Free Peachy Keen by Kate Roth Page A

the elevator on the way to his room, but my stomach pitched as his lips came for mine in what felt like slow motion. It wasn’t memories of him losing his dinner near me. It wasn’t the heat beating down on me and the light breakfast I’d had. Something else was turning me off. To him. To the whole idea of what I’d just agreed to.
    I turned just in time and his lips pressed against my cheekbone. I felt him breathe a laugh against my skin. He took my chin between his fingers and made me look at him.
    “I have to go,” I huffed, though a smile painted my lips. “My class.”
    Nate stepped back and released me from his grasp and the barricade his body created. “I guess I can wait until tonight,” he replied.
    Forcing another smile, I called a breezy “Okay!”and rushed for the gym, feeling queasy right down to my bones. I just wasn’t sure why.
    ***
    A bead of sweat trickled down the curve of my spine as I tilted my head back to guzzle half of my bottled water. The room cleared out and my heartbeat was returning to normal. It had been a few months since I’d gone to the gym I’d fallen in love with in Philly. I’d gotten pretty addicted to it for a while, taking every class I could, from plain old eighties style aerobics to Zumba. Working up a sweat to good music had a way of putting an instant smile on my face. It reminded me of my days on the dance squad in high school when I didn’t have one damn care in the world. If dancing around to Britney Spears could make me this happy then there was no reason why I shouldn’t be doing it at least once a week .
    Wiping my lips, I sighed and pulled my hair down, letting it fall over my shoulders. I was still catching my breath when the class instructor, Jolene, walked up to me with a brilliant smile on her face.
    “Hey, Blondie, you were fantastic! I take it this wasn’t your first time.”
    My mouth curled up slowly. The striptease aerobics class had been the first thing to excite me on the Desire schedule I’d been handed upon arrival. And the class didn’t disappoint. Getting a workout all while letting my hands slide across my body like they were someone else’s—learning just how to move like the queen of the champagne room—brought out the rawest version of my inner sex kitten. I couldn’t believe how amazing it felt to surge my confidence with a few dance moves.
    I offered Jolene my hand. “Georgia, but Blondie works, too.” I laughed. “Actually, this was my first. I’ve danced before—not, like, as a stripper—I just mean like dance classes and workouts.”
    Jolene, whose name suited her perfectly, right down to the flaming hair which most definitely was a salon job, put one hand on her hip, accentuating the hourglass shape of her body barely covered in tight athletic gear. I kicked myself for fumbling over my words. She’d told us all at the beginning of the class that she was a former exotic dancer in California. She certainly had the look, almost distractingly beautiful. Her eyes sparkled when she gaped at me. “Well, Georgia, I hope you don’t mind me saying that you look like a natural. Will you be at the couples’ workshop tomorrow?”
    I nearly laughed. During the class, we learned the sexy routine that surprisingly felt like a good mix of core strengthening and cardio. The moves had us body-rolling and mock-stripping to empty chairs that we straddled by the end. Jolene told us to imagine it was later that night and we were with our guy, ready to give him the night of his life.
    The command caught me off guard. I wasn’t expecting my all-female exercise class to remind me how couple-centric Desire was after all. It took all of my strength to keep my invisible man rotating between my favorite male celebs, not including my now sometimes-roommate Evan Weston. He’d been removed from my lady action vault as soon as Danielle told me about meeting him. Knowing he struggled to remember to put the toilet seat down helped keep him from making