THE CHRONICLES OF STELLA RICE

By

Adrienne Kama

© copyright November 2005, Adrienne Kama

Cover art by Kat Richards, © copyright November 2005

ISBN 1-58608-769-x

New Concepts Publishing

Lake Park, GA 31636

www.newconceptspublishing.com

This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, and places are of the author’s imagination and not to be confused with fact. Any resemblance to living persons or events is merely coincidence.

 

 

 

CHAPTER ONE

 

Journal entry 1/10/05, 6:14 a.m.

Men suck!

Its 2005, I’m gonna be thirty-one in a few months, and my biological clock is bugging the hell out of me.

Where are all the good men? I don’t believe for a minute that they’re all either married or gay. I think that’s an urban myth propagated by married men as a way of taunting unmarried women. It’s the verbal equivalent of sticking their tongues out and wagging them at us. It’s their way of saying, “Bet you wish you’d paid more attention to me in high school.”

Well, I don’t--wish I’d paid more attention to them in high school, that is. These men operate under the erroneous premise that as a single woman gets older and sees her chances at happily-ever-after fade, the qualities she looks for in a man dwindle in correlation with the passing years. That’s not true. The sad truth is that with every passing year, my standards don’t lessen, they get higher. I figure I’ve waited this long for a man so why the hell should I settle now? At the rate I’m going, by the time I’m forty, not even the President of the United States will be good enough for me.

When I was twenty-one I could have easily fallen in love with an artist, i.e., a man without a job. You know the types. Guys who are sexy as sin, wax poetic on subjects ranging from fashion to politics, yet they fritter away their days in some dingy one room apartment in the city struggling for their craft--usually music or art. I would never even contemplate dating a man like that these days.

Today, any man I would consider dating has to have a job, making at least the same amount of money as me or more, a nice car, a 401K plan, a few well-chosen stocks, health insurance, a nice home, and good teeth. Oh, and no children. Children are non-negotiable. Children mean there’s an ex-spouse in his past. I for one have no desire to share my man with his ex.

This shouldn’t be so hard! I’m not asking for too much, am I?

Case in point–Paul the Prick.

Paul the Prick, as he’s come to be known in my circle of friends, is the latest addition to my ever-increasing list of ex-boyfriends. Paul the Prick is, quite simply, a prick!

We dated for approximately two months. Those were two of the longest months I’ve ever had the misfortune of wasting. You tell me who’s wrong.

I met the Prick at the bank when I was making a deposit. At the time he was the new branch manager. Dressed in a well-fitting black suit and looking good enough to eat, I didn’t bat a lash when he asked me for my number or when he showed up for our date wearing Versace and driving a white on white Beamer.

I enjoyed seeing Phantom of the Opera at the Hippodrome and our dinner in Little Italy.

What I didn’t enjoy were those last moments of our date when he stretched over the passenger seat, mouth open, tongue extended, and proceeded to douse my face in saliva. I can only suppose what I was experiencing was a kiss. This was unlike anything I’d ever experienced in my life. It felt like someone rubbing a wet toad all over my face. A smelly, wet toad. Even the memory of it makes me cringe.

I probably should have ended things right there and then, but I didn’t. I made the same mistake women throughout the centuries have been making. I gave him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he was nervous, or maybe he needed someone to teach him how to kiss properly, I reasoned to myself.

All illusions were quickly dismissed, however, when he showed no interest in improving his methods. Quite the contrary, all I got from him was the question, “Stella, when are we gonna have sex? Stella, when are we gonna have sex?”

How’s about the tenth of never!

Well, I finally had enough. I broke up with him last night.

No more tongue dousing for me. In fact, I decided no more men for me. They all seemed to have something wrong with them. Either they’re too short, spineless, clueless when it comes to sex, or they don’t have a job. I could go on. The list is endless.

So, it’s January tenth and I’m determined to start this year right. Number one on my list of life changing decisions: I’m on a vacation from men.

I want a real man in my bed. What woman wants to sleep with a man who whines about how horny he is yet couldn’t arouse a wanton desire in a hooker?

Not this woman. If you’re horny, show me. Don’t beg me for sex, persuade me.

* * * *

About me.

My name is Stella Rice. I’m a single, black, female living in Baltimore, Maryland. I own a condo in Mount Vernon, Baltimore’s art district, and I own my own business. The latter affords me the convenience of working out of my home. My company’s name is AIR, which stands for Accurate Individualized Resources. AIR provides business support services for corporations and small businesses, as well as offering resume services. AIR covers everything from typing up proposals to organizing multi-media presentations. AIR, helping you with your business and career goals.

Damn! There’s the phone.

It can’t be my mother calling this early … but who else would call me at this hour? Maybe I shouldn’t answer it. Maybe I should ignore it and pretend I’m still sleeping.

Argh! Stop being a wimp Stella. Grown women; sexy, professional women who attract sexy, professional men who know how to kiss don’t cower away from their phone, even if it is their mother on the other end. They answer it.

Gotta go.

* * * *

6:37 a.m.

Argh! I don’t know why I ever agreed to join a gym. I must have been experiencing a moment of masochism. I hate exercising. I hate the gym. And I hate Katarina for talking me into joining one.

Oh well. I’m off to be tortured.

Be back soon … I hope.

* * * *

8:24 a.m.

I’ve come to the conclusion that I am not only a masochist, but so is Katarina. Apparently, Baltimore is full of masochists and every one of them was at the gym this morning. They stood in military formation, waiting their turn to have the crap beat out of them by Jake, kickboxing instructor extraordinaire and owner of Fit For Life gym. What on earth possess normal, well-adjusted people to pay good money to be pummeled, assaulted, and verbally attacked? We all need our heads checked.

I met up with Katarina in the ladies locker room. By the time I got there, a little after seven, she’d already swept her blonde hair into a pony-tail, pulled on matching designer leggings and tank top, and was delicately applying a thin layer of lip-gloss. The trick was to get the lip-gloss on in a way that made your lips look moist and kissable, while not making them look like you had actually put lip-gloss on at all. It was an art, and Katarina was a master.

“You’re late again,” she said, glaring at me in the mirror as she blotted her lips with a tissue.

I shrugged. “I forgot.” Really I’d been hoping she had forgotten.

“You forgot three times last week, too. This gym costs fifty bucks a month. How can you forget something you’re spending fifty bucks a month for?”

I pulled off my jeans and T-shirt and shoved my legs into black, spandex shorts--another purchase I could blame on Katarina. I’ve no idea what I was thinking when I brought them. It was what every thirty-something woman wanted a room full of eligible men to see her in, skin-tight spandex.

“I’ll remember tomorrow.”

I know you will ‘cause I’m picking you up tomorrow morning.”

I pulled my matching, spandex tank top over my head, wrestled with it until I’d managed to pull it over my breasts, then straightened it out. I let out a yelp of surprise when I felt my hair being lifted off my back and tugged into an elastic band.

“Jake isn’t gonna be pleased,” Katarina continued as she pulled my hair into a ponytail. “You heard what he said yesterday when we were late.”

At the mention of Jake a shudder of fear swept through me. I suddenly felt like I was ten and being sent to the principal’s office. I remembered well what Jake had said. ‘You better be on time tomorrow …’ or what, I had wanted to ask, but before I could, Katarina gave me a jab to the ribs. “Maybe we should think about taking a different class this morning,” I said, hopefully. “There’s a step class down the hall, a cycling class that I hear is real popular, then there’s--”

Katarina, who apparently had scared herself with the mention of Jake, hurried to the locker where I had stored my purse. She rummaged in it for a few seconds, then came up holding one of my bottles of lip-gloss in her hand. It was the brown shade I wore whenever I wanted to appear as if I wasn’t wearing make-up.

She crouched in front of me, told me to pucker, and applied it to my lips.

“I don’t want to take another class,” she said as she worked. Her hand was moving so fast that I feared I’d come out looking more like Ronald McDonald than the sexy, kickboxing siren I hoped for. “We waited six months to get into this class,” she went on, “Adam Green even did a story on Jake for the Sun. This is the hottest kickboxing class in town. You know how many single men go to this class. We’ve already discussed this, Stella. This is an investment for the future. Our future. We can’t quit. We’ll just have to start getting here on time.”

The idea of meeting a husband at kickboxing class seemed like a good idea on paper. It was one of those, kill two birds with one stone kind of plans. Get in a good work out while meeting Mr. Right. When Katarina laid the scheme before me back in July--before I’d decided on my little vacation from men--I readily agreed.

Unfortunately, neither of us had factored in Jake, the kickboxing nazi, who took his work way too seriously. How on earth could we focus on meeting men when Jake was hogging up every spare second with exercise? After the first class I knew our strategy was doomed. Katarina, on the other hand, simply re-worked the plan and plowed on.

Knowing well when I’m beat, I sighed. “I’ll be on time tomorrow, I promise.”

She got to her feet. “Hurry up. Get your sneakers on.”

Katarina led me out of the locker room after I was appropriately garbed. I don’t mind admitting that I was hesitant about walking into Jake’s class eleven minutes late. No doubt he’d take such an infraction as a direct insult and make us submit to a whole host of unpleasant, humiliating, and physically impossible exercises. Briefly I wondered what he’d do if I simply refused. I quickly discarded the idea though, since at heart I’m a wimp and would be too petrified to challenge him.

In the similar way that many short men suffer from the Napoleon Complex, Jake suffers from the Pretty Boy Complex. Our poor kickboxing nazi instructor had the misfortune of being born with a face Caravaggio would have longed to paint. He looked Native American, but he could have been Mediterranean, Portuguese, Hispanic, or even bi-racial, who knew. Nobody was brave enough to ask.

Jake had exotic good looks. His emerald eyes were so achingly beautiful as to be obscene. His hair was long, jet-black, and lush with thick waves. On one rare occasion he paused to smile at me and I saw the perfection even held true with his teeth. Jake was pretty. And all pretty boys find out early in life that, unlike normal people, they only have five paths open to them.

The Hollywood heartthrob path

The gorgeous Rock Star path

The sexy struggling artist path.

The path of least resistance, i.e., you accept the fact that no man or woman will ever take you seriously.

The Pretty Boy Complex path, i.e., over compensation, i.e., you learn various ways to maim, torture and physically dominate anyone stupid enough to question your manhood.

Jake was constantly berating the class, ordering us to work harder, standing over us with his hands on his hips and demanding we do ‘one more’ knowing good and well he planned to make us do at least another five or six more? What was worse, I was paying this sadistic Adonis my hard-earned money to do this to me.

We reached the end of the corridor and stood before Jake’s classroom. Even though his door was shut I could hear him barking orders, sounding more like a general preparing his troops for battle instead of a kickboxing instructor.

Dread washed over me and I took a tentative step back.

“Come on,” Katarina said, still holding tight to my hand. At the same time she clasped the doorknob with her free hand, twisted, and pushed the door open.

Cool air whooshed out of the open doorway and chilled my face. Goose flesh popped out along my arms and I bit my lip. The only thing that kept me from running headlong back the way I’d come was knowing that to do so would mean dragging Katarina along with me. It was bad enough that we were arriving late. We didn’t need to compound our problems by engaging in a ridiculous tug of war at the door. Instead of retreating I stepped into the room and gently closed the door behind me.

To my surprise our arrival on the scene was barely noticed. It was a bit of a blow to my ego.

Katarina and I found a spot on the floor, settled down on mats, and began stretching.

“Stretch properly,” Jake directed the room in general. “Stretching properly will lessen your chances of hurting yourself.”

As newbies to the class, Katarina and I weren’t as adept at stretching as were the veterans. Still, I spread my legs wide, took a deep breath, and attempted to touch my head to the floor.

I didn’t make it very far.

Jake, who could do a perfect Jean-Claude-Van-Damme Chinese split, demonstrated the stretch I struggled to emulate. In the first row, directly in front of him, Julianne Saunders was the perfect mirror of him. Head placed delicately on the floor between her knees, hands clasping her ankles, and a body so tight you could bounce a quarter off her butt.

I let out a groan of disgust.

“She’s such a show-off,” Sadie, another regular, said from beside me.

I glanced at Sadie and saw her eyes were trained on Julianne. I nodded in agreement.

“Teacher’s pet,” Katarina added.

“Oh, I think she’d like to be more than that,” Jim said from the row in front of us.

I had to bite my inner cheek to keep from laughing. I couldn’t disagree. Julianne was always at class on time, always took up a position in front of Jake, and was always staring adoringly at him. It got annoying after a while.

“If I were you, Stella,” a male voice barked, “I’d be focusing more on stretching and less on telling jokes.”

I froze, mid-stretch, and looked up.

Jake loomed in the front of the room. His emerald eyes glimmered with malevolence. Hands on hips and legs spread wide apart, he raised an eyebrow, daring me to say something.

Though my face was burning with embarrassment, I gave him my most winning smile and squeaked, “Sorry.”

When he returned to the mat and I knew his focus was elsewhere, I glared at Katarina.

She grinned.

“I didn’t say a word,” I mouthed, terrified I’d attract his attention if I did more than breathe and stretch.

She shrugged.

I spent the next few minutes trying to make my body to do things nature hadn’t intended. Already my legs were beginning to ache and we were only warming up.

When Jake sprang to his feet, I knew my real pain was about to begin.

“On your feet,” he ordered.

Rather than conducting the punishment himself, though, he nodded to one of his assistants who moved to the front of the room and took up Jake’s position. Jake, it seemed, had more pressing matters to attend to.

Damn! Damn! Damn! I should have known our late arrival hadn’t gone completely unnoticed.

I watched, horror, fear, and dread freezing me to the spot, as Jake walked toward me. Katarina took a step to her right, putting just enough distance between us to make it look like she didn’t know me.

Jim glanced at me over his shoulder. “Looks like someone pissed off the teacher.”

I glared at Jim, then figured if I looked like I was doing something maybe Jake would pass me by. I jabbed the air with my right fist, following quickly with my left and repeated.

Jake breezed by me, pausing long enough to say, “Come with me, Stella.”

I looked at Katarina who was exercising with a fervor I’ve never seen, and doing her best to pretend I didn’t exist. Jim and Sadie seemed suddenly occupied as well.

Well damn the lot of them. I’m a grown woman. I’m a business owner and a professional. What do I have to be afraid of?

Making a point to hold my chin high, I turned and followed Jake to the back of the room.

He stood against the far wall, arms crossed imperiously over his chest, as he marked my progress. He’d plaited his hair today and a long, black braid hung over his chest looking disturbingly like a whip.

When I was a few feet from him he pushed away from the wall and walked to the antechamber off the back of the classroom where equipment was stored. I entered the room behind him and he motioned for me to continue in.

I did, and then turned to look at him. He leaned against the doorframe and stared at me.

“You were late,” he said by way of opening the conversation.

I smiled. “I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”

“You said that yesterday.”

He had a point there.

Instead of arguing with him, which would have been an exercise in futility, I upped the wattage on my smile.

“There’s a waiting list for this class, Stella. People who actually want to be here. If you’re not going to take this seriously, tell me now and I’ll replace you. Full refund of course, since you’ve only been here one week.”

Was he offering me an out? A chance to erase this particularly unpleasant episode of my life? It was tempting, and I wanted to accept. However, I knew if I let myself get kicked out of class, Katarina would quit and blame me for ruining her chances at meeting Mr. Right. “No,” I said quickly, staring at Katarina over his shoulder. “I promise, I’ll be here tomorrow on time. No excuses.”

He studied me for a moment, twisted around, glancing at Katarina, then returned his gaze to me. Then he did something that completely unnerved me. He shook his head and grinned.

Still grinning, he stepped further into the equipment room and closed the door behind him, effectively cutting us off from the rest of the class. “You can’t leave the class can you?”

“I can do anything I want.”

He nodded. “True. But you won’t. Not as long as Katarina wants to be here.” He smiled then, and heat rose to my face. Slowly, his eyes scanned the length of my body.

Unbidden, my flesh began to tingle. I could feel my heart thrashing around in my chest as he eyed my breasts. My stomach clenched when his eyes dipped lower, and a tickle of awareness between my thighs grew as my neglected quim came alive.

“You and Katarina are very beautiful women,” he said so softly I had to strain to hear him. “Your faces are always perfectly made up, never a hair out of place, and you seem to have bought your workout clothes from Bloomingdales. I hope you didn’t take my class as a means to meet a man. It wouldn’t be the first time a woman made that mistake.”

Crap! We’d been busted.

“The only action you’ll be getting here, Ms. Rice, will be of the kickboxing variety. Got me?”

Knew I should have worn the clear lip-gloss. “I’m not interested in men.” That’s it Stella, make him think you’re a lesbian. “I mean to say that I am interested in men, but not here. And I’d never try to meet a man during one of your classes.”

“So you didn’t join my class hoping to meet Mr. Right. Good.” He tilted his head to the side and arched a brow. “But understand one thing.”

I stare dumbly at him while my insides turned to mush. Dear God, Jake was gorgeous. I’d never been this close to him before, and being so close was intoxicating, even if he was an exercise fanatic. “What’s that?”

“I own you, Stella.”

“Own?”

He pushed off of the door and closed the distance between us. He was careful not to actually touch me, but he didn’t have to. I could feel the force of him envelope me. I was eye to chest with him. I couldn’t move or utter a word.

“Own,” he confirmed. “For the next forty-five minutes I own everyone in my class. That’s one of the perks of being the instructor.”

I stared at his chest and tried to think clearly. It was proving difficult with his enticing scent filling my nostrils. He was sticky with sweat and smelled of primal man. The musky aroma left me dazed.

“Understand?”

“I don’t know about this whole own thing, but I suppose I can see the point you’re making.” I was prepared to elaborate on my understanding of his speech when the door to the equipment room opened and a man I’d never seen before sauntered inside, long black trench coat fluttering in his wake. He was tall and lithe, with a mane of shaggy shoulder length hair the color of honey. His pale skin was flawless under the fluorescent glow of the lights, and his brown eyes scanned the room then fixed, unwaveringly, on me.

I emitted a tiny mew of pure, unadulterated lust and stared shamelessly at his glossy leather pants, marveling at how well he filled them.

Looking mildly annoyed, Jake turned to face this very enticing stranger. “Oh, it’s you. What are you doing here?”

The man shifted his focus from me to Jake and shrugged. “Need the keys.”

Crap! Even his voice was sexy. It was husky and had a slight British lilt.

“What’d you do with yours?” Jake asked.

“They’re at home.”

“I should make you wait till I finish this class.” He exhaled. “Mine are up in the office. Give me a minute, I’ll run up and get them.” Jake turned back to me. “Stella, this is Dev. Dev, Stella.”

I was going to hyperventilate, or faint, or drop dead on the spot. Being in a tiny little room alone with Jake and maintaining a cool, detached façade was difficult enough without adding his gorgeous friend, Dev, to the mix. I didn’t know where to put my hands, how to stand, or where to look. Having spent my last thirty years around decidedly average, ordinary looking men, I was completely out of my element.

“This couldn’t possibly be the Stella you told me about, Jake?”

Jake glided past Dev, nodding in the affirmative as he went. “That’s her.” He paused at the door and turned briefly to face me. “I’ll be right back, Stella. Will you wait for me before rejoining the class?”

Wait there, with Dev? “Sure.”

Then, with a click of the door behind him, Jake was gone. And I was alone with Dev. And my throat was suddenly very dry. What had Dev meant by asking if I was the one Jake had told him about? What had Jake meant by saying yes? Jake talked about me to his friends? What did he say? Why did he say it? Was it good talk or bad talk? Should I ask Dev what Jake said or would that seem desperate? Better not to ask, better to feign indifference.

I jumped about a hundred feet into the air when Dev stepped forward. His leather coat whipped around his ankles. He was wearing black leather biker boots that ended just under his knees. Very, very nice.

“You don’t seem the type to be in one of Jake’s classes.”

“Huh?”

“You don’t seem the type to be in one of Jake’s classes.”

“I don’t?”

He closed the distance between us, moving forward until I again found myself face to chest with a man. “No, you don’t. You seem rather…” He frowned for a moment and stared at the back wall, “…innocent.”

“Innocent?”

“You don’t have that harsh look about you, that hard-eyed, determined look I see on the others. Most of the women who come to this class come for one reason.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. They come for Mr. Right.”

Dev brushed an errant brown curl from his eyes and grinned. “Yeah, and for them Mr. Right’s name is Jake Santos.”

Was that what Jake had been getting at with his little speech? Did he think Katarina and I had joined this class in hopes that one of us could land him?

“But like I said, you don’t seem the type. You’re not the sort of woman who’d need to spend fifty dollars a month to meet a man.”

Ha! If he only knew. “Thank you.”

“You’re very welcome.”

“ Are you British?” I blurted, surprising myself with my tactlessness. “It’s just, I notice you have a slight accent.”

“Irish, but I’ve lived in the states so long the Irish has been diluted out of me. I moved to Virginia with my family when I was twelve.”

“Have you been back home…to Ireland I mean?”

He nodded, sending his lush waves bouncing around his head. “A few times. How about you? Where are you from?”

“I’m boring. I’m from Maryland.”

“Never lived anyplace else?”

“Nope.”

He shoved his hands in the pockets of his coat and smiled. “So tell me the truth. Do you enjoy Jake’s class? I took it once a few years back and absolutely abhorred it.”

I couldn’t help but smile back at him. “It’s all right. He’s very thorough.”

“Thorough isn’t the word. Wanna see what I could do by the time I left his class?”

Eager to find out, I nodded.

“All right then, watch this.” He slid out of his coat and handed it to me. “It’s the most useless thing in the world, except, of course, when I’m trying to impress a beautiful woman.”

I giggled, rather stupidly, and hugged his coat to my chest. The leather was supple under my hands and smelled of cologne and soap. I watched him grab a metal chair from a corner of the room and set it a few feet in front of me. When he got on all fours, facing away from the chair, I was tempted to ask what he was doing, but I figured it out when he propped the tips of his boots on the metal seat and set his weight on his arms.

“You watching?”

“I’m riveted.”

Lifting one hand off the ground so all of his body weight was resting on his left arm, he proceeded to do twenty one-arm push-ups, ten on each arm. He did them quickly and without seeming to exert much effort. His movements were smooth and efficient, much as Jake’s would have been if he’d been doing the push-ups.

“Liked that did you?” He rose to his full height and grinned. “I can tell you’re impressed. I can see it in your eyes.”

“In my wildest dreams I couldn’t do that.”

“I can do twenty-five on each arm … of course Jake can do fifty. He’s annoying that way.”

But I could tell by glint in Dev’s eyes he wasn’t annoyed by Jake. The way he spoke of my sadistic instructor made me think Dev was actually very fond of him. “I can do twenty push-ups, but only if I use my knees.”

“Is that right?”

I nodded. “Yep.”

“Can I see?”

“See what?”

“You do twenty push-ups.”

I opened my mouth, then shut it with a snap. “Are you serious?”

“I showed you mine…you know what comes next.”

How on earth could this sweet, down to earth guy be a friend of Jake’s? “All right, I’ll show you. But you have to promise not to laugh. I’m not very good.”

He covered his heart with a palm and nodded. “You’ve got my word. I won’t crack a smile.”

Feeling idiotic, I handed his coat to him then lowered to my knees.

His thighs were splayed before me, and his booted stance was wide. As I knelt there, an unexpected surge of desire had me struggling to catch my breath. More embarrassing, when I chanced a look up at his face I saw the edge of his lip quirk up into a, half smile. “You sure you can do twenty, Stella?”

I sat back on my heels. “Did I say--?”

Dev nodded. “Twenty.”

“All right. Here goes.” I knelt forward and began.

Eight push-ups in, I knew I was in trouble. There was no way I could possibly do twelve more of those things, half my weight resting on my knees or not.

Dev seemed to be coming to the same conclusion.

He crouched, setting one knee on the floor in front of me and resting his elbow on his other knee. “Why don’t you stop at ten?”

I grunted out two more push-ups, shaking my head in the negative. “I-can-do it.”

“Rest for thirty seconds, then do the last ten.”

I collapsed on the floor, gasping for air. It was pretty safe to assume I wasn’t at my most alluring.

Unexpectedly, the equipment room door shut--I hadn’t realized it was open--and I knew by the sound of the heavy footfalls coming toward us that Jake was back. “You’re upper body strength is non-existent.” Jake advanced, jangling a key chain from one hand and surveying me with obvious displeasure. “And your lower body strength isn’t much better.”

He crouched beside Dev, then spent the next twenty seconds ticking off a list of my weaknesses, expressing his shock that a grown woman could take such poor care of herself, and making a whole host of suggestions on what I’d need to do to improve my body. They all sounded unpleasant and painful.

“You’re weak Stella,” he continued, bringing his lecture to a close. “You should consider acquiring a personal trainer. Only with extensive work on your part, and the personal attention a trainer can give you, do I see any real hope for you. I have five personal trainers here, and on occasion, depending on the client, I also give personal attention to my clients.”

Dev elbowed Jake in the side, something I would have loved to do myself. “What a horrible thing to say to a woman.”

Rubbing his side gingerly with two fingers, Jake faced Dev, wide-eyed and surprised. “I’m her instructor; it’s my job.”

The two stared at each other, and I could see some silent exchange passing between them. A moment later, the corner of Jake’s lip nearly curled into a smile. When I looked at Dev, he was smirking.

What was that all about?

“If that’s how you do your job,” Dev began again, “I’m surprised your students haven’t banded together and beat the shit out of you.” I felt his eyes glide in my direction. “His problem, Stella, is that he’s forgotten how a woman’s supposed to look. You’re perfect the way you are, don’t listen to him.”

I would have smiled at Dev, but I was too busy trying to figure out what just happened. “I’ve got ten more to do. You have anything else to say Jake, or can I finish?”

Jake nodded for me to continue.

As I struggled to do my nineteenth push-up I glanced at him again. I hadn’t meant to look at his crotch, but I couldn’t help it. Positioned as we were with my stomach down and Jake crouching, knees spread wide, in front of me, I couldn’t help but look.

My quivering arms gave out at once, I landed hard on the floor, and an intoxicating blend of erotic need and carnal desire had me gasping for air. I looked at him again--looked at it again--just to be sure my eyes weren’t playing tricks on me.

They weren’t.

He got to his feet. “So we’re agreed that you’re going to be on time to class from now on, right Stella?”

I was too stunned to look at him, to look at either of them so I mumbled “yes” into the side of my arm.

“Good. Catch your breath then rejoin class.”

“It was nice to meet you Stella.” Dev gave my shoulder a squeeze, then got to his feet as well.

I nodded. “Yeah. You too.”

Then both men left.