BENCHED (29 page)

"The sun is almost up," he observes. "I have to leave. Seriously."

"Jason," I warn him. "No more stunts. No more presents, no more airplanes. If my mother hears of it once more, I'll be leaving here whether I want to or not."

"I understand. I'll see you on Saturday, Princess."

He slides out the window. I almost say "No, you won't." He waves to me before he climbs down. I almost say it again. I almost say it over and over until he's out of earshot, because I don't know if it's true or not.

I could lose everything. I could be dragged home against my will, never to see this beautiful, strange country ever again.

Or I could live another year like a prisoner. Sometimes I don't know if the guards and servants and walls of this house are here to keep the world out, or to trap me inside.

All I know is that my knight has come to offer me an escape.

If I am brave enough.

J
ason

I
need
a cold shower right fucking now.

So much so that I turn the water on, twisting the dial halfway, and get under the water.

Fully clothed.

I scream, because it's fucking cold, but I grin and bear it. The water feels like it's boiling into steam as soon as it touches my skin. Oh, it's cold. It's freezing. It still doesn't touch the fire inside. I feel like I swallowed a locomotive. My lungs are on fire, molten rock has replaced my heart, and burns in my belly.

The erection doesn't fade until I stand back and let the frigid water flow down my front. I strip off, the wet clothes plopping at the back of the bathtub as I pull them off. Eyes pressed tightly shut, I try to think about something else. Baseball. Apple pie. The drag coefficient of a toaster. The Missouri Compromise.

Now that I've seen Anastasia's writhing, naked body, flushed and sweaty, her eyes wild with lust, I don't think I can see anything else.

There's a pounding on the door.

I shut the water off, grab a towel, and swing it open.

"What?"

Akele stands in the hallway in a pink, fuzzy robe and slippers that look like bear claws.

"I need a shower." He shrugs.

I brush past him, dry off in my room, and dress. When I get to the kitchen, the brothers are already concocting breakfast.

"Gym," I grunt, then chug down a protein shake.

"Gym," they agree.

I'm in no mood to chat, so I make it a run to warm up, carrying my gym bag in one hand, switching every few paces. My head swims, my chest clenches, and I realize the next three days are going to be among the most difficult of my entire life.

When I reach the gym, I find it mostly empty. On off days I don't use the athletic facilities. I jog down to the open student gym and work out there. More time to myself, more time to think. This early the place is deserted, save for the one staff member who sits at a rickety desk by the entrance, working on her homework.

"Hi, Jason," she says without looking up.

"Melissa," I acknowledge.

She's wearing one of the damn shirts.

I grab a locker, drop off my bag, and head out to the floor. Stretches and some bodyweight work for warmup, and then I start loading the bar for squats. I'll do a pyramid, really push myself.

On the third set, I hear the door of the gym open and close and pay it no mind. I rack the weight and throw on two more forty-five-pound plates, bringing the total up to seven on each side, plus the bar. One more and I'll be at my five-rep max and start scaling back. My legs are already on fire.

Professor Grandolf walks into the gym and acts like she's surprised to see me. She's dressed in skintight yoga pants and an athletic bra, with a towel over her shoulder and a water bottle that still has the price tag on it.

"Oh, fancy meeting you here," she says.

"Doc," I grunt.

I'm not in the gym for chitchat. Especially not with her.

"You come here often?" she asks.

"Yeah."

"Funny we've never had a run in. I come in all the time."

"Yeah. Great."

She whistles tunelessly as she sets a bar in the uprights in the squat rack beside mine and starts loading it. I keep my eyes on my own form as I start my next set, oblivious to her presence.

When I finish and rerack the bar, Grandolf is still going, counting out loud between reps, her skintight pants stretching so much I can see she's wearing a thong every time she dips.

If she thinks this is going to work, she's out of her mind. Not a chance. After she racks her weight, she takes a big gulp of water. It flows down her chin and into the open top of her bra, which is about a size too small.

"Hard workout, huh?"

"Yeah."

I go back to ignoring her, beginning the process of stepping down the weight, one set at a time.

Grandolf is still squatting when I finish, unload the bar, and move to the next station.

After I rack the weight following my warmup set of bench presses, she leans over me, grinning as she looks down.

"Need a spot?"

"No thanks, I got it."

"I don't mind."

She plants her feet and sets her fists on her hips to watch me raise and lower the bar. I push her out of my head. I can't lose focus with over three hundred pounds in my hands, over my damned head. I rack the weight again and sit up.

I feel her hands on my shoulders. She sits down on the bench behind me. I grasp her wrists. I carefully lift her hands from my neck.

"Thanks. I'm fine. Go work out."

She pouts and walks over to the dumbbells, and starts doing goblet squats. Squat, squat, squat, every exercise she does is for her ass.

Not my problem. I can't see her while I'm benching, or while I'm doing bent over rows. After that I'll be doing some heavy bodyweight work, with a belt, in the other room on the chin up and dip bars.

By the time I'm finished, she's still hanging out in the free weight area, although she's taken up a pair of dumbbells and is lying on her back, squeezing her breasts together with every rep until they look ready to burst out of her top.

I don't spare her a single glance. I walk past to the locker rooms.

After I shower and walk back to the bench in my flip-flops, I stop. I hear feet scuffing on the concrete floor.

It's her.

"What the hell are you doing?"

"Jason, we need to talk."

"Are you crazy? You can get fired for this."

She smiles, not her usual predatory grin but a real, warm smile, almost motherly. She steps close to me and touches my stomach. I back against the lockers.

My arms start to rise, and I freeze. I can't just shove her. She may be a weird, horny college professor that's trying to sleep with me, but she's still a woman. I won't put my hands on a woman, and I won't tolerate anyone who does.

"Please stop touching me."

"Jason, listen to me," she purrs. "That girl is going to hurt you."

"Who?"

"That bi… the princess. Anastasia," she spits the name like a curse. "I know her type. Stuck-up, cold, and a dead fish in bed. She's not what you need. You don't need a little girl. You need a woman."

"I really don't want to have this conversation."

"Oh, Jason." She starts rubbing my chest. "I know how hard you have it. You're so closed off, but you need to let someone in. I could be good to you. I'll let you do whatever you want with me. I'll suck your cock right here. You can fuck me in the ass if you want. Anything, I mean it." She flutters her eyelashes. "I'm begging you. I'll ride you after you get too tired to fuck me. I've seen you looking at my body. I know you want it—"

I take her upper arms in my hands and lift her bodily from the ground. I very carefully set her to the side, grab my bag, and carry it to another part of the locker room.

"Jason—"

"Stay the hell away from me."

I yank on my sweats, pull my shirt on so hard the seams pop, and roughly stuff my gear in my bag.

She grabs my arm as I leave, clinging to me. I finally give her a short, sharp push, on the shoulder.

"Do not touch me. I'm not interested in you. At all."

She whimpers, standing there, and her lip trembles. A tear slides down her cheek.

Oh great, now I feel like shit.

"I have feelings for someone else. You just have to accept that."

I storm out of the gym, past a bewildered Melissa, who only just now looks up from her art project.

Outside, I don't give Grandolf a chance to catch up to me. I run, as my grandpa once said, like a motherfucker.

A
na

W
hen I finally have a moment to
myself, I sit down at the computer and buzz Konstantin for a video chat. The call goes through after a minute, and his haggard face fills my screen. It's late at night back home, and I clearly woke him up. He yawns and brushes his fingers through his silver-blond hair, and takes a swig of water. He smacks his lips, loudly.

I run over and make sure the door is locked and hunch forward, speaking in a low voice.

"Brother," I choke out.

"Ana," he says, too loudly.

I turn down the volume.

"You seem upset?"

I chew my lip. "Jason came to the house last night. He came here."

"Oh did he?" Konstantin says, his tired face suddenly lightning up. "Did you enjoy yourself?"

"It wasn't like that… yes. We didn't… I mean I did but he…."

I hug myself.

"Sister, you're beet-red. You needn't share the details. I can gather enough. So he, shall we say, took care of you?"

I nod.

"Good, I daresay you needed it. I'd think you'd be more relaxed."

"Relaxed?" I snap. "Konstantin, he wants me to date him. Be his woman. Whatever you want to call it."

"Good! You should."

"I can't!"

"You must."

I clench my fists and smack my thighs. "Konstantin, I can't. If Mother finds out…."

"Mother won't find out."

Exasperated, I run my fingers through my hair. I want to yank on it.

"There are newspaper people following me around taking pictures of my butt all the time!"

"I know. I've seen the fan pages."

"
Fan pages?
"

"Here, I'll send you a URL."

I click on the website, and it pops up in another window. The biggest picture, filling my screen, is a zoom-lens photo of my buttocks in stretch pants, midstride. My face turns redder and redder as I scroll down.

There is an entire website devoted to my ass.

I move Konstantin's window to the side of the screen and buzz Dee.

She answers in text.

D
ee
: Can't video chat now, in class.

I
grit my teeth
.

A
nastasia
: Did you know there was a website about my ass?

D
ee
: A website? Honey there's like a whole network of sites about you. Don't look at the one about your feet.

"
K
onstantin
, did you know there's a website about my feet?"

He sighs. "You know, it's not like I go around actively looking at sexy pictures of my sister. For the record. Yes, I knew about it."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"How exactly am I supposed to work that into a conversation, Ana? 'Wow, check out these pictures of your feet'?"

"Why my
feet
?"

"I don't know. I don't get the foot thing either."

"How did they get so many?" I gasp, scrolling through the site. "I am never taking my shoes off again."

"It's four in the morning," Konstantin yawns. "You know I love you, dear sister, but I have important carousing to attend to in the morning."

I sigh and close the chat window I opened with Dee.

My lip starts to tremble, and Konstantin's expression changes. He's one of the few people in the world who's seen me cry. I can't even cry to my own mother.

"Ana? What's wrong?"

I shake my head. "I can't, don't you understand? How can I fall for him if I can't keep him? Sooner or later I have to come home, and then Mother will make me marry Mortimer."

Konstantin stiffens. "I'll challenge him to a duel."

"Oh please."

"I'd win."

"No, you wouldn't. You'd fight to first blood and he'd make sure he cut your face. It's what he does. I can't bear that."

"You can't bear marrying that walrus poker, either."

"You don't understand."

"I know, I know, I can sleep with anyone I want, meanwhile Mother would put you in a chastity belt if she could."

"Don't give her any ideas."

Konstantin laughs.

I wave his mirth away. "He wants me to go out with him for one week."

"An entire week?"

"What? No, he means every night, I think. Date him. Like normal people do."

"Do you want to?"

"Yes," I say softly. I shift in my seat. "I told you before. I see all the other people happy with their paramours, and I just… I want that. With him. I think he may really care for me. And I want to have sex with him."

Konstantin jams his fingers in his ears. "Gah! Spare me the details."

I stick my tongue out at him. "Why? You never spare me yours. You never sleep with a girl without telling me her cup size and whether she likes to be on top or on bottom."

"You're the chronicler of my deeds, fair sister. Just don't return the favor."

"Jason has a huge cock."

Konstantin yelps. "Enough! Please. I can't think of my sister doing that."

I snicker, and it begins to grow into a laugh, but fades away slowly.

"I don't know what to do, Konstantin. I want this, but I'm afraid. What if I fall for him?"

"Then you fall for him. So what?"

"I told you, I can't—"

"What good is being queen if you can't do as you like? Marry some other man if Mother makes you, pop out an heir, and keep this Jason on the side."

"Is that what you'd do?"

He shrugs. "Maybe. Fortunately, I'm the spare, not the heir. Mother insists I stay unmarried, and tells me to pull out. Frequently."

"Eww."

"I know, right?" He shudders. "She went into detail on how I should handle it."

"Oh God. Stop."

He sighs. "I really must rest, Ana. Do what your heart desires. I have your back. Also tell this Jason if he hurts you, I'll feed his heart to an eel."

I laugh, sadly. "Go get your sleep, brother."

He waves and signs off.

I rest my chin on my hand and stare at nothing, hoping for an answer. What do I do?

J
ason

W
hen I get back
to the house, the Thunder Brothers are already there and have started on the meal they affectionately refer to as Elevenses. There's enough meat on the counter to feed ten people, and that's besides all the peanut-butter-infused oatmeal. I find their eating habits frightening and confusing.