Tuesday's Tale: "Woods"

"A Walk for Inspiration"

Leila hated these stuck moments. She was three days past her deadline and her heroine was still trapped in an abandoned warehouse with a crazed gunman after her and the hero nowhere to be found.

Hoping to clear her head and channel her muse, Leila decided to escape the taunting glare of her computer screen and take a walk. The weather was cool and crisp, the start of autumn evident from the reddish brown of the tree leaves.

She didn’t realize she had veered off the main path until she was deep in the woods, surrounded by foliage. Before she gave in to her rising panic, she breathed a sigh of relief. A young couple was jogging toward her.

“Excuse me,” she called out. “How do I get back to the main path?”

They gave her quick directions and Leila tried her hardest to commit it to memory. She headed toward the direction the man had pointed out to her, but after fifteen minutes of walking she suspected he must have either given her bad directions or she had missed a turn somewhere.

Annoyed, Leila began to back track her steps until she heard a muffled curse. She followed the noise until she came upon a shirtless man standing several feet away from her, vigorously rubbing his right calf.

It wasn’t polite to stare, she knew that, but she couldn’t tear her eyes away. The sheen of sweat on his shoulders gleamed in the sunlight and his muscles flexed and bulged with every stroke. He was like a character ripped right out of her romance novels – and she wanted to touch him.

But that would be crazy... right?

 

She told herself she would stare for five more minutes than she would offer him some assistance. For now, she would enjoy the inspiration.

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