Adonis Line

By Dakota Gray

I’m a saint. On paper.
I have a stable job as a personal trainer. My side hustle involves taking people out on hikes and pushing them to their limits. I love my friends and family equally.

Every now and again, I need the itch between my shoulder blades branded with scratch marks.

I’m haunted by that phantom ache when Nina Williams walks into my life to hire me for a hiking contest. Killer, dimpled smile, potty mouth, sharp mind and a confidence that makes me want to beg.

She doesn’t want to want me. Yet, with a past as complicated and dark as mine, we’re destined to cross every line she puts in place.

If I were truly a good guy, I would have wished her luck and turned her away.

But how can I? That nameless thing inside me that feeds on sex, adventure and the promise of redemption just got invited to play.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bryant Street Publishing
• Release date: Apr 27, 2021
• ISBN: 9781094417806

Dakota Gray

Dakota Gray is the author of the Filth series. She’s a longtime romance reader and she’s not ashamed to fangirl over heroes with dirty mouths, dirtier minds and a soft heart. Gray writes the heroes you shouldn’t take home to mom, sassy heroines and sigh-worthy happily ever afters.

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1

Nina

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Tarek Hunter watches me as I climb onto the treadmill in his territory of the London-Berg gym. After two weeks I can call this our ritual. I come in. He stops floating around the room, helping the people in his area. I work up a sweat. Sometimes, when I slyly look his way, I catch him fixated on me.

This man is my only hope, my last hope of securing a hiking guide for my trek across California for a photography contest. (Star Wars pun not intended.) It’s just a matter of asking him, which is a little more complicated than I initially anticipated.

My phone rings, tugging my mind away from the sour patch it wants to frolic in. Without losing my pace, I stick the earbuds in my ears then answer my cell. I’m running. Literally.

Layla ignores this, her voice tight with anticipation. Did you ask him yet?

My baby sis is invested in this whole operation of begging for help because she has a husband, two kids and is bored as a housewife. She doesn’t believe me when I tell her this though. She’s still working through the idea that being a SAHM may not be for everyone.

He’s just watching me as usual, I tell her.

This is why I call you. Anyone else would be curious about a woman who occasionally makes eyes at him. This guy—nope.

Maybe, I seem a bit untrustworthy. I’m not good at subterfuge.

He might also be the kind of person who gets off on looking without touching. He’s had practice, because I always feel fucked from a glance. His gaze has caressed the dimples in my cheeks, the curve of my full lips. It’s taken a handful of my stomach and hips, squeezing me tighter. Right at the apex of my thighs, there’s just a quivering aftermath of his stare.

Being checked out by the likes of Tarek Hunter is not the sticking point.

He’s a solid guy. I know this. I kind of—totally—investigated the shit out of him after a handful of clients recommended him. He’s in his thirties. Obviously, he’s employed as a personal trainer at the London-Berg gym. On the side, he takes groups out into the wilds to hike and live off nature, or whatever. I’ve studied pictures that litter his Facebook and Instagram. He’s often standing on mountains, cliffs, or stark terrain. And there are so many women.

Some of them are covered in sweat, a wide smile on their face like they’ve accomplished something huge. Other times, it’s a woman looking languid and self-satisfied in soft focus on a balcony.

The London-Berg gym doesn’t have a balcony. I can be Pollyanna and assume those women are friends or clients in a more personal setting. Or I can use logic and assume those are postcoital snapshots taken at his home.

I lost the ability to be Pollyanna years ago.

Couple that easily-attained knowledge with the night I spent in Fade chatting up drunk girls in the bathroom, I’m well-aware Tarek and his boys are known for fucking anything that is sentient. Since having a long list of lovers doesn’t make someone automatically untrustworthy in my book, I know Tarek Hunter is a solid guy.

None of that is my problem. It’s that I’m all for going into situations blind and winging it, but I know I can’t do the trek on my own. Admitting that stings. I need my independence. I need to be able to walk away if it’s for the best. That often means not depending on someone else, but I need Tarek.

Annoyed with myself, and my inability to ovary-up, I say Layla—

I’m also calling because I popped a bag of popcorn and want to hear the excuses you tell yourself today. You could just go right ahead and ask him to be your hiking guide. Yet, you haven’t. You guys are in a wordless stalemate. This is better than any Basketball Housewives Kardashians.

Little sisters are such assholes.

I, also, haven’t asked Tarek to be my hiking guide because my pussy is banging a drum to the tune of let’s-have-a-taste-of-him, which shoves him back into suspect individual territory. I don’t want to want him. Wanting him means I can’t entirely trust him, and I need to.

See the conundrum? Welcome to my life.

Seriously, all I need is to not get lost in the woods while taking pictures, and ya know, survive in the wild. Me, the city girl until I die. Yeah—nope. I have to ask the one person left on my list, the one everyone I know and respect has recommended. I’m just stuck in this cycle of not wanting to ask for help at all, and definitely not asking Tarek.

I sigh. I don’t have any excuses left. I leave in a week. It’s so late in the game I’m practically asking a stranger for a favor.

The sound of a bag rustles on my sister’s end, and then she’s chewing in my ear. Trust me, I know when you leave.

It’s a kneejerk reaction to reassure her. It’s only two weeks, and I’m going to call you as often as I can.

It’s just with Ron off on business and the kids off with the in-laws for granddaughters time...

See. My sister is restless. I’ve told her for the last six months to go get a part-time job that gets her out of the house. Find a hobby...that gets her out of the house. Find anything that will eat up her time and make her happy. She so wants to be the stay-at-home-mom because ours rarely was.

My mom and my dad had a Stedman-Oprah kind of love—my mother’s preferred choice. Since she had it in her head she needed to be uber independent, she’d often work double-shifts at the hospital as an RN. She missed elementary school recitals. Mother and Daughter breakfasts. Rinse, repeat. It’s not like our mother needed to work that much. My dad’s a real estate agent and makes bank on commissions alone.

Because of that, though, my sister vowed to never let her kids experience the same kind of mother absenteeism. Why? The matriarchal curse of trying to be the opposite of everything you hated about your mother. Making this the hill my sister has decided to die on. This also means she’s decided to vicariously live through me. I don’t mind it. I love my sister. She was there when I needed her the most, at my lowest. I’m trying to do the same.

I’m going to ask him today come hell or high water, I announce. We’ll go from there.

You’ve sent me a picture of yourself. We know he’s very hetero. Your cleavage is a vortex. He’ll say yes with the lizard part of his brain.

I’m a photographer. I’m always taking pictures of myself when there’s good light. And, yeah my cleavage is always an advertisement for big titties-r-us. And with all that he hasn’t even said hi.

Well, he looks like he’d have a discount card at big titties-r-us.

I don’t even bother to laugh. Bye, Layla.

Text me an update, she rushes out before I end the call.

I punch random buttons until the treadmill slows down. After the machine tells me I’ve hit a mile, I slap at the off button. I mop at the sweat on my face and neck. It’s also my subtle way of peeking behind the material to see where Tarek has gone. I can’t see him, but I can feel the heat of his stare.

I should be grossed out or peeved, right? There’s a man leering at me. My lizard brain just roars he is the most fuckable man on earth. Every inch of him is cut with muscle, and the left half of his back is covered with tats. I know this because two weeks ago I might have been walking past the men’s locker room. Totally in an innocent fashion.

There he stood in a towel with his back to me. Water slid and dripped from his taut frame, and he didn’t bother to wipe down. My eyes followed the droplets of water. They trailed from the top of his shoulders. At the top of his back, Tarek had a quote that said, You are the creator of your own destruction. I couldn’t make out the swirls of art that writhed down one side of his spine. I might have lingered longer than acceptable trying to see every inch of inked skin but checked myself before he turned around.

My intensive perusal only helped me come to the same conclusion my gut yelled at me. He wouldn’t get winded easily. He’s known for having a demeanor one can stand for hours on end. He loved a physical challenge—a man doesn’t get cut like that on a whim.

Sometimes when Tarek gets lost in thought, the skin beneath his eyes hollow, turning his brown gaze dark, haunted. Like recognizes like.

So…today is the day I stop being filled with indecision.

Movement catches my eye in the mirror. Tarek. I let the towel hang from my hand as I hold his gaze and then turn to walk over to him. Each step has a bounce from the cushioned floor.

One of his brows goes up, practically taunting me. Finally? His fade is long enough to have waves, but the tapered edges are clean. The scruff crowding his jawline only highlights his full mouth, wide nose, and the wicked glint in his gaze. He knows he’s fine. Knows it. I can tell from the way he continues to block traffic in the doorway like he owns that space just to watch me walk.

I would write him off as deep as a shallow pond, but the two scars along his shins—thick but old—tells me his life hasn’t been carefree. Scars can tell one hell of a story. I know mine do.

A few feet away, I give Tarek my best smile that showcases my dimples. One sits firmly between my jaw and my cheek. The other is off-center, sitting to the side of my lips and chin. I learned long ago I could use them as weapons to soften blows or conceal them entirely. They work their magic because a smile starts in his eyes.

He's outfitted in a black shirt, gray sweats, and running shoes. I tilt my head, since he’s taller by at least a foot. Although his shoulders take up the doorway’s space, he still has a neck, unlike a lot of men who work out hard and long.

One corner of his mouth rises higher than the other. You know, smirk-like, cocky. The kind of smile only certain kind of men have—ones who know their dick stroke is lethal to common sense.

I would really like to talk to you about something. I sound breathy, which isn’t my intent. This is what I get for thinking about sex and him in the same thought. I smash down the lust and get a grip. Are you free?

There, much better.

He sucks in a breath and lets it out slowly as though I’ve asked him a weighty question. I have a client coming in about fifteen minutes, and I need to prep. His gaze slides down and then up.

I should be offended he’s not being subtle as he checks me out. I’m still reeling from how his timbre abrades my skin leaving goose bumps in its wake. Jesus.

Okay, I manage to say without sounding like I’m about to come.

The workout will take about an hour or so. How about you give me your number and we can meet up for drinks. There’s a place right around the corner from here.

I can only say one thing because I have a week to get him to say yes or I’m fucked. Sure thing.

We exchange numbers. He sends me a text with the address. All the while I can just...feel him. He’s a prickle along my skin and a nervous flutter in my stomach. He smells nice too. I expected a combination of sweat and gym musk or Axe body spray. Yet the air is tinged with laundry soap. Had my intentions been anything else I might have pressed my face into his shirt. I wouldn’t have had any shame being the first woman to motorboat a man with taut, muscular pecs.

But that’s not why I need him. I hate needing him in the first place. I’ve already mentally flogged myself for wanting him. The situation is what it is. I slip my phone back into my bra and move past him to start the process of looking like a human being sans Lycra.

What’s your name? His voice slides into me, deep and gravelly.

The question shocks me into a hard blink and a half-turn to stare at him in shock. I know almost everything about him and had forgotten he doesn’t know me from Adam. Nina. Nina Williams.

I’ll see you later, Nina. My name strums through me.

Tarek doesn’t give me time to recover. He pushes from the wall and enters his domain in long, unhurried strides. He has a nice ass, carved from lunges and damn good genetics. I'd bet my last dollar he has an Adonis line carved into each side of his pelvis.

None of that is important. I’m not in the market for digging my nails into every inch of his taut flesh. I shake away the tendril of lust because I need him to say yes to my hiking proposition. No other answer will do.

2

Tarek

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On the best of days, I look like an overgrown jock with my muscles, tats and a penchant for wearing gray sweats. The assumption that goes along with that is when I put two plus two together, I get seven and a half. But I’m far from stupid.

Something’s not right with Ms. Dimples.

Still, I squint after her as she heads toward the locker rooms. Her ass is a helluva fucking view. It’s wide and round and bounces with each step. If I let my dick lead me around that’s all I’d focus on. Takes a Herculean effort to keep my blood pumping to my brain so I can think.

For the past two weeks she has strut onto my section of the gym to fight it out with a treadmill. Her uniform includes a thin crop top, a black sports bra underneath and black tights with a neon-colored stripe down the sides. Today’s stripe is hot pink. The best part? She’s showed off her not-so-flat middle like she doesn’t give a fuck she’s surrounded by women who look like models. That’s why my gaze has eaten her up.

She’s confident, and yet she has guarded brown eyes. Sometimes her gaze takes measure of me, in a slow, dizzying way that makes me feel like bone and muscle and man. Her hair is a mass of kinky curls that’s dyed pink and silver. The pink fades into the silver. I don’t know why that detail matters, but the choice feels like it tells me something about her.

Last but not least, even though she sweats like a mutherfucker during her workout, she wears earrings and lipstick. Always. The lipstick thing is why I want to fuck her the most. It’s like she has a pep talk with the makeup. You bet not smear.

It’s a completely illogical thought. Me and my dick don’t care. My and D's only focus is her bottom lip. It’s full and perfectly round and would look lovely wrapped around...No. Stretched, so fucking stretched, by my cock.

And that is why I call foul on the whole situation. I don’t need to have a conversation with her to know she has a prissy streak that runs a mile long. She’s like that chick from that old school Billy Crystal movie—she wants vanilla ice cream with the chocolate fudge on the side. Prissy women don’t go for me. Professional, educated, and everything in between, fuck yes. They come to the gym and eye-fuck me until we fuck because those types of women love a man who looks like he’s rough around the edges and only knows a good time. Prissy women see me and know the score. I’m a mess. Not worth the trouble to fix or fuck.

So why the cautious come-hither from her when she must know the truth about me with a look? Unlike my friend Nate, I have no plans to get curved by a pretty woman with a mouth I want to defile. And I definitely have a past that comes with consequences.

I check my watch. With ten minutes before my client is due, I head down to security to get a photo of Nina. Next, I make my way over to membership. Five minutes left on the running clock, I confirm the mystery woman’s name is, in fact, Nina Williams.

I hit the back hallways to get to the stairs. My mind already on the last step in my mission to find out the truth before life headbutts me with karma, I dig my phone out and call my friend.

Need a favor, I say without bothering with a hello.

Jesus Christ, not another goddamn hike. And that’s Duke in a nutshell. He answered my call on the first ring, and he likes to bitch about things he’s going to do anyway.

I don’t know why you’d be bitter about it. You got laid on the last one.

I doubt I can talk Kennedy into another hike.

Kennedy loves hiking and Duke. If my friend asked his girl to go on a hike, she would do it in a heart beat. You’d use your fiancée to get out of one?

I’m not above that, and we both know it.

Shaking my head, I climb the stairs two at a time until I can push through the door, back on my floor. I grab