Between Heats (Downtown Aquatics Book 1) (4 page)

He grinned. “Not really. I wouldn't ask you out otherwise.”

Damn that blush that crept up her face again. “Shut it,
hotshot.” She tried to regain her composure. “I can swim fine but I can't do
any of the underwater stuff. Maybe I'll get a couple of frames by the poolside
or in the water, but nothing that would require serious swimming skills.”

“You never learned?” He sounded curious. “I could teach you.”

“I only learned the basics from the community pool. It's
enough, so really, you don't have to bother,” she told him, leaning over to get
a generous helping of guacamole and melted cheese on her chip. It wasn't every
day that she indulged, so she slowly savored every bit. “Thanks for the offer
though.”

“It'll be a skill,” Aaron said matter-of-factly. “Imagine how
many more modeling jobs you could job— I mean, book… if you learned how
to eat… I mean, swim…” His voice trailed off and she could see him shake his
head at his sudden bout with tongue-
tiedness
.

“Are you okay?” she asked in concern, licking a stray dollop of
cheese from her fingers before leaning forward. “You look a little flushed.” And
incoherent, she wanted to add. She wondered if it had anything to do with the
way she was lavishing attention to her fingertips right now.

Aaron shook his head. “Oh, no. Perfectly lips. Perfectly fine,
I mean.”

Madison shrugged as she gave him a knowing grin, but she was
considering his offer. He made a good point about advanced swimming skills a
plus in modeling and acting. There were plenty she could learn that would give
her an edge over the other girls. “Okay,” she said.

“Okay what?”

She laughed. “Okay, maybe I'll take you up on your offer. Are
you okay, Harding?”

“Call me Aaron,” he said, pushing the plate towards her. “More
nachos?”

She ducked her head in a sudden display of shyness and took
another chip to distract herself. “All right. Aaron,” she said softly. “Call me
Madison.”

He just sat there in silence, waiting for her to finish eating,
with a look on his face that could have melted her. “All right,” he said
finally. “Madison. Madison. Madison." It felt like he had been saying it
forever. He smiled. “Madison.”

“Shut it, hotshot,” she told him laughingly but all throughout
dinner, she felt a tingle in her heart every time he said her name. She teased
him over the speed with which he put his
bistec
del
rey
away, like it was something she'd done with him
forever. Like she had been irritated by his habits forever, like she had
counted on his strength forever. Like she had looked for his smile and reached
for his hand forever.

“I'll drive you home,” he told her afterwards. He offered her
his arm and for Madison, it was the most natural thing in the world to take it,
lean against him ever so slightly, and say yes.

When Aaron got back to his apartment, he immediately hit the
gym. He still had so much energy to burn after that day. Did that really just
happen? Bombshell redhead gets him off and walks away.
And he let her.
Damn, how he wanted to find out what she really
felt underneath his body. She was cream and curves and when he closed his eyes,
he could see the fiery look in her eyes when she knelt before him, the
impatient way her nipples stood out and begged to be touched. But after he had
driven her home, he didn’t try to press his luck. They still had another full
shooting day tomorrow and then…
who
knew? He didn’t
want to complicate their strange relationship by sleeping with her so soon, no
matter how hard his body ached for her.

Like the unexpected hand job wasn’t strange enough.

He kept replaying that scene in his head. How hot she was when
she knelt down in front of him. How much he wanted to pull her up and kiss her
full on the mouth before taking her against the wall. How he wanted to hear his
name on her lips, those full luscious lips, and feel that tongue of hers that
just won’t quit.

Most of the girls he met were vanilla-sweet.
Or
wholesome, sunny, save-the-world granola.

Madison Thomas, he decided, was neither.

Ever since he had started competing and winning, everyone
outside his coach and family had started treading carefully, as if they were
afraid to displease him. He’d always thought he was the good sort, being raised
in a good home, and the polite side of him would always take over. But Madison
had no qualms about telling him off and calling it as it was. He found her
directness refreshing and in a weird way, he felt both relaxed around her and
sexually wound up to distraction.

But tomorrow was their last day together. After that, he would
be back to his old routine with Coach Didion. Early start.
Pool
at seven.
A short break, then back to the pool in the afternoon.
Dryland training with his conditioning coach.
Cool-down massage to end.
With the Splash Circuit meet
looming, he needed to make up for the couple of days of training that he had
missed.

Splash Circuit was a triple-city meet with one of the biggest
prizes around (including a brand-new car), but for Aaron it was the perfect way
to get back into the competitive mood. Four other friends from his swim club
also qualified for the meet, eyes on the prize. But unlike his teammates at the
Downtown LA Aquatics, Aaron was not after the money, not really. He lived from
training to training. He had just gotten back from a second-place finish for
the 100-m at an international meet, but he had missed a podium finish for the
50-m by a fraction of a second. It wasn’t his most impressive showing this year
and they all knew he had plenty of work ahead. After Splash Circuit, it would
be off to Colorado Springs for camp and physical testing, then even more
grueling training for the Summer Nationals. His last girlfriend hadn’t liked the
schedule at all but Madison didn’t seem to be the type to be easily put off by
a busy routine. And he wanted to get to know her more.

He was about to start on
pylos
—best
for all that damn energy—when his phone rang. He paused the One OK Rock
song to reply. “What?”

“Do you really greet everyone this way or am I special?” a
petulant voice came on.

“What’s up, Zoe?” Aaron asked. Despite his curt tone, he
actually enjoyed talking to his younger sister. With only eighteen months
between them, they were pretty close.

“Did you ask them if I could show up at the shoot tomorrow? Say
yes, say yes,
say
yes.”

Aaron laughed. “You’re good. They said you could come, if it
was for school.” His sister was an interactive media major. “Just don’t take
photos.”

“I promise.” She paused. “Are you at the gym? You sound happy.
Too happy for the gym.
Too happy for ten o’clock.”

Aaron hesitated. But Zoe had a way of finding things out
eventually so he decided to just come out and tell her. “I guess I met someone.
A model at the shoot.
Things look… interesting.”

“What’s her name?” she wanted to know.

“Look, Zoe, I don’t want you to be stalking Twitter accounts or
seeing if she’s on Tinder,” he told her sternly.

He could almost see her shrug. “It’s cool. I’m going to be
there tomorrow anyway and I bet I can tell which one she is. After that I’m not
going to be responsible for any of my actions.”

Little sisters. “Is that the
only
reason you called?”

Her tone turned serious. “Dad wants to know when you’ll be done
dicking around. That’s a direct quote.” She paused. “Don’t worry, I’ll tell him
you’re training even now.”

It was only then that Aaron realized how tightly he had
clenched his jaw. Things hadn’t been the same between his dad and him ever
since he decided to go pro right after college. He thought his dad would be
pleased that he was devoting all of his time to training long course but it
only seemed to drive a wedge between them. “Let him know the shoot ends
tomorrow,” he snapped.

“
Urgh
. Do you seriously drink
this?” Madison’s older sister Mackenzie asked, scowling and holding the glass
of juice cleanse at arm’s length.

She laughed at her sister’s reaction. Even through a video
call, Mac’s doubt was evident. Madison had propped her phone up on its stand by
a dresser, giving her sister a good view of her tiny studio apartment. “You’re
the one who wanted to eat healthier,” she reminded her. “Just do it for the
next couple of days, it’ll be good for you.”

“But orange, carrot, and
kale
?”

Madison shook her head as she rifled through the laundry on her
bed. How many more nude thongs did she need today? “Look, you can’t call me
just to question my methods. At least not this morning
;
I’m heading out. Got that Stroke shoot, remember?”

“I remember,” Mac said. “
It’s
all Mom
can talk about, but Grams thinks posing in a swimsuit is just one step away
from doing adult videos. I swear, I think she
Googles
you and dreads the day she’ll find your name in one.”

She shuddered at the thought of her grandmother looking at porn
sites. “Tell her I have better sense than that,” she retorted. Things weren’t
so bad here that she’d do those in the first place… well, not
yet
, anyway. But there was an uneasy
knot in her stomach, one that she chose to blame on her own juice cleanse.

Mac smiled, not seeming to notice anything unusual. “So how was
Aaron Harding? Is he as cute in real life as he is on TV?”

“Mac, I need to
go
...”

“What, not even a little update?”

Madison sighed. “He’s not exactly my most favorite topic at the
moment.”

Her sister looked disappointed. “Why not? He’s not a douche, is
he?”

Suddenly, Madison’s phone rang. She hastily ended the video
call with her sister and sent out a silent apology for not saying
goodbye .
But one look at the name and she knew she had to
take this call. “Hi, Sandra,” she greeted. Sandra also worked as a barista at
Common Grounds, and was supposed to be filling in for her shift later.
“Anything wrong?”

“Plenty,” the older woman snapped. “You know you were supposed
to ask me if I could cover for you before
my
shift started.”

“I did!” Madison protested, tucking the phone between her ear
and her shoulder to free up her hands for a last-minute check. Keys. Granola
bars. Towel. Change of clothes.
Extra thongs (finally).
Heels (one never knew). “Days ago! Besides, Pablo knew; he was the one who told
me to ask you.”

“Well, he didn’t say a word until this morning,” Sandra
insisted. “Which is beside the point because it was your responsibility to tell
me, not his. What, not even a text last night?”

Last night she had been too caught up in Aaron Harding to think
about her shift, but that was also because she thought everything was already
fine. She caught a glimpse of the clock and cursed herself silently. If she
didn’t get going now she was going to be late, but she couldn’t go if she
didn’t find a solution to her shift. And she wanted to be early, today of all
days. “I’m sorry but I swear I texted two days earlier. I even cleared it with
Pablo. Are you saying you can’t do it now?”

“That’s not what I said,” Sandra said, which made Madison want
to hit her head against a wall.

“So you can cover for me?” Madison asked, trying to keep her
voice even.
What is your problem, woman?
she
wanted to scream.

“Yeah,” her co-worker replied. “Just tell me earlier next
time.”

I’ll ask someone else
next time,
Madison thought, but out loud she said, “Thanks, Sandra, I owe
you.”

She thought she heard Sandra sniff and mumble something about
models before she ended the call, and if Madison wasn’t in a hurry, she might
have called back and given the woman a piece of her mind. She was already
struggling to make ends meet. It wasn’t easy holding down two jobs in LA, and
the last thing she needed was to have someone think that she expected things to
be easy for her.
 
For once, she
wished people knew how hard she worked to get to where she was.

That was why she was in a bad mood by the time she got to the
shoot. Even though she still arrived five minutes earlier than she had yesterday
(a moment of victory for anyone who has had to brave LA morning traffic), she
was still feeling shitty. The icing on her pity party came when she was
wandering about and saw Lakeisha talking to Aaron Harding, only to have a
laughing Anna join them a minute later. Both girls were already in
monokinis
that showed off their trim bodies. Anna' swimsuit
in particular was cut awfully low and—did that idiot's eyes just go
there?

She stomped away in search of wardrobe.

“Madison!” she heard a voice shout behind her.

Madison quickened her pace, pretending not to have heard Aaron
but the swimmer easily caught up with her. He grabbed her arm from behind and
she brushed him off, irritated. “I need to get changed,” she told him as she
whirled around.

Why did he have to be so damn handsome? Madison had an
unobstructed view of his clear gray eyes. He was already wearing racing trunks
that emphasized the powerful muscles on his legs. She remembered having such a
good view of them yesterday… Then she blinked and blushed and the moment was
gone. She stepped away from him.

“You didn't even say hi,” Aaron said, surprise in his voice.

Madison tried to soften her tone. “Hi, hotshot.”

“Hey, I was thinking, maybe we could ditch the catered lunch
and—”