He felt Zach’s gaze as he reclined on his back and spread his legs. As he bent his knees and placed his feet flat on the floor. As he placed the medicine ball between his knees and pressed inward. He felt Zach’s gaze on his legs and thighs as they strained and squeezed. He was suddenly acutely aware of how truly tiny his shorts were. And although he had dressed this way to drive Zach crazy, now it was coming to bite him in the ass. He felt naked and overstimulated.
“Stop staring at me,” Tristan said, turning on his side to do hip adduction against gravity.
“I’m not staring at you. I’m observing. That’s my job.”
Tristan snorted, bending the top leg over to the front of his lower leg. He lifted the lower leg as high as possible, panting a little as he held it up. “I’m pretty sure your job doesn’t involve ogling your patient’s thighs.”
Zach laughed. “You have a rich imagination. You see only what you want to see.”
Tristan rolled onto his back and looked up at him. “What is that supposed to mean?”
Zach walked over and knelt down by Tristan’s feet. “Eccentric adduction now,” he said, instead of responding. His eyes were downcast and his face was difficult to read. “Legs out straight.”
“Stop changing the subject,” Tristan said, but he did as he was told. “If you have something to say, say it. What are you implying here?”
Zach’s hand wrapped around his ankle. “I will move your leg out to the side and you must resist the movement but not so much that the leg doesn’t move. Understood?”
His big fingers brushed the sensitive skin of his ankle. Tristan’s toes curled. “Answer the goddamn question,” he said.
Zach forcefully moved the leg out to the side and Tristan sucked a breath in—although Zach was relatively gentle, there was definitely some discomfort as Tristan tried to resist and slow down the movement.
“This exercise is a little more advanced,” Zach said, as if Tristan hadn’t said anything. “It’s more likely to cause some muscle soreness tomorrow.”
Tristan took a deep breath through his teeth. “I asked you a question.”
“Don’t ask questions you don’t want to hear the answers to.”
“Let me be the judge of that,” Tristan said, knowing how much it irritated Zach when he threw his own words back at him.
Finally, Zach looked him in the eye. The crooked smile on his lips was at odds with the intense, dead serious look in his eyes. “If these shorts were any shorter, they’d be called belts. I’ve never seen a more obvious come-on than what you’re wearing today.”
Struggling to keep his expression under control, Tristan managed to put on a sassy smirk. “I think you’re the one who sees what he wants to see. I hate to break it to you, but I don’t want you. I’m not trying to—to seduce you, or something. If I were, you’d already be flat on your back, begging me.”
“You sure it’s not the other way around?” Zach murmured, a glimmer of amusement in his eyes. “I remember it differently.”
Ugh, Tristan had never wanted to kill anyone more.
He lifted his chin. “That was a moment of madness.”
“That I agree with,” Zach said. “I’m straight.”
Tristan’s eyebrows crawled up. “I got a different impression yesterday.”
“As you said, that was a moment of madness. I’m not interested in men.”
“Really?” Tristan said, grinning. “Then it must have been your evil gay twin whose tongue was down my throat yesterday. Does your future wife know about it?”
Zach met his eyes calmly. “I’ve already told you, Donna and I are in an open relationship until the wedding. And for someone who keeps saying it was a mistake, you sure keep talking about it a lot.”
Tristan searched for something to say—something that would give him the upper hand, something that would stop him from feeling so out of his depth. The sardonic curl of Zach’s lips was absolutely infuriating. Zach knew Tristan wanted him, and after yesterday’s humiliation, Tristan could hardly deny it.
But why should he deny it?
“The truth is, I was just horny,” Tristan said and smiled at Zach. “Yep, you can add ‘slut’ to the long list of my flaws. I was horny and you were just there. The truth is, any dick would do.”
Zach’s fingers tightened around Tristan’s ankle.
Tristan cocked his head, looking at him innocently. “What? Don’t tell me you thought you were special. If I weren’t injured, I’d be getting laid every night.” The blatant lie rolled off his tongue easily. “But I get it: of course you’d like to think I’m into you—anyone would. I’m irresistible.”
“Irresistible isn’t the word I would use to describe you.” Zach’s grip on his ankle was almost painful now.
“Lovely?” Tristan said with a grin, batting his eyelashes. Goading Zach was always so fun. “Beautiful? Fuckable?”