Author's Notes:

As I mentioned last chapter, This part's a little PG-13.  Nothing inappropriate for teens and it is probably more relevant to the storyline than the pure smut stuff, but there's some stuff happening.

~-~

Dimitri and I had gone through weightlifting together more times than I could count, spotting each other through all of our sets. It was usually uneventful, tedious, and repetitive work, but it had never been with the knowledge that we had this time. We were the only two people in the weight room of the gym this morning, and other than the eighties music Dimitri had turned on, it was quiet and somewhat intimate. We began at the bench press, which seemed innocent enough. Seemed, at least.

To properly spot someone on the bench press, the person lifting is laying down on the bench, which is about twenty inches tall, bringing the bar down across their chest, right at roughly nipple-level, while the spotter is standing just behind the lifter's head, ready to intervene if something should go wrong. Intervening would involve grabbing that bar, which is right roughly nipple-level, and helping to remove it from the lifter's chest, from behind, possibly standing with the spotters legs almost directly around the lifter's head.

I'd dropped the bar twice before, always with an extremely heavy weight, and never on purpose. It was a scary thing when the bar was crushing down on you. You feel like you can't breathe - and in reality, you probably could crack a rib or crush a lung. Dimitri probably saved my life by spotting me those days. That was very different from today.

"Damn," I told Dimitri as I went for another few reps, looking back at him, "I've never wanted to drop this bar so much in my life. If I didn't absolutely know I needed to take this all seriously, I'd drop it on purpose now just to have you over me picking it up, putting your hands on me." I heard Dimitri inhale sharply and saw him adjusting the waistband of his shorts as he moved his stance closer to my head. I wasn't sure if that moving forward was a willful move to distract my focus or if he truly thought I was going to drop the bar.

"After you finish this set," he said "I'll do mine as quickly as I can. Then, we'll move to the concentration curls with the dumbbells."

"You're not making it any easier to finish my set, Comrade," I told him, glancing straight up at his face, which was now above me.

Dimitri gave me a small glimpse of a smile. "My job's not to make it easier."

"I could hit myself with a hammer and it would make my workout harder, but that doesn't mean it would make it more effective," I joked, as I eked out the rest of my set, "There. Done. Your turn."

I stood and let Dimitri load the bar with the extra weight he would need and get in position on the bench. Since he was so willing to test my restraint in the same position, I decided to position myself directly above his face ... which was a big mistake. Three things happened, in short order. First, I could feel the heat of Dimitri's breath on my thigh. My breathing stopped when I felt it. Second, I was absolutely sure that he could see up the leg of my shorts. Third, Dimitri set the bar back on the rack.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

Dimitri asked, "Is the room clear? Are we still alone?"

"Yes, but - Oh!" Dimitri's lips were on the upper portion of my inner thigh, face buried inside the leg of my shorts, hands wrapped around my hips and squeezing my ass. He placed a set of four soft, warm kisses higher and higher on my thigh, letting me feel the tip of his tongue on my skin for just a moment at the end of the fourth one, and then pulled away.

"I should probably ask someone else to spot me bench pressing for a few days until I can get used to the idea," he said, "that I can do things like that now, but that I shouldn't do them here. We'd better move on to those curls."

I grabbed the dumbbell Dimitri had gotten for me off of the rack, put my right knee on the bench, leaned forward, placing my right hand on the bench in front of my knee, tucked my left elbow into my rib, and proceeded to curl the dumbbell with my left arm. Dimitri was doing his curls on a bench directly in front of me, facing me. And he was openly staring down my neckline as I bent over.

"Did I ever mention how much I liked that shirt?" he asked, continuing his gawking, "It's almost as nice as those black lace panties you're wearing."

"Shut it, Comrade," I said as I counted out the rest of my curls. After I finished my set, I asked him, "Was there always this much tension when we were in the weight room before?"

"For me? Every single time. Maybe more, because before it wasn't just the chance of getting caught that kept me from kissing you."

"Right arms now?" I asked, trying not to think about it.

Dimitri replied, "Either that, or we head to the equipment storage room for twenty minutes and brace the door with a chair, so I have a chance to see those panties again."

"You've put way too much thought into this, haven't you?"

"Right arms," he replied, "though, if we have time, we might duck into the storage room long enough for that kiss after we're done with sparring."

~-~

We were in the weight room for about half an hour. The rest of lifting was as tense as it had begun. As we headed in to the sparring area, Dimitri told me, "We've never been in a situation exactly like this, but we've both resisted each other before. It will get easier."

As Dimitri signed in to one of the sparring rooms off the outside wall of the gym on the clipboard hanging outside the door, I said, "No. You've resisted. I never have."

He smiled as he held the door open for me to enter. "Well," he said, "then think of this as a new training exercise in patience, focus, and restraint. At least now, we have a chance to do something about it later, though some waiting might be required." Dimitri got into the circle and stood in fighting stance. "Are you ready?" he asked.

I nodded, setting my feet apart and getting my hands out, but looking into his eyes, noticing the dark chocolate color and the little flecks of darker brown. While I was looking at his eyes, Dimitri came at me with his a slightly different tactic than usual, aiming his hands at my stomach. I fended off his first attack, but it caught me off guard enough that I had to spin sideways away from him. He swung out with a leg and tried to sweep it, sending me down to the ground, but I just managed to see his leg out of the corner of my eye to jump just in time to avoid catching it under mine. Without being able to see him in front of me, I was at a definite disadvantage in this match, so I'd need to try to fix that. I ducked, trying to use his size as leverage to topple him over my back, but he managed to predict my move in time to shift his weight back, grabbing me around the arms by the waist and pulling me down onto the floor, face up, my back to his front. He wrapped his arms around my body in a cage so that I couldn't move my arms. As soon as I was fully on my back, Dimitri rolled us both so that I was pinned underneath him, facing the floor. Typically, this would be the time that he would mimic a pretend bite from a Strigoi to declare the first match over, but instead, I felt his lips kissing my neck. "Match," he whispered in my ear.

Dimitri's hands moved quickly from my waist to the floor on either side of me, so that he could push himself to stand. As soon as his weight was off of me, I rolled onto my back, but he was still above me. Our eyes met for a moment, then Dimitri stood and offered me his hand to help me up. "I'm not sure this is gonna get easier," I said, taking his hand and pulling myself up, then letting our hands linger together for a little longer than necessary.

"That was a nice jump and duck, but it was still over far too quickly," he said, "You should've seen ahead of time when I was going for your waist. Your head wasn't in the game."

"You're right," I said, "I'll try again." We both got into fighting stance again.

Accidentally grazes of body parts were not uncommon during sparring, happening maybe once every week or two, but they were usually quick and accompanied by an immediate apology. I would hazard a guess that neither of us had any intention today of apologizing when they happened - or of those grazes being entirely accidental. I had intentionally positioned myself for this match so that Dimitri's back was to the glass panel in the sparring room door. He came at me again and this time, I was more than ready. Dimitri aimed his first strike as a kick out at my legs this time, but I quickly blocked him with my foot, spinning into an elbow to the chest. He wasn't able to block my elbow in time and I landed a blow, knocking the wind out of him. Once again, I ended up with my back to him, and I went for the ultimate distraction, letting my hand trail dangerously along the front of his shorts, hearing a pleasured groan from him. Then, I spun back around to get Dimitri back in my field of view and tried to go in with a kick of my own to the side of his calf. Dimitri dodged the kick, but only just.

"You're not fighting fair, Roza," he said, as he went in for another punch that I didn't block quite as well as I would've liked. I moved back and circled the ring.

"You should've seen that coming," I called back, taunting him, "Your head wasn't in the game."

Dimitri shook his head. "Oh, Roza," he said, "You better be careful what you ask for with moves like that." He launched at me again, this time positioning his hands to either side of my ribs, trying to knock me out of the ring. I got right up to the edge of the ring and nearly fell over backwards. As I started to catch myself, Dimitri caught my feet with his leg, kicking them out from under me. Almost before I realized what was happening, he was laying on top of me again, this time with his hands caressing my breasts over my shirt, hidden by his body on top of mine.

"What was it you were asking for at the bench press?" he asked, practically purring into my ear, as I took a moment to let my brain fight between trying to reclaim the match and letting him continue to lay on top of me and let his hands wander my body. Finally, the battle instinct in me won out and I flipped us both over, quickly hooking my legs around his arms and pinning him to the ground. I sat up, using my hands to pin his shoulders down.

"Match, Comrade," I said, suddenly hyper-aware of exactly where on his body I was seated. I could see the look in his eyes that told me he was aware of it, too.

"Yes, Roza," he said, "Match," letting the word hang in the air for a moment as I sat astride him.

I took a quick glance at the door. From this angle, no one would be able to see us from the hallway. I leaned down and kissed his lips, letting my fingers slide around the back of his neck. I pulled back and said, "See? Not easier."

"No," he agreed, as I stood, "Not yet." He put his feet out under his knees, hands behind his shoulders, and kicked into a standing upright position in one fluid move.

"Storage room?" I asked, as my stomach suddenly growled.

"Two more matches first," he replied, "Then storage room, and then I'll have to let you go so that you can get some breakfast."

~-~

Author Notes:

What did you think of Dimitri's stuffy, formal email signature? I thought it'd be fun to imagine what an email from him would look like. I pulled his "Blood Master" rank information from the Dimitri Belikov page of the Vampire Academy wiki site. Also, I got that line about hitting myself in the head with the hammer from my husband.  

Here's my new question of the week: 

How many women do you think Dimitri had been with before Rose?

I always got the feeling as I was reading the books that Dimitri - even with a slightly checkered past in his younger days - was too reserved and had his heart way too tied to his body (more so than the average man) to have had a lot of 'experience' with different women - maybe only 2 or 3 women, at most - but I've certainly seen others' fan fiction where they either expressly state or imply a very different opinion.

As always, please vote and comment!