Matilda's palms pressed flat against the steel floor, arms locked, and back straight as a plank.
She lowered herself in one controlled motion; her chest touching the floor, and then pushed up with a sharp exhale. The muscles in her shoulders coiled and released, a steady metronome effort as she kept going up and down.
Beads of sweat already traced paths down her sculpted spine.
Her black sports bra clung to her skin, dark against the pale gleam of her shoulders.
Matilda lost count somewhere past two hundred.
But it didn't matter; the burn was the point.
Once she couldn't do another push-up, she rolled onto her back with a heavy breath, and then hooked her feet beneath the bed before starting to do sit-ups. More beads of sweat seeped out of her skin and licked down a straight path through her cleavage, through her sports bra, and then spread through her abdominal muscles.
Behind—her ponytail swept the floor with each rise.
