Take a Chance on Me (11 page)

I swallowed, forced myself to look more serious, and said into my cell, “Really? How short staffed are we?” I paused again.

Chance said,
“Very.”

“But Mama’s doing okay?” I waited for a reply.

“I’m going to guess that she’s rapidly improving,” Chance finally said. “She needed her rest.”

“No, Dimitri,” I replied. “I’m not at all surprised that she’s resting now. Those migraines really wipe her out. Can you handle The Gala alone or do you need me to come back.”

“I need you to come back. Now,” Chance said, his voice more amused than I would have liked.

I glanced at Grant, who looked over at me with concern. But then he turned his attention back to his cell phone.

Until now, I’d been debating whether or not I’d follow through and actually leave. Grant’s nonverbal indifference pushed me to make my decision.

“Okay. I’ll come home right away. See you soon, Dimitri.”

“Very soon, I hope,” Chance replied with a low chuckle.

I clicked off my phone. “I’m so sorry, Grant. My family needs my help at The Gala tonight. I’m glad I got to spend such a wonderful afternoon and evening with you, though. The lake cruise and dinner here—it was wonderful,” I said, and I meant it sincerely.

“I understand,” he said. “I’ll drive you back to the dock so you can get your car.”

“Thank you.”

I let out a sigh of relief when I was safely back in my own vehicle. Grant was a decent and honorable man, but I could tell he wasn’t too disappointed about my leaving. He had people to connect with and messages to respond to. And, as it turned out, so did I.

There was a text waiting for me on my phone. I pulled into an abandoned store parking lot a few miles away to answer it. Chance had written:

Heading back to Mirabelle Harbor?

I texted back:

Yes. Thanks for helping me.

He replied:

Anytime
.

Then, ten seconds later, he added:

Meet me at the gym.

Was he serious about making up the workout session I’d missed today? I couldn’t really go home yet. It wasn’t even eight-thirty, and my family didn’t expect me to return until eleven-thirty or midnight tonight. If I got back this early, there’d be too many questions. I’d be dealing with enough of an inquisition when I told them later that I wasn’t going to continue to date Grant.

To Chance, I wrote:

I don’t feel like working out. Besides, I’m not dressed for it.

As if he’d anticipated my reaction, his reply came back within seconds:

There’s more than one kind of workout, Nia. Clothing can be optional.

My mouth dropped open. Well, I couldn’t just leave it at that, could I? So, I texted:

Are you propositioning me?

His reply was swift:

Not yet. If I were propositioning you, I’d say to meet me at my apartment. But I said to meet me at the gym.

This was followed by a smiley emoticon and the words:

I’ll be waiting.

Curiosity about what he was up to and what he might have in mind for tonight left me a little breathless. I responded:

Fine. I’m on my way.

Then I started driving again.

~*~

When I got to Harbor Fitness, there was a guy sitting at the front desk that I’d never seen before—probably because I’d never been in here at night. Aside from him, there were only a few hardcore exercisers on the treadmills and weight machines.

And then I saw Chance, leaning up against the doorframe to the employees’ lounge behind the desk. When I walked up to the front, he smiled.

“Glad you could make it, Nia,” he said. Then, to the other guy, he added, “I’m grabbing a couple of towels, Raj. And this.” He dangled a key from his fingers.

Raj nodded. “No prob. See ya later, man.” He and Chance fist bumped.

There was a wire rack with laundered and folded white towels behind Raj. Chance snatched two large, fluffy ones and pointed toward the locker rooms.

I’d always come already dressed for my workout sessions, so I hadn’t needed to go into the women’s locker room before. Chance handed me a towel and said, “Take off as much as you want and wrap yourself up in this. Then meet me in here.”

He indicated a wooden door that was situated exactly between both locker rooms and labeled “SAUNA.” With the key he was holding, Chance unlocked the door, raised an eyebrow at me with a look of challenge, and said, “See you inside.” Then he strolled into the men’s locker room with his own towel.

Oh, my…

I mentally skimmed the text he’d written a half hour ago.
There’s more than one kind of workout, Nia. Clothing can be optional.
I laughed. Chance Michaelsen was a deceptively clever man. And a sensual one. He understood the art of foreplay.

I undressed quickly, leaving on just my panties, and wrapped myself up in the large towel. Everything else, I secured in one of the metal lockers.

Chance was already sitting in the warm sauna, his towel wrapped securely around his waist, when I slipped into the room.

“It’s going to take a few minutes to heat up in here,” he told me. “We keep the thermostat off unless a client requests some steam.”

Chance was mistaken. It was already
very
hot in the sauna, and it was getting hotter by the second. After all, I was standing just a few feet away from the guy and he wasn’t wearing a shirt. I could see every single ripple of well-defined muscle in his chest. I considered it an act of extreme self restraint that I didn’t reach out and run my palm across his pecs and abs and whatever else caught my eye.

“I suppose this is easier than doing weight exercises,” I said.
But
only technically.
I sat gingerly on one of the benches across from him and tried to keep from staring at him. Whenever I looked too closely at his torso, I felt like I was running a fever.

He laughed. “Maybe. But an occasional sauna cleanse is a good thing for your body, too. Opens up the pores. Relaxes the muscles. Removes the toxins. And, best of all, it can give the mind a break.”

I nodded. As I settled back further on the bench, feeling the temperature in the room really spiking now, I was just beginning to realize how long it had been since I’d been able to sit still, let go of my body’s tension, and just
be
.

I pulled my hair back off my neck and away from the beads of sweat that were forming there. Chance’s eyes watched me as I fashioned a little twist and tucked the hair carefully so it would stay up.

“Cool how you can do that,” he said, “without a mirror or a hair clip or anything.”

“It’s not a big deal,” I said with a shrug. But I couldn’t dismiss Chance’s gaze. He was watching my every movement, noticing each inch of exposed skin, which wasn’t much on my side, really. The white towels gave comprehensive coverage. They were jumbo sized, so only my shoulders, arms, lower thighs, calves, and feet were visible.

But Chance took in every bit, and I squirmed under that level of scrutiny.

We sat in silence for a long time.

Finally, he cleared his throat. “So, Nia, is Grant Jordan still your boyfriend?”

I shook my head. I hadn’t said any official breakup words to Grant, which would really be more like, “Hey, I don’t think we should hang out for a few hours during the weekend anymore.” Our relationship had hardly been the stuff of soulmates. But, after tonight, I knew I didn’t want to go back to Grant’s large but lonely mansion.

“My parents liked him a lot, though,” I explained to Chance. “They’ll be disappointed.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Are
you
disappointed?”

“No.”

He abruptly stood up and walked over to me. With no shirt fabric as a shield, there was nothing that could camouflage his incredibly buff upper body. Bet he did more than torso twists to get that six pack, huh? Even more than wanting to touch him, though, I wanted to know what he was thinking. My attention kept getting drawn back to his face. To his inquisitive hazel eyes.

He stood in front of me and pulled me to standing. “Turn around,” he whispered.

“Why?” I murmured, glancing at the door. There was an oval sliver of a window where people walking by could peek in on us, if they were so inclined.

“I’m going to rub your shoulders,” he said simply. “Don’t worry. I’ll stop anytime you want, but now’s the best time to loosen those tight muscles. You can lean against the wall for balance.”

There was almost nothing in the world I wanted more than to feel Chance’s hands on my skin. Between his nearness to me, my anticipation of his touch, and the blazing temperature of the sauna, I could only take quick, shallow breaths but, nevertheless, I turned around.

From the very second his fingertips connected with the top of my shoulders, it was all I could do not to gasp or moan. He had magic hands, that man. A grip that was strong, firm, but not pinching. My neck and shoulders had never felt better.

I could only imagine what he could do to my back if I were to throw the towel on the floor and let him rub whatever he wanted, or wherever he wanted. Aunt Helen would be evoking all kinds of prayers to the blessed Virgin if she knew what I was thinking.

“You really missed your calling,” I managed to say.

Chance made that low chuckling sound that sent a bolt of desire from my ears to my toenails. “I have some background in deep tissue and Swedish massage,” he told me. “Board certified, actually. But I’m very selective in choosing my clientele for that service.”

The air in the sauna must have hit about three thousand degrees when he spoke. I was burning up. But he continued to rub only above the towel line. Nothing remotely inappropriate. And his self-control made me want to scream, “Go lower! Push the towel down, Chance. Tell me you want me half as much as I want you.”

Instead, I just sighed, and his fingers stilled.
No!

He very gently turned me around to face him, lowered his head until his lips were millimeters from mine, and whispered, “Number 127 Arpeggio Avenue. Apartment 3.”

“What?” I asked. There was steam all around us and, more than that, my brain was in a fog.

“That’s my address. Just two blocks south of here.” He paused. “It’s your choice, Nia. But remember your question when we were texting tonight? When you asked if I was propositioning you?”

I nodded. Oh, yes. I remembered.
If I were propositioning you, I’d say to meet me at my apartment…

“So,” he said slowly, “if you would like, meet me at my apartment.” Then Chance smiled, stepped away from me, and walked out of the sauna.

Chapter Eight

~ Chance ~

Jogging with a hard-on was painful, I discovered, but only part of my problem was physical.

As I raced back to my apartment, lit a few candles, and tuned my stereo on low to LOVE FM, the only thought in my mind was, “Would Nia show up?”

I didn’t trust my clock. I stared at it until it flipped to the next number. How could one minute take so damned long? Was it running slow? The minutes ticked by with the speed of a comatose glacier. Seventeen minutes. Nineteen minutes. Twenty-three freakin’ minutes.

Then there was a soft knock on my door.

Thank you.
Glad to know there really
was
a God.

I opened the door.

“May I come in?” Nia asked sweetly. She was so proper, so polite. But I looked closely at her expression. There was a fire in her dark eyes that had me wanting to yank her into my apartment and take her immediately to bed.

But I only said, “Absolutely,” and ushered her into my living room.

She glanced around, taking it all in. “You’re a minimalist.” She smiled, but she spoke the truth. I wasn’t much into accumulating stuff.

“I like to keep it simple.”

“Apparently,” she said. “I like it, though. It’s streamlined and classic. It’s a style that fits you.”

She began to meander around my place. There wasn’t much to it—I lived in a one-bedroom, after all—so her self-directed tour didn’t last long. I just stood off to the side, near my black leather sofa, which was my only major piece of furniture in the room, and I watched her. Better than any weekend movie.

But she soon returned to me. I waited for her to speak. I didn’t trust myself.

“Nice candles,” she observed. I’d lit just a handful of vanilla-scented ones, small but luminous. “And I like the music, too.”

Yeah.
“Nothing but love, 24/7,”
or so the slogan went.

“Thanks.” I pointed toward the kitchen counter, where I’d set out two long-stemmed glasses and a bottle of shiraz. “Wine?”

She shook her head and stepped right up to me then, our bodies only a few inches apart. Generally, I wasn’t fond of people of either gender or from any culture invading my personal space. This feeling, however, did not apply to Nia Pappayiannis.

Move in closer, sweetheart.

“No wine,” she whispered. “Just you.” She looked up at me with a sense of anticipation. Expectation. Longing.