TAMED: #2 in the Fit Trilogy by Rebekah Weatherspoon Page A

you’ve dealt with were like, but just because a guy bum-rushes me with his feelings-splooge doesn’t mean I have swallow it and like it. Or ask for more.”
    “I don’t just go around telling every woman that I love them. You have to know that much about me by now.”
    “That’s true, but I don’t know much else. Is it sweet? Yeah? I guess it is? But you’re giving me no real time to think or respond, so thanks, but no thanks. Can we please work out now?”
    Armando’s jaw clenched like he was working out what to say next, but Nailah didn’t have time for that shit. She went over to the treadmill and started her own warm up. She had to pull the plug on the sex. Clearly, he couldn’t handle it. Unfortunately he was definitely the best trainer she’d ever worked with it. If he couldn’t keep it together for sixty minutes, she would have to go looking for another instructor.
    ✶

    Turns out, looking elsewhere wasn’t necessary. They’d come to a new understanding. Armando would continue to train Nailah. She could tell he was upset as their session went on, but he didn’t bring up his bizarre love for her again.
    Now with her connections on kinklife and even her access to Master Philip, she didn’t think it would be too hard to find a man to call Sir. When she was ready. If she was ready.
    She needed to get Armando out of her mind first. She could start by erasing the pictures of him from her phone. That would probably keep her from lying in her bed in the middle of the night, looking at his sleeping face. He’d posted those pictures of her on his kinklife page. Their captions were simple: First morning with N. , but he hadn’t tagged her. She tried not to think too hard about what any of that meant. Again, she scrolled through her phone and when it occurred to her that she actually wished she had more pictures of Armando, she knew she had a problem.
    It was almost midnight, but her parents’ door was always open. She grabbed a sweatshirt and her flip-flops then power walked across the pool deck to her parents’ back door. She poked her head into the living room where Haji and Abasi were still up playing video games. Upstairs, her parents’ bedroom door was cracked open.
    “Om?” Nailah said quietly. Her mom didn’t answer, but Nailah heard her getting out of bed and moving around the room. A few moments later, she stepped into the hall wrapped in her silk robe.
    “Okay?” her mom said.
    “Yeah, I just wanted to talk.”
    “Okay, habebti. Let’s get some tea.”
    Nailah followed her mom down to the kitchen. She hopped up on a stool at their marble topped island and waited while her mom boiled some water.
    “What’s troubling you, baby?”
    “I may have developed feelings for a man, but I broke things off with him.”
    “Why, darling?” Her mom sounded genuinely confused.
    “Things were moving too fast, you could say.”
    “Fast how? Stop being vague.”
    “We were hanging out and then he just got all serious, wanting me to meet his family and telling me he loved me and shit. And stuff, I mean. Sorry.”
    “You and your sailor mouth. What was wrong with him?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “You don’t have to say I love you back. That’s just silly if you don’t feel that way, but you just told me you have feelings for him. Why did you break it off? What is wrong with him?”
    Nailah looked down and ran her finger along the edge of the island. She didn’t have a good answer.
    “Are you having sex with him?”
    Nailah hesitated, but she knew that her mom was asking a simple question. It wasn’t like she would freak out like her father. “Yes.”
    “And the sex was good?”
    “I’m not telling you that.”
    “Is he the one who made your butt sore?”
    “Oh my god.” Nailah covered her face and slumped against the counter.
    “You aren’t telling me anything. You have a man who loves you and dumped him because he wanted you to know his family. Tell me the real reason.”
    “I’m