Firecracker Gone Astray - Firecracker #2 (Erotic Romance) (2 page)

“You’re taking this class?” he asked curiously, putting both hands on his hips akimbo and raising an eyebrow.

“I’m here aren’t I?” Ouch. That came out wrong. Don’t be a jerk Trixie. Remember, there’s more to this guy than meets the eye. She quickly changed her tact. “I’m surprised you recognized me.”

Erik smiled and pointed to her hair. “It’s not every day an authentic ginger walks into my class. You tend to stand out... for that and other reasons.”

Touché. Erik had a right to be a smart ass. He even managed to reference their past as well. Hopefully that meant there were no hard feelings.

“Still, I never figured you for the exercise type,” he continued.

“I never used to be, but I’ve been training for a while now. I haven’t really been challenged by my own routine lately and was hoping that maybe you could take me to the next level.”

That sounded way more flirtatious than she intended.

Erik nodded sagely and placed his chin between a thumb and index finger. He looked down at her appraisingly.

“I can tell you right now that those sweat clothes are going to be a problem. You’ll heat up a lot in this class. I hope you wore something underneath that so you can strip down, for your own sake more than anything.”

Trixie smiled deviously. Was he imagining her stripping down right now? She couldn’t tell, but had nothing to lose anymore. It’s not like her half-assed attempt at a disguise concealed her presence, almost as if she had sabotaged herself on purpose. Of course he would notice her hair.

She pulled the baggy shirt up over her head and pushed her sweat pants down in one continuous motion, stepping out of the legs without removing her sneakers. Trixie had stripped like this for him once before and wondered if he would remember. She straightened and looked up at Erik defiantly, wearing a loose pair of black shorts that stopped high up her thigh and a sports bra to immobilize her girls.
Appraise me now
, she thought, narrowing her eyes at him.

She was lean and mean. Not the soft Trixie he remembered. Her abdominal muscles had more than a passing hint of definition, but she remained curvaceous. Her arms and legs were strong and tone, but not bulky. Trixie wanted to be healthy and streamlined, but without compromising her appearance as a woman. It wasn’t always easy to balance. The stronger her upper body got, the smaller her chest became. She was down to the lower end of a C-cup, but her breasts remained pert.

Erik’s eyes widened as his mouth dropped open perceptively.

“Will this be more appropriate for your class?” she asked.

He looked up from her body and made eye contact again, closing his mouth at the same time. Erik couldn’t tell with the class behind him, but a few of his students were looking in their direction now. Trixie didn’t mind the attention, but based on where she was clearly looking behind him, Erik seemed to suddenly remember that they weren’t alone.

He adjusted himself to stand a little more professionally.

“Uh, yes, that will do nicely.”

Erik reached out with one hand and lightly pinched her shoulder between two fingers, spinning her body to one side and then the other. He was gentle but she felt like a paper doll being effortlessly repositioned. Trixie didn’t resist his colossal strength. A small explosion of arousal in the pit of her belly rippled outwards. Unfortunately he broke contact right after that.

“You’ve done good work with yourself. This is impressive Trixie,” he managed to say objectively. “Now let’s see how you do during the workout.”

Erik turned around and walked back to the front of his class.

“Okay, everybody, you’re going to lose a lot of electrolytes today. I hope everybody  remembered to store up first. This is going to hurt,” he said smiling.

He wasn’t kidding. Erik didn’t even start slow. They started running in one spot, then began leaping up to slap their knees. He had them falling into burpees, lunging into squats, and twisting with weights, all to a mix of power ballads from the 1970’s blaring through a built-in speaker system.

Trixie liked that Erik led by example. He would occasionally walk around and make corrections to form, but otherwise followed along. He taught a punishing class, but none of his exercises were beyond Trixie’s existing ability. She had been cross-training for six months and, despite the sweat pouring off of her body, easily kept up to the class with energy to spare. She noticed that Erik frequently stole glances in her direction, but had no feedback for her technique.

Trixie wasn’t entirely sure what she was trying to prove, but it became very important to impress Erik. She knew these exercises well, had the stamina to do them all, and wanted him to know that. For so long as she’d known Erik, he was devoted to fitness, long before she took any kind of exercise seriously. She was a completely different Trixie now.

One hour and three circuits of the exercises later and class was done. Prone bodies were strewn everywhere, catching their breath and nursing burning muscles. Trixie sat cross-legged on her mat above them all, directly across from Erik, and calmly dabbed her face with a towel. He smiled across the room at her while they shared this moment of privacy in a room full of exhausted people.

Erik held up a finger and silently asked if she could wait behind. Trixie nodded.

As the last of his students began leaving, two nearby women adorned in bubblegum cupcake colored outfits spoke just loud enough to be overheard. Erik was congratulating other students at the door.

“Did you hear her name? Trixie?”

“I know. I mean, what is she, a porn star?”

“Hey, if you look the part--”

They laughed supportively of each other.

It never ceased to amaze Trixie. No matter where you went, bitches were there waiting to cuss you out. She couldn’t hold her tongue.

“With a little dedication and hard work, you both have potential, but it helps if you don’t let your scene partners do
all
the fucking.”

Their faces went slack as they stared at Trixie in shock, scandalized. Trixie smiled like a Cheshire Cat and took a drink of her water. Erik diplomatically stepped between the pair of women and placed an arm on each of their shoulders.

“Thanks for coming ladies. Great work today. Hopefully you’ll do better next week.”

Erik ushered them towards the door. The duo were unwilling to say anything in front of him but shot back a scathing glance in her direction.

Erik closed the door behind them, turned the lock, and flipped a ‘back later’ sign, before turning to address Trixie.

“Sorry about them,” he offered, “I get all kinds. If they’re willing to let me kick their asses, I can hardly turn them away.”

“I completely understand,” Trixie said as she stood up and gathered her possessions. “It’s a business.”

Erik crossed both arms in front of himself. “Is that why you’re here? You certainly don’t need this class. I couldn’t help but notice that you were barely winded afterwards. Do you have some sort of business?”

“No business. I genuinely needed the work out, and wanted to see if I could keep up with your regimen.”

“I don’t think it challenged you for a second. I have to say that I’m genuinely surprised Trixie. You’ve brought yourself a long way. Did you train with anybody?”

“Mostly on my own,” she admitted, not counting the false starts with the personal trainers. “I found a lot of exercises on the internet.”

“Well I think you trounced everybody here. You should consider my boot camp if you really want to get your ass kicked.”

Firming up her posterior was one of her stated goals. Erik’s boot camp certainly couldn’t be harder than the obstacle course she ran last week. Trixie was pleasantly surprised at how friendly Erik was being. She wasn’t sensing any bad blood between them at all. Running with that goodwill, she decided to test the waters sooner than planned.

“I’m actually glad you’re still a fitness instructor. It made you easy to find.”

“Oh?” Erik immediately looked hopeful. He never was very good at playing it cool, but she liked transparency in men. Guessing games were so tiresome.

“I got to thinking about my life lately, how I’ve treated men in general, and you came to mind. It occurred to me that I owe you an apology.”

Erik looked flabbergasted at the notion, but before he could say anything Trixie took a step closer and placed a hand lightly on his chest. He was like touching the marbled edifice of a statue, except warmer. The man heaved with strength, even in stillness.

“I cycle through men quickly, because, well… you’ve experienced my detonation first hand. Most men are put off by it, and that’s made me more than a little jaded. While some may have deserved my breeziness, I definitely bullrushed through a few them too quickly, like you. People who deserved more of a chance than I gave them before moving on.”

Erik touched Trixie’s hand, covering it completely beneath his own enormous paw.

“Trixie, please. I have few regrets, but whatever I did, or said, or didn’t say… after you
detonated
, is one of them. That was the first time I’ve ever experienced so much quantity from a woman. It took me by surprise. I know what happened now, but I didn’t back then. That’s my failing, not yours.”

She couldn’t be sure, but it sounded like Erik had thought about this speech beforehand, even prepared it a little. He was being completely earnest. She tried to lighten the mood a little.

“You make it sound as if you researched the subject!”

“Um…”

“What? You did?” she asked incredulously.

“Mostly online, but I spoke with some clients of mine too. Doctors. I never mentioned names, but I did learn that fluid like yours is perfectly normal. Rare perhaps, but not unusual.”

Trixie was convinced. She
had
moved on too soon from Erik. There was more to him than she had ever taken seriously. After rationalizing that most men simply couldn’t handle her squirting orgasm, she had gotten good at ignoring their feelings precisely so she
could
move on quickly, avoiding disappointment or rejection. It had made it easy to hop from one bed to another in search of a guy who could handle her explosion, but had she ever lingered long enough to find out if any of them might turn into a viable candidate?

Also, if she was being honest with herself, Trixie really loved sex, and not infrequently. Had she always been that way? It felt like she couldn’t get enough most days. Why else was she here stirring up old feelings for Erik when she knew Cy would be back two weekends from now? The problem was that two weekends felt like an eternity. Whether her appetite was the product of how amazing her orgasms felt, or her orgasms were the product of an appetite that she had always fed, Trixie couldn’t be sure.

Either way, it didn’t matter at this moment. What she was feeling towards Erik was immediate, and moist, and new. A mixture of desire and empathy at the same time. She wanted to undo the damage she wrought. She wanted to fix him. Trixie reached up to touch his face affectionately, but the gesture seemed to launch Erik into a nervous speech.

“When I saw you walk into the class, I thought maybe you weren’t aware that I taught it. I considered saying nothing, but there was still so much I’ve wanted to say. I needed to know if you came here by accident or on purpose, but then you revealed this newly forged version of yourself, and you look amazing, and you did those exercises like they were nothing…”

Erik was starting to ramble. Her standing here, touching his face, was blowing his mind a little. She got that. Trixie was done talking now, but had only started blowing his mind. She acted without thinking.

Reaching up around his neck, she angled her head up, and pulled him down into a kiss while pressing her entire body against his gigantic frame, dropping her possessions on the floor. For such a large man, he gave her no resistance whatsoever. His hands encircled her waist.

“Trixie--” he whispered after the kiss, wanting to say more.

“It takes more than an hour of cross-training to wear me out. My blood hasn’t even began to boil yet.”

Erik stopped talking.

“Do you have any other rooms in this place?” she asked.

Erik swept her up in his arms as if she were a bird. It felt like she was five feet off the ground. Trixie kissed him as he walked them out of the room. His lips were so full. She had forgotten about that.

The adjoining space was a change room, but there was only one. No division of the sexes. There was nobody around since Erik ushered them all out the front door, but there were definitely men and woman in his class.

“Co-ed change room?”

Erik nodded. “Only if people feel comfortable using it.”

The room was filled with the humid smell of cedar wood from a sauna.

“How very metropolitan of you. Is that a shower I see in the next room?”

“Yes.”

“Take me there.”

Erik did whatever she told him and asked no questions. He had something to prove and she knew it. Trixie was counting on that. She knew Erik was a big’un, balls to bones, but that was also his appeal. She might be a slender slip of woman, but she could take larger men than seemed possible. If memory served, however, Erik pushed her envelope a little.