

He laughs wickedly. “You cave easily. It didn’t take long at all for you to change tactics.”

“So you admit it then,” I press.

“I neverdidn’tadmit it,” he corrects, then sets down the dumbbells and heads to the chest fly machine.

“Bet you had flies on your to-do…” I can’t finish.

The view. The fucking view fries my brain as Maddox parks his fine ass on the machine and spreads his legs.

My breath hisses.

I stop mid-lift. It’s impossible to look away as he grabs the machine’s handles and slowly pulls his arms toward the center of his chest. On each release, his arms stretch as wide as they can, leaving him vulnerable, bound by the machine.

“Maddox,” I groan. “Don’t move.”

He complies, holding the spread as if I’d tied him down, arms strapped to the sides of a bed. His eyes flicker with burning intensity. “I won’t move,” he says in a filthy bedroom promise of…submission.

I lower the weights, stalk over so I’m facing him, and set my hands on the handles. “I didn’t ask you here to seduce you,” I confess, meeting his eyes.

He breathes out hard, rough. “Are you going to, though?”

“I want to.” Permission matters, so I ask the next question very deliberately. “Can I?”

“Yes.”

That firstyescranks my engine, but there’s more I need to know. Desires we’ve only touched on. “You like this position? In bed? You like being tied up? Held down? Bound?”

His eyes are wide, flickering with vulnerability. Is this hard for him to admit? I fucking hope he’s comfortable sharing his wants with me. Then, heat flashes in his irises as he answers confidently, “Yes.”

I want to clutch hisyes, carry it with me all day, all night. I want to tuck his consent in my pocket and savor it. His wishes are beautiful. That they match mine is a goddamn gift. “That’s what I want too,” I say, opening myself up as well, meeting his desires with my own.

“I had a feeling,” he says, deliciously sarcastic.

I’m standing, and he’s sitting, immobile, held in place by the machine and me. “Pick a safe word,” I say.

“Daquiri,” he says with a wicked grin.

I smile, a dirty kind of bliss running through my body. “Perfect.”

Then, his smile burns off. His dark gaze swings to his right hand, then his left. It’s an invitation. “You’ve got me where you want me. What are you gonna do?” His voice is sandpaper.