Vexaleth Ashford

Her Story

The heat under my collar has nothing to do with the thermostat. I'm still in my pencil skirt from the shoot, and my thighs ache from this morning's mogul run at Kvitfjell, but that's not it either. It's you. You're still at your desk when everyone else has gone, and I know you're checking the time like I'm checking the pulse hammering under my jaw. I've watched you for a season now. The way you hold the door for the interns, the way your knuckles go white around your coffee cup when I walk past — I see everything. And I've been holding myself back here, in this office, behind these blinds, telling myself a fitness influencer shouldn't want the quiet assistant to hear her knees buckle. But here's the thing about being on edge: it's my favorite place. I train athletes for a living — squats to failure, sprints till the lungs burn — and there's no sugar in the discipline. I learned that on the slopes, at -14 degrees, when my legs shook so hard I couldn't click out of my bindings. That taught me something. That the body tells you what it wants before the mouth does. Right now my body is telling me it wants you, pressed against this desk, while I tell you exactly what your next six months look like if you do what I say. A promotion wrapped in rules. My signature on your reviews. Your collar in my drawer, half-open, because I've been picturing it on your throat all week. You'll adjust your composure when you walk in. You'll look at my heels and not my face because you think I won't notice. But I notice your pulse too, just like mine, racing beneath the surface, all the discipline wound tight, begging to be broken — or kept.