Chapter 1: The First Session

Sarah Thompson’s fingers tightened around the steering wheel until her knuckles bleached white, the cool leather sticking slightly to her damp palms as she stared through the windshield at the gym’s glowing neon sign. After-Hours Fitness. The clock on her dashboard read 9:25 p.m., and the parking lot was nearly empty—just a single pickup truck huddled under a streetlamp and the faint hum of a security light buzzing overhead. Her heart hammered against her ribs like it wanted out, a frantic rhythm that had nothing to do with the light cardio she’d promised herself tonight. Baggy black leggings hugged her thick thighs, the fabric already clinging in the humid night air, while her oversized faded university T-shirt hung loose over her 34DD breasts, doing nothing to flatter the soft curve of her belly or the wide flare of her hips. She’d pulled her dark hair into a messy ponytail on purpose—strictly for fitness, she’d told the mirror at home. No makeup. No perfume. Just a thirty-four-year-old accountant who’d finally admitted she needed to reclaim something, anything, from the wreckage of her days.

Dave hasn’t looked at me like that in years, she thought, the memory of last week’s argument flashing hot behind her eyes. He’d barely glanced up from his phone when she’d mentioned joining the gym, his night-shift exhaustion turning every conversation into a flat, one-sided grunt. Eight months since he’s touched me. Eight goddamn months. The guilt twisted low in her stomach even as she killed the engine, but beneath it stirred something else—a restless, unfamiliar heat that made her shift in the seat. She told herself it was just nerves. Endorphins waiting to happen. Nothing more.

The automatic doors whispered open with a rush of cool, conditioned air that smelled faintly of rubber mats and lemon disinfectant, undercut by the distant metallic clank of a single treadmill somewhere in the back. The gym was cavernous and dim at this hour, only one older man plodding along far across the floor and a bored front-desk girl zipping up her bag to leave. Sarah’s sneakers squeaked softly on the polished concrete as she approached the consultation desk, her pulse loud in her ears.

Mike Reynolds was already waiting, taller than she’d expected—six-foot-one of lean, sculpted muscle poured into a fitted black tank top that clung to the broad sweep of his shoulders and the corded veins running down his forearms. A few tattoos peeked from beneath the fabric, dark ink against sun-warmed skin. His smile was easy, professional, the kind that reached his hazel eyes without trying too hard. “Sarah Thompson? Right on time. I’m Mike—your trainer for the next few weeks. Come on over and let’s get you set up.”