NOAH

The treadmill sat in the corner of the gym like a sleek, black predator. I looked at it. It looked back. Neither of us blinked.

"Thirty minutes," Cassian said, his voice bouncing off the mirrored walls. "Start slow."

You can do this, Noah, I told myself, stepping onto the belt. You are a person with legs. Legs were made for running. This is fine. You’re fine. This is going to be great, actually. You’ll get that ’runner’s high’ people talk about. You’ll be glowing.

I pressed the start button. The machine hummed to life, and I began a very dignified, brisk walk. I felt good. I felt productive. I even adjusted the collar of the oversized t-shirt like I was a pro. See? Easy. This is incredibly easy. What was everyone’s problem with cardio? This is literally just walking on a moving floor.

Cassian was standing to the side, arms crossed over his bare, sculpted chest. He was watching me with an expression I couldn’t quite read, but I should have known better. He saw my confidence, and he decided it was unearned.

Without a word, he reached over and tapped the speed arrow. Twice. Then three more times.

"Oh," I said as the belt lurched forward. Then: "Oh no."

My legs suddenly had to negotiate with the floor at a much higher frequency. The negotiation failed. I went from a brisk walk to a panicked trot, and then to a full-blown run.

Thirty seconds in, my breathing changed. The "glow" I was expecting turned out to be a frantic, sweaty red. My cardiovascular system, which had been living a very comfortable and unchallenged life of sitting in office chairs and lying on sofas, was now very upset about the change in management.

By the one-minute mark, my internal monologue was dark. If a zombie apocalypse happened right now, I would be the guy who trips in the first five seconds of the movie. I would not be a main character. I would be the cautionary tale. They would name the episode ’The Guy Who Couldn’t Run Two Minutes’ after me.

Cassian didn’t say anything. He just stood there, the picture of calm, watching me struggle for oxygen like it was a spectator sport. There was a tiny flicker of amusement in his eyes—controlled, but definitely there.

Two minutes in, I was personally offended by the concept of air. Every part of me was asking questions, and none of them had good answers. My lungs were burning, my legs were heavy, and I was pretty sure I was seeing spots.

Finally, mercifully, Cassian hit the stop button.

I didn’t just step off. I sort of stumbled off and immediately sat down on the floor. Then I realized sitting wasn’t enough, so I lay flat on my back, staring up at the gym ceiling.

"I’m done," I wheezed to the light fixtures. "I’m finished. Goodbye, world."

Cassian looked down at me, looming over my field of vision. "You barely started, Noah."

"I know," I said, not moving a single muscle. "I’ve accepted my fate. If you wanted to kill me, there were faster ways. More enjoyable ones, too."

The implication hung in the air between us. I didn’t take it back. I was too tired to be embarrassed. Cassian’s mouth quirked into that almost-smile of his, the dangerous one.

"Get up," he said.

I looked at the floor, then at him. "You want me to hold myself up with my arms? On purpose? After what just happened to my lungs?"

"Position," he commanded.

I groaned but rolled over, propping myself up on my elbows. My form was... approximately correct. If you looked at it from a distance. In the dark.

Cassian crouched down beside me. The proximity was immediate and overwhelming. I could smell the sweat and the heat coming off his skin. His hand found the small of my back, pressing down lightly but firmly.

"Keep it flat," he murmured. "Don’t arch."

My body received this information via two separate systems. System One: The muscles being corrected. System Two: Everything else. System Two was significantly louder.

"Don’t let your hips drop," his voice was low, right near my ear. I could feel the heat of his breath against my skin.

Technically, I was holding a plank.

In reality, my brain had checked out entirely.

His hand was warm and deliberate. There was nothing accidental about the way he touched me.

Every point of contact was a choice. I found myself thinking thoughts that had absolutely nothing to do with core strength and everything to do with what other instructions that voice could give me in a different setting.

"Breathe," Cassian said quietly.

I realized I had actually forgotten to do that.

I took a shaky breath, not because of the exercise, but because having him this close made the air feel thin.

"Rest," he finally said, removing his hand.

I collapsed instantly, face-planting into the mat. "Thank you," I muffled into the foam. "I thought I was going to die. I still might."

"Push-ups," he said.

"I need a minute."

"You have thirty seconds."

Someone save me.

My push-up form was a disaster. I was shaking, my elbows were flaring out like bird wings, and I was pretty sure I wasn’t actually moving more than an inch.

Cassian didn’t let the tragedy continue. He crouched again, his hand finding my shoulder and adjusting it. "Too wide," he muttered. He moved his hand down to my wrist, repositioning my arm with a firm grip. "Here."

Then, he hovered briefly over me to demonstrate. The proximity was staggering. I was trapped between the mat and the heat of his body. My arms were technically supporting my weight, but my brain was busy recording the way his muscles moved and the way he looked from this angle.

"Lower," his voice rumbled in my ear. "Controlled. Don’t drop."

I did the push-up. I also had several vivid thoughts about the way his voice sounded when he gave orders or when he was groaning out of pleasure in my ears the night before.

The thoughts and the push-up were competing for the same mental resources, and the push-up was losing badly.

How long? I wondered. How long before I just say it out loud? He knows. He absolutely knows he’s doing this on purpose. He’s always doing this on purpose. I hate him. No, I don’t. I hate that I don’t hate him.

Then came the squats. Cassian stood directly behind me this time, "spotting" me. His hands were near my waist, not quite touching, but close enough that I could feel the static in the air.

"Chest up," he said. The warmth of him was a wall at my back.

I did the squat. Every time my form slipped, his hands would find my waist for a brief, electric second to pull me back into alignment. Gone as soon as the correction was made.

This is a health hazard, I thought, my heart racing for all the wrong reasons. This gym is dangerous. Someone should report this. I should report this. To a lawyer. Or a priest.

"Stretch," Cassian finally said.

I was already on the mat, defeated and sweaty. "Is this the part where you ’help’ me?" I asked, my voice dripping with the specific tone of someone who knows exactly what’s coming and is powerless to stop it.

Cassian got down on the mat beside me. "Leg up."

The stretches were the worst part. Or the best, depending on how much I wanted to lie to myself.

Each one involved Cassian’s hands on me, guiding, holding, pushing.

During the hamstring stretch, he pressed my leg toward my chest, leaning his body into the movement. His face was inches from mine, my leg acting as the only barrier between us. The contact was everywhere.

Jesus Christ.

I wanted to grab him and kiss the hidden smirk out of his face.

Then the hip flexor stretch. His hand stayed on my hip, his thumb pressing firmly into the muscle.

I made a sound, a small, sharp gasp, that I immediately tried to pretend was a reaction to the physical tension. It wasn’t. It was the way his thumb moved.

Finally, the shoulder stretch. He sat behind me, his hands on my arms, drawing them back to open my chest. I felt his chest press against my back, his breath hitting the nape of my neck.

"Hold it," he whispered. "Don’t pull away. Breathe through it."

Every instruction was a weight. Every touch was a question I didn’t know how to answer yet.

By the time we were done, forty-five minutes had passed. I was lying on the mat, my muscles humming with exhaustion, my breath uneven.

And I was hard. Inconveniently, completely, undeniably hard.

Cassian didn’t look away. He stood over me, looking down with an expression of pure, unadulterated knowing. He had been fully aware of my reaction the entire time. He’d probably been counting the seconds until I hit my breaking point.

He leaned down, his voice a low vibration at my ear. "You might want to do something about that, Noah."

He gave a deliberate, brief glance downward. Just to let me know he’d seen.

My face turned a color that I’m pretty sure isn’t found in nature. "I’m going to shower," I said, scrambling to my feet. I tried to assemble my dignity from whatever scraps were left on the floor. And honestly? It wasn’t much.

"Alone."

"I’ll join you," Cassian said simply.

"You won’t!"

"I know every thought you’ve been having for the last forty-five minutes, Noah," he said, stepping closer. It wasn’t a boast; it was a statement of fact, like the weather.

I opened my mouth to argue, then closed it. A rebuttal required the thoughts to have been different. They weren’t. I had been a mess of desire and desperation since the treadmill started moving.

I turned to stomp toward the door, trying to maintain some level of "offended assistant" energy. I didn’t get far.

Without warning, Cassian reached out and lifted me. He didn’t even break a sweat. One second I was walking, the next I was over his shoulder like a sack of grain.

"Put me down!" I yelped, though my body was secretly, traitorously grateful for not having to walk on my sore legs anymore.

"You’re sore," Cassian stated. "I’m helping."

My dignity filed a formal complaint, but my body overruled it immediately. I stopped fighting.

He carried me into the massive, marble-tiled bathroom and set me down. We stood in front of the wide mirror together. Both of us were sweaty, flushed, and far too close.

Cassian reached for the hem of his own shirt, the one he wasn’t wearing and then realized he’d already taken it off. He moved to the waistband of his sweatpants instead.

I watched him. I couldn’t look away. As the pants dropped, the full, intimidating fact of his dick was revealed again. It didn’t matter that I’d seen it before.

It hit me the same way every single time—a physical weight in my chest, a sudden, sharp hunger that bypassed my brain and went straight to my blood.

The desire was loud. It was a roar in my ears. I stood there in his oversized t-shirt, looking at him, and the wanting was so intense it felt like it might actually bruise.

I want to suck his dick