Loving Mr. July by Margaret Antone Read Free Book Online

the motion. His hands
were cool, a little roughened, his touch light. She stared at the
curly blond hairs on his muscle-corded and surprisingly tanned arm.
She took a deep breath.
    “Don’t look down. Look in the mirror.” Kurt
let go of her arm to tilt her head up with his fingertips.
    “Do I have to? I’m not real fond of
mirrors.”
    “You won’t know if you are using proper form
unless you check it.” Kurt gently turned her so she could see
better. “That’s why they have mirrors.”
    “I thought they were so that the muscle-bound
guys could admire themselves.”
    Kurt grinned. “Most likely some of that going
on too.”
    Cynthia forced herself to look in the mirror,
concentrating only on her arm and trying not to look at the rest of
body. She duplicated the action Kurt had shown her. “It’s a lot
harder this way.”
    “Good. Means you’re doing it properly,” Kurt
grunted, and resumed his own workout. “The idea is to not stop long
between sets. That way you’ll get an aerobic workout too.”
    “I thought we did that this morning,” Cynthia
said, watching Kurt do some dumbbell fly exercises before getting
her own bench and copying his movements.
    “I ran. You were too busy admiring Sam’s
stomach to get very far.” Kurt let the dumbbell fall to the ground
and took a breath.
    “He was voted best abs for his year.” Cynthia
skipped every other number in her exercise counting, but Kurt
didn’t seem to notice.
    Kurt scowled, picked up the weights from the
floor, and rolled back on to the bench to begin a dumbbell press
routine. “Which he apparently had months to achieve.”
    “Just saying.” Cynthia switched to dumbbell
press lifts as well. “So why are we doing all these arm exercises
when it’s your stomach that worries you?”
    “We’ll get to the abs, just working out our
chest muscles right now.” Kurt glanced over at her during a
breather. “Or I am. Not sure what you’re doing. Praying to the
weight gods maybe?”
    Cynthia quickly lifted the weights off her
chest where she had been resting them and resumed. “Isn’t there a
more efficient way to do this? Seems like we’re spending forever
with these dumbbells. I won’t be able to move my arms
tomorrow.”
    Kurt swung his legs to the floor and stared
at her. “I thought you said you come to this gym. What exactly do
you do here?”
    “Swim a little. Use the treadmill and stuff.”
She waved her hand in the general direction of the aerobic
machines. Get facials and massages, use the sauna, she thought. It
was called a spa, wasn’t it?
    “Ah.” Kurt rolled back onto the bench.
    “Ah what?” Cynthia sat up, started to
bristle. He was going to make some comment about her weight, she
just knew it.
    “Explains why you haven’t a clue about what
you’re doing with the weights.”
    “Oh.” She slumped, the fight disappearing.
“Yeah, well. This area has always intimidated me. It’s either full
of guys grunting or women that have more muscles than you do.”
    Kurt turned to her at that. Scowled a little.
“Way to boost my ego.”
    “Okay, maybe that’s an exaggeration.” Make
that a huge exaggeration, she thought. The guy had some serious
muscles. Who knew? And if he had a donut, she had yet to find it.
“But you get the picture.”
    “Think maybe you’re being a little sensitive?
My mom comes here, lifts weights. And she’s what, double your
age?”
    “And your point?”
    “If she can do it, you have no excuse.” Kurt
nodded, motioning her along to the weight machines.
    Cynthia eyed the long row of machines with
dismay. “Maybe I just don’t like it.”
    “A different thing entirely,” Kurt
acknowledged. “But for the next three weeks anyway, you don’t have
a choice.” Kurt removed the pin on the weight stack for the nearest
machine, and changed out the straight bar for an angled one. “Now
we’re going to work the triceps.”
    Cynthia sighed. She let him move her into
position in front of the