Relentless: A Bad Boy Romance (Bertoli Crime Family #1) by Lauren Landish Read Free Book Online

his opinion, shallow pursuits. My father, on the other hand, had been the athlete of the two brothers and felt that physical fitness was important for both him and his men. So, the house had a complete fitness center, even if it was a bit dated. None of the main equipment was newer than twenty-five years old, two years before I'd been born. Still, Mom and Uncle Carlo kept it in pristine shape, and everything was in as good a condition as it had been twenty-five years ago.
    Going in, I was shocked to find that I wasn't the only person to have the same idea, as Daniel was in the room already, wearing a pair of compression shorts and his undershirt. “Sorry, didn't mean to interrupt.”
    “It's your house more than mine,” Daniel said with a shrug, turning his back to me and going over to the squat rack. “I just wanted to get a workout in while it was still a decent hour today. Forgive the outfit. I forgot to pack a bag and only had this in the trunk of my car.”
    “When have you been working out this past week?” I asked, knowing that as dedicated as Daniel was, he wasn't skipping his fitness just because he was babysitting me. “You look even more ripped than you were a week ago.”
    Daniel un-racked his bar, holding it in front of him before lowering himself down until his butt was nearly on his heels before exploding up, pushing the bar over his head at the end and locking it out before slowly lowering it and repeating the process. He didn't say anything during his work, but turned around when he was finished. “I have a membership to a twenty-four-hour gym,” he explained. “It's my first stop after I leave your apartment. I go usually about five times a week and have a short routine that I can get done in forty minutes.”
    Impressed, I went over to the stretch mats on the side of the room and began my limbering up routine. I felt my eyes constantly pulled back toward Daniel, whose muscles rippled and flexed underneath his clothing. His tight compression shorts were enticing, as whether he knew it or not, he sported a bubble butt that would leave most women envious. It was all muscle, and I knew if I saw him nude I could probably see each individual muscle fiber at work each time he exploded up from his squatting position. The artist in me was amazed and intrigued and wondered if I had the skill to recreate such physical perfection in paint.
    But the woman in me had much baser interests. I felt the heat first in the pit of my belly, a feeling that I hadn't felt in a long time, before spreading up and down my body until my eyes were nearly locked on Daniel's body. When he finished his work with the bar and went to take off the plates, I couldn't help but gasp when he turned sideways and the bulge in the front of his shorts became more noticeable. He was hung like a horse!
    He must’ve noticed me staring, because he turned his eyes back to me, concern in his eyes. “Are you okay?”
    I quickly wrenched my eyes from his crotch to his face, feeling the hot rush of blood to my face and certain that my nipples were imprinted on the thin cotton of my t-shirt. “I’m fine,” I said, playing it off. “Just a little twinge. Guess I need to stretch out more often.”
    He dismissed it and finished his work. He went on to his next exercise, and I climbed off the stretch mat to get on the VersaClimber. At least that was what the sticker on the center post of the machine called it, but in my private moments, I called it the Stairway to Hell. Working both your arms and your legs at the same time like some sort of unending ladder, the machine is one of the hardest cardiovascular machines I've ever seen, and in fewer than five minutes, I was already sucking air. At fifteen minutes, I was gasping to the point that I could feel the blood pulse in my temples.
    But the intensity of the machine wasn't why I chose it, I realized as I stepped down and wiped my sweating face. I'd chosen it because it allowed me to watch Daniel. I'd