Tryst Six Venom by Penelope Douglas

smiles down at me, a clipboard in one hand and her blonde ponytail more
white than Clay’s golden. She assists in the P.E. department, having
graduated last year; but for some reason, she remains part of the eighteen
percent of Marymount graduates who don’t advance to the Ivy League.
She still has time, though. Only nineteen and lots of people take a gap
year.
I continue my rep, blowing out my mouth. “Trying to learn Spanish.”
“All by yourself?”
“Yeah, why not?”
She cocks her head, studying me, and I don’t know if it’s the way her
eyes linger or the smile she tries to hold back, but I drop my gaze, awareness
prickling my skin.
“Yeah,” she finally says. “Why not, I guess?”
Setting her clipboard down, she moves around behind me, placing an
underhanded grip on the bar for support. “Can I offer a suggestion?”
I meet her eyes, still aware of Clay’s presence ten feet away.
“Widen your grip,” she tells me, holding the bar as I push my fists out
until they touch the weights. “And straighten out your wrists. You’re putting
too much pressure on them.”
I do as she says, conversations going off around the room as I lower the
bar again and raise it back up.
“Hurt a little more now?” she teases, looking down at me.
I nod. “Yeah.”
“Good.”
I keep going as she walks around me again, and then I feel her palm on
my stomach. I warm under my skin.
“Press the small of your back into the bench, Liv,” she instructs.
Her gentle hand makes my breath hitch.
“Feel that?” she asks, pressing harder as my back hits the bench. “It’ll
work your abs while you work your chest.”
“Thanks.”
And sure enough, I start to feel the burn in my tummy as I continue my
reps.
Taking up position behind me again, she spots me as I lower the bar and
push it back up, her perfume tickling my nose, and it’s not at all unpleasant.
Footsteps still pound the treadmills, a constant thrumming in the
background, and I suck in air, filling my stomach, before exhaling nice and