Captivated

Alyssa sat in her car, staring up at the daunting building before her. After a long, stressful day at work, the last thing she wanted to do was work out at the gym. She tried telling herself that it wouldn’t hurt to skip one day, but she knew that if she fell off the wagon now, it would be far too easy for her to do it again.

She’d skip this one time, getting a taste of how easy and relaxing being lazy for a night would be, and that one time would turn into two, which would turn into three, and before she knew it she’d be paying a membership fee to a gym she didn’t even attend anymore.

With that, Alyssa pushed her car door open with a grunt, slamming it behind her angrily. She hated exercising, but after getting winded after climbing the stairs to her flat because the elevator had been broken for a day, she realized that was pretty sad.

Alyssa scowled as she grabbed her gym bag from her back seat, shutting the door and locking her car before stalking up toward the gym. It was late, almost ten in the evening, but Alyssa liked going at that time. The gym was open twenty-four hours, but it was fairly empty during the later hours. The less people around, the better as far as Alyssa was concerned. To get that result it was either going at ten at night or before the ass crack of dawn in the morning, and there was just no way that was going to happen. She was determined to get in shape, but she wasn’t that determined.

She threw the bag over her sore shoulder, wishing she could get a massage after the long, grueling hours she had put in at her job. It wasn’t exactly a physically taxing job being a receptionist at a law firm, but the amount of paperwork she had to finish and file in the last couple of days was much larger than usual and her neck and shoulders were paying the price for it.

Smiling politely at the skinny bitch behind the counter that was always way too damn happy, Alyssa made her way into the women’s locker room and changed into her exercise clothes. She locked up her bag and other belongings in a locker and stretched a bit against the bench.

She used to do her stretches outside, but there were also cons to coming to the gym at ten o’clock at night. Mainly it was creepy guys being sleazy, but usually after they realized Alyssa was not checking them out in return they would go about their business and leave her alone.

As she made her way out of the locker room, Alyssa debated on what she wanted to start her workout with. She decided to start with a cardio warm-up, then do some weights, and finish with a little more intense cardio. She was angry with herself for leaving her iPod at home, but she had been charging it and had forgotten all about it on her desk.

The gym pumped music through its speakers and had televisions going though, so at least she wouldn’t be completely bored out of her mind. She got on an elliptical and focused on the television, trying to drown everything else out around her, including her aching body.

After about fifteen minutes, Alyssa hopped off the elliptical and went over to the weightlifting area, rolling her neck and stretching her arms a bit before sitting down at the lat pulldown machine. She began her reps and focused on steadying her breathing as she pulled the handle and cable down.

Halfway through her reps, she watched as someone she had never seen before entered the weight area with her. Sure, there were a few new people here and there, but usually Alyssa saw the same people at the gym every night during this time.

And yeah, there were always a couple new faces every once in a while, but none of those faces were this…cute. Alyssa completely lost count of her reps as she looked over his fit body from head to toe. She cursed under her breath as he sat at the machine in front of her, which happened to be the shoulder press. And just her luck, the machine was sat sideways, so she was able to watch every glorious flex of his glistening biceps without looking like a total creep. He was directly in her line of sight; she didn’t have to move her gaze at all to see him. And she was loving every minute of it.

Alyssa had absolutely no idea how many reps she had done or how many she had left, but she desperately wanted to stay where she was and watch this new guy continue to work his muscles. The way his shoulders bulged and the way his forearms tightened was almost more than she could handle. She finally came to her senses however, realizing she’d look odd if he finished his set and she was still at the same machine.

At last, she got up and went over to the leg extension machine, half relieved and half depressed that she couldn’t see Mr. Hottie any more. A little while later, the breath was knocked clear out of her as he came over and sat at the machine right next to her, which happened to be the leg press.

Since the machine was so close to hers, he had to shimmy by her to get behind his machine and adjust the weights. “Hi, sorry,” he said, slipping past her. She thought she caught an accent, but she wasn’t sure.

“No problem,” Alyssa smiled, trying to focus on her movements. Once he had adjusted the weights to his liking, he slipped between the machines again, both of their backs facing the same wall and giving Alyssa a nice view of his legs.

He wasn’t directly in front of her like last time, but since the leg press required his seat to be low to the ground and his legs up on an incline, he couldn’t see her eyes glued to his thighs. The basketball shorts he was wearing rode up a bit at his position, and Alyssa kept willing them to ride up just a little bit more. She nearly had a heart attack when he began his reps, watching as the muscles in his thighs and calves flexed and contracted.

Alyssa let out a slow breath between her lips, closing her eyes for a moment to steady her heartbeat. Once again she had no idea where she was in her workout, so she just decided to stay on the machine through one more song that was blasting through the speakers.

Once the song was over however, Alyssa saw that the guy next to her seemed to not be stopping his leg presses any time soon, which caused her to hesitate for a moment. She wanted to keep watching him, but she knew she had to get up soon. She was being ridiculous, but she had to admit that if this guy was a regular of her gym, she would not mind coming at all.

Finally, Alyssa tore her gaze off of the mystery man’s legs and got off her machine. She traveled to a few other machines, forcing herself to focus and not let her gaze wander to find out where the new guy had gone.

His gaze, however, was focused completely on her. Having done the same exercise routine for years now, he was able to go through the motions and have his attention entirely focused on something else without losing any effectiveness. He stood at the free weights, doing bicep curls as she sat at the chest press.

He knew he shouldn’t be staring at her the way that he was, and he never would be if she was paying any sort of attention. But as his luck would have it, her eyes were shut as she concentrated on her breathing. The tank top she was wearing was loose and faded, and that coupled with the movements of the chest press was giving him quite the show of her cleavage.

He hadn’t noticed her right away, not until he was half way through his set on the shoulder press, the first machine he had used. He had been zoning out, but he caught her rising off of her machine out of the corner of his eye, and he hadn’t been able to stop eyeing her since. He had even followed her over to the leg machines, although he justified it in his head by saying that was where he had been planning to go next all along.

She was starting to work up a sweat, and her body was just beginning to glisten. He was really knocked on his ass though when she smiled at him. Suddenly he decided to just concentrate on his work out and let her concentrate on hers, because nothing good could come out of approaching her. He was only going to be in this city for another day or two, and then he’d be off again, so it wasn’t fair to either of them. And since he definitely wasn’t the love ‘em and leave ‘em type, he figured staying at a safe distance was his best bet. That didn’t mean he couldn’t look at her, though.

His eyes followed her as she moved away from the weights and walked to a treadmill. She stepped on and pressed a few buttons, working up to a fast jog. He inwardly groaned as he watched her, just as any man would if they saw an attractive, well-endowed woman jogging. He was close enough to see a bead of sweat trickle down her neck and into her cleavage, and he nearly dropped the dumbell he was using. He set it down lightly and went over to the punching bag, desperately needing to release some tension. He wrapped his hands and set to work, trying not to think about the brunette bombshell on the treadmill behind him.

Meanwhile, Alyssa was trying not to trip over her own feet as Mr. Hottie went to town on the punching bag. She could see his back muscles rippling through his tight t-shirt, like they were straining to break through. She had to grip the sides of the treadmill to keep from completely collapsing when, out of nowhere, he gripped the bottom of the cotton material and stripped it off over his head. He tucked it into the side of his basketball shorts before delivering blows to the bag once again.

Now she could really see the muscles in his back flex, as well as his rock hard abs tighten every time he rotated his body. Her mouth was suddenly very dry, and she didn’t care anymore about her workout. This was all just adding more tension to her body instead of releasing it, so with one final look at the man in all his sweat-glistened and toned glory, she shut down the treadmill and made her way over to the water fountain.

She pressed the button and bent over, allowing the cold water to soothe her dry throat. Once she was satisfied with her drink she straightened back up and stepped backward, only to have her back collide with someone’s front.

“Oh, sorry,” they both said at the same time, his hands coming to her arms to steady her in his grasp. She glanced down at the arms, feeling somewhat embarrassed that she already knew who they belonged to. She had stared at him long enough today to know for sure.

“I suppose I should have given you a bit more room,” the man said, even though he had known what he was doing all along. He had seen her looking at him while he was at the punching bag, and suddenly he couldn’t take it anymore and he decided he needed to talk to her. He had watched her go over to the drinking fountain and saw his opportunity, finding himself, coincidentally, a bit parched as well. She had taken a very long drink, but it’s not like he minded having her bent over in front of him. “Sorry,” he added, giving her a smile that knocked the wind out of her. And, she noted, he most definitely did have an accent. A British accent.

“Its okay,” she responded. “I should have been looking where I was going, sorry.”

“I think we’ve both said sorry enough,” he chuckled, extending his hand “I’m Liam.”

“Alyssa,” she answered, feeling heat shoot up her arm from where he gripped her hand.

“Oh damn, sorry,” he removed his grip from hers, moving to pull the gauze off his hands. “I forgot I taped my hands up for the punching bag.”

“No problem,” Alyssa assured, waving him off. “Do you box?”

“Nah,” Liam replied, unwrapping the tape. “I mean, for fun, sometimes. But not like, professionally or anything. You?”

Alyssa snorted and shook her head. “No, not at all. I always thought it would be fun to take up, like kickboxing or something. But I can’t even throw a proper punch.”

“Proper punch eh? You’re starting to sound like me,” he grinned, referring to his British accent.

“Yeah, what are you doing all the way over here, anyways?” Alyssa inquired, referring to the fact that they were in Chicago.

“Working mostly,” he answered vaguely before nodding his head over towards the punching bag. “C’mon, I’ll give you some pointers.” He knew right off the bat that she had no idea who he was, and he hoped to keep it that way in order to have a nice, normal conversation with someone without any pretext.

He just wondered how long he was going to keep lying to himself about just wanting to converse with her.