Lord Have Mercy (The Southern Gentleman #2)(6)

Unfortunately, in my haste to get away, I hadn’t realized that I’d gotten close to his pile of clothes and stuff until he’d followed me over there.

“Are you nervous?” Raleigh whispered, crossing her arm over her chest to stretch it.

I nodded, trying not to look at the man that was getting closer and closer by the second.

“So nervous I’m about to throw up,” I whispered back.

She snorted. “If I don’t look fuck-hot by the time I’m done, I’m leaving a bad review.”

I snorted. “If you don’t look fuck-hot by the time you’re done, you probably broke your diet and started eating cookies again.”

I mean, it wasn’t like I could judge her for that seeing as I was just as bad, if not worse than she was. But still.

“So you’re saying I can’t leave a bad review,” she said.

“Presley,” Flint drawled. “You ready?”

I turned to the man I’d been studiously trying to ignore and said, “Of course.”

His self-deprecating smile made me want to kick him in the shin.

“Then let’s start the warm-up,” he suggested, waving his hand in a wide, low arc for me to proceed in front of him.

I did, reluctantly, and stopped when I heard him say so.

“Everyone gather around, I’m going to demonstrate with Camryn the movements that we’ll start with. Once we know proper form, we’ll begin the test. Sound good?”

No.

Plenty of ‘yes, sirs’ followed, and I snorted. Suck ups. They were all suck-ups.

Flint took me by the shoulders and turned me so that I was facing everyone—as well as his chest.

“Okay, this is how we’re going to start the first movement,” he began.

Then he started to educate everyone on the movements we were about to do while placing his hands on my body and showing everyone how not to do it wrong—which fifty percent of the time I was doing.

When his hand moved to the small of my back to adjust my form on a squat, I nearly moaned aloud.

Hell, I hadn’t even realized Croft was in the first row helping other people until his ass almost hit me in the face. Luckily, it didn’t, and the only reason it didn’t was because Flint jerked me back into his body.

It was at that point that I started to sweat.

I couldn’t do this.

Really, I couldn’t.

Luckily, after showing us what we were about to do, he let us grab a drink of water and to catch a quick restroom break.

Raleigh came up to my side and stared at me with panic in her eyes. “What did I get myself into?”

“Presley, go get some water,” I heard from behind me.

I gritted my teeth and turned, shooting Flint a look that clearly said what I thought of his suggestion.

His eyes were filled with amusement.

In an attempt to get his eyes to release mine, I lifted my shirt and wiped at my brow, exposing the length of my belly to him while I was at it.

His eyes finally dipped as he trailed his gaze down the length of my belly, and I saw a flare of need cross his face for only the briefest of seconds before he was able to bank the emotion.

But I’d seen it, and I knew that I could get him back for teasing me so annoyingly.

With it being as hot in the gym as it was, I could easily get away with taking my shirt off.

Plus, since he took off his shirt, I should be able to take off mine.

I had a cute belly. It wasn’t super toned, but it wasn’t something that showed rolls until I sat down and hunched forward to eat a taco. Meaning when I took it off, I wasn’t self-conscious in the least.

The same couldn’t be said for my ass and thighs, but with the fabric that I’d wiggled my way into compressing them so nicely, I didn’t look half bad.

And, apparently, Flint agreed with me.

His eyes went electric before he backed away from me and said, “Get water.”

I turned back to Raleigh, who was staring at her brother across the room. “He’s annoying me.”

I tugged on her wrist and pulled her to where our waters were sitting side by side and said, “Why?”

“Because he’s flirting with the girls instead of helping. If he’s not going to help, he doesn’t need to be here,” she explained.

I snorted. “You don’t want him here because you don’t want him to video how awful you look doing all this shit.”

Raleigh shrugged. “That, too.”

I placed my bottle down on the railing above the bench and turned just in time to hear Flint say, “Y’all ready?”

Enthusiastic yesses filled the air, and only one ‘fuck.’ That fuck belonged to me.

And so began the next ten minutes. The worst ten minutes of my life.

At first, it wasn’t too bad.

Then the squats started.

Followed shortly by a row on a rowing machine that I was fairly sure was invented by the devil.

Moments after finishing that, we started to do a thing called burpees. Those burpees were the beginning of the end.

By the time I finished my last four -hundred-meter run, I was practically crawling across the finish line.

“Get here, Presley!” Flint yelled.

I looked up and saw that I was only a few feet away from the ‘finish line’ which was a goddamn X.