Free Pure & Sinful (Pure Souls) by Killian McRae

sarcasm clearly wasn’t affected by her insomnia. “Yeah, Dee, thanks. Sleep, right. I’ll get right on that. Why didn’t I think of that while I lay awake all last night?”
    Rising from his chair, Dee circled the desk. He sneaked an arm behind Riona’s back and guided her through the door.
    “Come on, sweetie. The gym doesn’t open for another half-hour. Why don’t you go hang out in the hot tub and relax a bit? Let your muscles get a little TLC. Then I’ll take you to my apartment upstairs so you can get some sleep.”
    Even as he led her towards the women’s locker room, she felt the pain in her head begin to subside. Wow, the power of suggestion, she concluded. Maybe Ramiel was right. Maybe what she needed wasn’t more ibuprofen or coffee, but just the proximity of her teammates. Odd, though, that Dee’s presence alone was enough to begin easing her anxiety. She thought she’d need Marc nearby too.
    “I don’t have a swimsuit,” she tried to argue, though a little voice in the back of her head was telling her to shut the hell up and find the hot tub already.
    “Don’t need one. No one else will be in there until at least seven. Just don’t stay in too long. Leave your clothes in one of the lockers in the women’s room. Plenty of towels to wrap up in afterward. Come grab me when you’re done and I’ll take you upstairs.” He laughed into the back of her hair. “I promise, it’s cleaner than my office.”
    “Thanks, Dee, you’re so sweet.”
    “No problem, sunshine. Just trying to make sure our fearless leader gets what she needs.”

CHAPTER 8
    Whatever mojo Dee had worked, the healing magic regulated itself to Marc’s arm and disregarded his back and shoulders. There, the dull ache caused by overexerting himself still nagged with the tenacity of a Jewish mother telling her son to find a good temple-going girl and marry already. And of course, being overly confident in the abilities of his late twenty-something body to resist injury, he didn’t remember to bring anything for pain.
    In his locker, his cell phone beeped. A text message asked if he could fill in at noon mass for the ailing Father Paizetscki. Running the necessary T-route through his cerebral mush, he concluded he’d be left with a couple hours to head back to his apartment and at least try for a little catnap. He didn’t know how, but he suddenly felt like the sandman had finally remembered his digits. Looked like Dee’s plan was finally working. True, five a.m. workouts were a killer, but at least, then he wasn’t at risk of seeing the perky, blonde MILFs in form-fitting Nike gear on the rowing machines, like the time he’d come in after matins. A coy smile covered his face when he thought of his personalized prayer. “Lord, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the spinning class…”
    The clock over the locker room door read six forty-nine. The club opened to the public at seven, giving Marc and his menaced muscles ten minutes in the hot tub before suiting up and heading home.
    His eyes strained in the dim light of the spa room as the scent of bleach and the mist of moist air hit him, making his empty stomach lurch temporarily, then subside into peaceful bliss. The jets must kick on automatically before the club opens, he concluded, given the foggy, steam-filled quality of the room. Whatever the case, the combination of the white noise that was the churning of the water and the smell of sanitized H-two-oh combined to lull Marc immediately into a nearly hypnotic state. Leaving his robe hanging on the hook by the men’s locker room door, he tiptoed carefully up the two steps to the lid of the tub and eased himself into the water. 
    “Blessed be the hot tub vendors, for their products rock.”
    In miraculous fashion, his muscles uncurled and unknotted, growing pliable under the aquatic massage. Better than shiatsu and yoga combined, his limbs rejuvenated in moments, all hints of pain slaking away. The workout