FIT: #1 in the Fit Trilogy (2 page)

Margaret plopped down into the free chair while Grant dug through his bag for a towel and a clean shirt. He had to shower before his next session.

He looked over his shoulder at Margaret. “What’s up?”

“I think I have a new client for you.”

“Oh yeah? Tell me about her.” He flashed his friend a wicked smile.

“Such a bastard. Her name’s Violet Ryan. Her friend brought her into the Pump Fit class I do over at Pinks.” Grant grunted as he stripped off his shirt. Pinks provided a female-only fitness environment just a few miles up the road. They were on to something for sure, but intense workouts like Pump Fit weren’t for everyone.

“Let me guess. She couldn’t finish the class?”

“She finished, but there were a lot of tears. I talked to her after. She wants to get in shape, but she needs someone softer. You know how screaming gives me a hard on.”

“I do. Give me her info and I’ll see what I can do. You think she’s ready?”

“Is anyone ready for
the
Grant Gibson?” Margaret asked, with a smile.

“You have a point.”

“I think she’s ready. She was just overwhelmed. You’ve got that soft touch she might need.” Grant had no witty response for that. It was part of his reputation. He was a bit of bastard otherwise, but when it came to his clients he prided himself on being able to provide them with a relaxed, pressure-free environment where they could reach their health and fitness goals.

Margaret slipped him a piece of paper with Violet’s name and phone number. “Be nice, but not too nice.”

“But nice is all I know.”

“Right. I’ll see you later. I have some kickin’ and punchin’ to do.” Margaret left to join Keira’s four-thirty kick boxing class, but not without slugging Grant a solid one in the shoulder. Girl had an arm.

Once he was alone, per standard operating procedure with all referrals, Grant pulled out his laptop and started searching for information on Violet Ryan. It was one thing, meeting a walk-in face-to-face for the first time, but if someone was handed off to him, or Armando, or anyone else on his staff, he liked to be prepared. You’d be amazed what you could discover from someone’s Twitter feed or their Facebook page. Picture after picture of high calorie meals littered Instagram and Tumblr. Eating habits, drinking habits, sedentary habits.

Are they posting nonsense in the middle of the night, then complaining about having to be at work first thing in the morning, then having the balls to say they have no time to work out? Are they venting about something going on at work or with family or a significant other? Are they having a hard time finding that special someone? All of these things played into a person’s health, whether they wanted to acknowledge it or not, and it was his job to get to the bottom of it all. That’s how he kept clients and saw them through to their goals. His blessing and his curse. He could read people. Make them comfortable enough to trust him to help them turn their lives around. He’d built a business to be proud of but, man, was he bored.

It didn’t take long for him to find Violet Ryan, but from Margaret’s brief description of her and the way she’d crumbled in a class, Grant was surprised by what he found. She was a TV producer, with credits stacked in the online television and movie database. All the producers he knew were cutthroat and coldblooded. He couldn’t imagine any of them bursting into tears in front of a group of people.

He clicked through to her Facebook page and suddenly things slid into place. Violet Ryan, Associate Producer with the Food Channel, was pretty plump. It wasn’t a judgment, just a fact. Same as the fact that she was a stunningly gorgeous Asian woman. She smiled in her tiny profile picture, full pink lips below an adorable button nose that was spattered with freckles. She had big brown eyes behind red-framed glasses. Her long, thick hair was doing that black-to-blond thing a lot of women were styling these days.

She managed to be hot and cute and sexy all at the same time.

He looked at her picture again. Well, stared was more like it. He would call her. A client was a client. He’d do what he could to help her out, but other parts of his brain were churning, parts that had been quiet and still for several months now.

He’d been out of the scene for a while. Life as a sexual Dominant had its perks and just as many pitfalls. He’d taken a break, taken some time to pull himself back together, but in the back of his mind he knew he wasn’t out of the game forever. The game had consumed too much of his life for him to really let go.

On the flipside, Grant wasn’t opposed to mixing his primary business with pleasure. He’d slept with clients before and he was sure he’d do it again. Armando did it all the fucking the time. The two of them had met at a pseudo-bondage party, grew close over their interest in kink and their obsessive dedication to working out, and eventually decided to go into business together. They’d both trained submissives and the occasional Mistress when things got a little routine. They’d both played inside and outside of the gym but lately, at least for Grant, things had been a little slow, even if it was by choice.

Everything had been slow. The classes and training sessions had grown routine, even with the occasional new client thrown into the mix. He had no woman to call his own. His family was three thousand miles away and more than happy with his simple monthly call home. He was bored and, even though it would take a lot for him to admit it openly, outside of this gym he was lonely. He had his friends, his pets, and his co-workers, but not much else. He didn’t know when, but at some point something needed to change. He needed a change.

He continued clicking through picture after picture of Violet’s smiling face, until Armando came through the office door. An hour of yoga and he hadn’t broken a sweat.

“What’s up, man?” Armando rummaged through his own things until he produced his cell phone.

“Nothing,” Grant said. “Well, new client shit, but nothing.”

Armando leaned over the desk and got a better look at Grant’s computer screen. “This her?”

“Yeah.”

“She’s cute, and I assume she can afford you. What’s the problem?” Armando asked, his interest in the conversation already waning. He had another class to teach in forty minutes. So did Grant, but his buddy was already thinking about the next group of clients. Grant was stuck on Violet Ryan and her innocent freckles.

“I’m thinking about dusting off the D/s file.”

Armando froze in his tracks, then pivoted around to face Grant.

“I know. It’s risky,” Grant said.

“It’s not risky, it’s—”

“Risky.”

“No, you can handle it. I know you can. I just didn’t know you were ready. Is Ariana that far from your head? She was a dick, but I figured you a learned something from that.”

“She wasn’t a dick.”

“She stole your credit cards and tried to steal Max when you broke up with her.”

It had been six months since he ended things with his client-turned-submissive. His credit rating and his dog were still trying to recover. It wasn’t that he’d slept with her, it was that he’d trusted her more than he should. He was looking for love and she was looking for someone to bleed dry. “You’re right, she was a dick, but I think it might be time.”

“Good luck, man.” Armando looked at the screen again, his expression one of genuine approval. “Could be fun.”

Grant clicked through her pictures one more time. Before his imagination got the best of him, he grabbed his cellphone and dialed Violet Ryan’s number.

Day 2

Violet pushed back her lunch date with Faye to meet up with this Grant Gibson guy. He’d called her the afternoon before, in the middle of her post-workout, leftover-pizza-induced nap. He suggested they meet at a juice bar around the corner from his gym in West Hollywood. She got there first, ordered herself something loaded with berries and kale, then took a seat outside. The spring weather was perfect. Sunny, but not too warm. She was on the verge of kicking off her sandals to really soak it all in when this beautiful mountain of a man approached her table.

“Violet?” he said, stretching out his hand. Oh, and that voice.

“Hi. Nice to meet you.”

“Likewise. I’m Grant.”

Violet stood, shook his hand, and did her best not to drool. Grant Gibson wasn’t just a trainer. He was some sort of Scandinavian athletic god, tall and perfectly toned. Blue-eyed, with blond hair that was longer than most guys were wearing these days, but thick and styled perfectly back away from his face, cut cleanly along the base of his neck. His beard was thick but manicured, gold with patches of red and brown. And his lips…

He wore jeans and sneakers and a dark-gray hoodie, unzipped, showing off a white t-shirt and the outlines of the tattoos that decorated the broad chest underneath. Somehow Violet kept it together. She didn’t babble or stumble over her chair as she moved to sit back down, but the thoughts running through her head? They were messy and very, very dirty.

Grant took the other seat and offered Violet an easy smile. He was dangerous, this one. “So tell me about yourself,” he said.

“Well. I’ve been wanting to get in shape. Actually, I have a goal weight I want to reach. I know it’ll take a long time. I can be patient, but I need to get started. I’m sick of looking this way and I’m sure, in some way I’m not seeing, these extra pounds can’t be good for my health.”

“That’s cool. So why don’t you tell me about yourself?” Grant repeated. He licked his lips, then smiled even wider.

Violet almost kicked
him
in his stupid shin, but that grin he flashed her melted her reflexes. He was sarcastic. Okay. She could do sarcastic.

Violet leaned forward and mimicked his tone. “Why don’t you tell me about
yourself
. I’m fat. I want to pay you to make me unfat. Why don’t you tell me how you’re going to make that happen?”

Grant sat back and stretched his long legs out beside her chair. She thought about straddling him and kissing that look of satisfaction right off his face. But as fun as the brief fantasy seemed, it wouldn’t help her achieve her weight-loss goal.

“I’m not going to make anything happen. It’s on you, but here’s how I can help.”

“I’m listening.”

“I believe our outside reflects the way we feel inside, whether that’s good or bad, clean-cut or complicated. For some people, it’s about our weight. For others it’s about the way we dress or the way we sport our hair or the way we accessorize. Buddy of mine won’t leave the house without his gold watch.”

“That makes sense. So you want to know about my insides?”

Grant chuckled as he shifted in his chair. He had dimples under all that scruff. “Yes, Violet. I want to get inside of you.”

“Well, all you had to do was ask. My car is right around the corner.”

“Tempting. Really it is.” For a moment, Violet thought he might be serious. She might have issues with her weight but she wasn’t completely hopeless with men. She knew when a guy was flirting, and Grant climb-me-like-a-tree-and-shake-all-my-branches Gibson was definitely flirting. Or so she thought. He got right back to business.

“But that’s not exactly what I mean. I have clients who come to me to lose weight for weddings or movies they’re starring in or just to get back at their spouses, but every once in a while I have a client who wants to lose weight for themselves. In order to help you with that, I want to know why you put the weight on in the first place and why you keep it on. That way I can help you take it off and keep it off. Basically, I want to be the last trainer you see.”

Oh, he was good. Smooth, honest, and a bit poetic. He could be the last of anything Violet ever had. Too bad he was talking about the circumference of her thighs and not gracing her bed or her backseat with his own gorgeous body.

“Tell me more about your techniques,” she said. “Margaret made it sound like you were the Fatty Whisperer.”

Grant’s laughter sputtered out this time, his eyes alight with humor. “I do have a way about me that people seem to appreciate. I won’t deny that, but, really, I would like to get to know you. I need to know what drives you. What you couldn’t care less about. What kind of encouragement works on you. What doesn’t.”

“I’m a sucker for positive reinforcement. I can admit that. And I do better in solo environments. Margaret’s class reminded me of middle school gym, and that wasn’t a happy time for me.”

Grant suddenly seemed to withdraw, like he was thinking heavily on something. Maybe she’d said too much. He was used to socialites and actresses, not East Coast girls with childhood complexes about being the only Chinese kid in their whole school.

“What is it?” Violet asked. “Too much?”

“No, that’s not it. Can I ask you something?” Something in his tone set off alarm bells in her head. He was about to say something she had no interest in hearing.

“Sure…”

“What do you know about Domination and submission?”

“Oh, Jesus.” Violet shoved back in her seat and clutched her purse against her stomach. The commotion drew the stares of the juice drinkers nearby. “Are you kidding me right now? What is this all about?”

“You said you respond well to positive reinforcement. I’m simply trying to figure out which kind.” Violet could sense his confidence was wavering, but he really wanted to see this line of thinking through. Fine. She’d let him take it all the way and then she’d bitch him out and leave.
Thanks a lot, Margaret.
This was not what she signed up for.

“I know a little about BDSM. I’ve never participated in it though. Do you have any idea how unprofessional you sound right now?”

“I’m sorry.” Grant held out his hands, like he was trying to calm a frightened dog. “Please, stay. Just hear me out. Please.”

“Fine.” Violet eased back into her chair.

“As long as I’ve been a personal trainer, I’ve been a part of the BDSM lifestyle, as a Dominant.”

“And?”

Finally he gave up and his confidence faltered completed. He leaned forward and scrubbed his face with his large hands, as his whole head seemed to turn bright red. She knew the color of embarrassment well. When he looked up, Violet could see the genuine regret in his eyes.