Bound to the Bachelor (12 page)

“You want more water?” Beau asked, striding away from her.

She closed her eyes, trying to regain control of her runaway imagination. “Yes, please.”

She’d like a whole bucket of the stuff, icy cold, thrown in her face.

She used the short reprieve to suck some much needed air into her lungs and get a grip on her disorderly thoughts. When he returned, she took the bottle he offered her and pressed it to her forehead before cracking the seal and gulping big mouthfuls.

“We’ll call it quits soon, but there’s one last thing I wanted to do before you go,” he said, all business. “If someone comes at you, the most likely scenario is that they’re going to grab you from behind or simply punch you, then grab you.”

She made an incoherent choking sound. “Um… then why I have you just put me through Navy Seal Training 101?”

“Because you know what you’re capable of now. What it feels like to hit hard. How to put your weight behind a kick. If you get a chance to use it, great. If you don’t, you’re still not out of options.” He gestured to the mat. “Get down on your back for me.”

A dozen bawdy, smart-assy retorts rose to her lips but she swallowed them. This was tough enough, fraught enough, without her making it worse. And Beau had been nothing but professional for the entire two hours they’d been going at it. If it hadn’t been for that single, stretched moment when they’d forgotten to speak and gotten lost in each other’s eyes, she’d be tempted to believe the magnetic pull she felt toward him was completely one-sided.

But he’d confessed he wanted her yesterday, and his eyes told her she wasn’t alone in wanting things she couldn’t – shouldn’t – have.

Getting onto her knees, she rolled onto her back and looked up at him. “Is this what you wanted?”

There was a short, loaded pause before he responded.

“That’s right. If ever you wind up like this, on the ground, on your back, you’re not helpless. You’ve still got your arms and your legs. You’ve got your teeth and nails. You’re not done, not by a long shot.”

She considered what he was saying, remembering the sheer power and weight of Luther when he’d cornered her. If she’d been on the ground and he on top of her, she wouldn’t have stood a chance.

“You can’t tell me that I could fight off someone like you. You’re a million times stronger and heavier than me.”

“Prove it to me.”

He moved toward her, and she realized he was going to try to overpower her. She frowned, even as she fisted her hands and instinctively lifted her feet from the floor, ready to lash out.

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Wrong. You want to hurt me. You want to stop me. That should be the only thing you’re thinking about.”

He came down on one knee beside her, hands reaching for her shoulders to pin her down. She bucked instinctively, punching out at him with her fists, pulling her knees up when he tried to get a leg over her body and bring his weight down over her. Despite her struggles, it was mere moments before he had her wrists pinned by her shoulders, her legs weighted down by his own.

She stared up at him, her heart racing, torn between an instinctive fear at being overpowered and the heated knowledge that the length of him was pressed to the length of her. If she lifted her head – or if he lowered his – they’d be kissing.

“You’re holding back again,” he said, his breath brushing her face.

Lily stared at the very beginning of what would become golden stubble on his jaw.

“I can’t punch you or kick you. I’ll hurt you.”

Up close, his eyes were incredibly blue, as bright and pure as the tropical ocean. His gaze dropped to her mouth and she held her breath, her whole body going very still.

Kiss me
, she willed him. Because then it would be his decision, and not hers. His mistake, nothing to do with her. She’d just be going along for the ride.

He rolled away from her. “You need to know you can do this, Lily. I want the knowledge to be there in the back of your mind, in there with sneezing and breathing in your lizard brain. I want you to not feel helpless.”

His voice vibrated with sincerity and determination, and she understood this really mattered to him. He wasn’t just fooling around for a couple of hours; he was sincerely concerned for her safety and wellbeing.

Even though they’d done nothing but take potshots at each other for the past five years.

It was on the tip of her tongue to ask him why he was doing this, but she caught herself just in time. She already knew. He was doing this for the same reason she’d caught at his elbow last night, allowing Darren to escape – she hadn’t wanted Beau to get hurt.

“Okay,” she said quietly. “I’ll try again. But I apologize in advance if I hurt you.”

“Apology accepted in advance.”

Bracing herself, she prepared for another round.

‡

B
eau came at
her again then, and this time she gave it her all. Where she’d pulled blows and hesitated before, she lashed out, legs milling crazily, hands punching, elbows flying. Beau pulled back, reconsidered his approach, then tried to throw his body weight across her torso, attempting to physically smother her with his superior weight. She got in several good blows before his weight pinned her down, and even then she twisted and bucked beneath him, managing to twist onto her side, hands clawing at him. She wasn’t sure when the exercise stopped being fiction and became real in her mind. Some primitive instinct seemed to kick in, and all she knew was she had to get away from the man trying to overpower her. They struggled together for what felt like minutes, but probably only seconds, and then suddenly Beau’s weight was gone and he’d rolled back onto his knees beside her.

“Jesus,” she said on a harsh exhalation, her lungs burning with the effort of sucking in enough air.

“Fantastic,” Beau said. “You do that; you’ll make any attacker pay for every inch.”

She glanced at him, a little alarmed by how much his praise and approval meant to her. She felt like a proud school kid who’d just been given her first gold star. Then she saw the thin stream of blood trickling out of his nose.

“Shit. Did I do that? God, I’m so sorry.”

She scrambled to her knees, guilt biting hard, as he lifted a hand to his face, looking at the blood on his fingers with bemusement.

“Look at that. Your first blood. Go, Rambo.” He grinned, and she realized rather than being angry with her for hurting him or in pain, he was
proud
of her. The Neanderthal.

“Does it hurt?”

“Relax. It’s fine,” he said easily. “I accepted your apology in advance, remember?”

He stood, then held out a hand to her. She took it, feeling his strong fingers wrap around hers before he helped pull her to her feet.

“We should get some ice for that. I didn’t break it, did I?”

Beau laughed. “No, killer, you didn’t break it. And I’m pretty sure a tissue is going to fix this.”

He strode across to the kitchen and grabbed the box of Kleenex from on top of the fridge. One swipe and his face was clean.

“Good,” she said, relieved.

“Admit it – you’d be a little bit pleased if you’d broken my nose,” he teased.

“No!”

“Just a teensy bit. Come on, admit it.”

She couldn’t stop herself from smiling. “Not everyone is as bloodthirsty and competitive as you, you know.”

“Liar.”

She shook her head, still smiling. “Stop trying to deflect from the fact that I totally had you back there.”

“Did you?”

“You backed off, not me,” she said, hands on her hips now.

“You want to go again?”

He stepped toward her, and she took a big, instinctive step backward. He laughed.

“I’ll take that as a no.”

“I don’t want to damage your beautiful face,” she told him.

“Always thinking of me,” he said dryly.

She lifted a shoulder, conscious his light words weren’t far from the truth. He’d been slipping into her thoughts far too much lately.

As though sensing the shift in her mood, Beau glanced at the wall clock above the sink.

“It’s getting late. You’ve probably got stuff to do. Feel free to grab a shower before you head home. The ladies’ is just past the offices.”

The urge to get out of there before she did something stupid was like a hand in the middle of her back, but the thought of going out into the cold with her body all sweaty and hot beneath Andie’s coat was unbearable. She’d brought a change of clothes with her. Surely she could remain sane for another five minutes while she had a quick rinse off?

“That sounds good, actually,” she said, nodding pointlessly. Suddenly nervous now that the business of the day was over.

“There should be shower gel and a stack of towels in there. Give me a shout if you need anything else,” Beau said.

“Sure. Thanks.”

She stopped to grab her gym bag, then walked past the offices and into a short service corridor. A sign proclaimed the first door on the right to be the men’s changing room. The next door was the ladies’, and she pushed through a swing door into a pristine change room fitted out with white tiles. A wooden bench ran along one wall, with a row of hooks above it. There were three cubicles, the first two toilets, the third a shower. As Beau had promised, a metal tower near the double basin held fluffy white towels.

She let her breath out, feeling her shoulders drop. She’d survived her second day in Beau’s company without doing something dumb. Sure, there had been a couple of close calls, but she was calling it as a win for sanity and rationality.

She sat on the bench to pull off her sneakers, quickly stripping her damp clothes. She was about to cross to the shower when she heard the sound of running water starting up on the other side of the wall. Instantly an image of Beau standing naked under the shower spray filled her head.

She’d spent enough time wrestling with him today to have a pretty accurate idea of how he’d look naked, and the image in her mind was very detailed. Very precise.

Very hot and hard.

Why do this to yourself? Why hanker after something you know you can’t have?

She’d never been the type of person to yearn for the out of reach. She was a pragmatist at heart. It was the only way she’d survived Luther, her mother’s betrayal, and the crap life had thrown at her after she ran away from home. There was no merit in wanting the world to be different from the way it was. She couldn’t change the past. She couldn’t make her mother stronger or wiser. She couldn’t stop the truck that had killed her father when she was just twelve years old. And she couldn’t change who she was and what she wanted, and who Beau was and what he wanted.

Let’s be very clear about this – if you sleep with him, it will be hot and fast, and he will never give you what you want.

Lily turned her face into the spray as she stepped into the shower, letting the warm water wash away the sweat of the past few hours.

There was a reason she’d been single for a long time now. She didn’t want to settle. She was sick of accepting the crumbs from life’s table. She wanted a man who could give her what Andie had found with Heath – affection, desire, commitment, friendship.

Love.

Beau wasn’t going to give those things to her. If she slept with him, she would be signing up for a good time, not a long time. It would simply be a matter of animal attraction. Of getting something out of her system. Dealing with it, and moving on.

Her body tightened at the thought of what “dealing with it” might entail. Her soap-slicked hands stilled on her breasts, and for just a second she let herself imagine what it might feel like if Beau were touching her.

If it were his fingers tightening around her nipple.

His hand sliding slowly down her belly.

His fingers slipping between her thighs.

Are you freaking kidding me?

She jerked her hand away from her body, her eyes popping open. On what planet was it okay for her to pleasure herself when Beau Bennett was just meters away on the other side of a thin wall, naked and wet in a shower?

Talk about playing with fire.

More than a little shocked at herself, she rinsed the last of the soap from her body, then twisted the water off and leaned across to grab a towel.

She needed to get out of here. Beau did things to her self-control, things she didn’t like.

She dried herself with rough swipes of the towel, then dressed in the clothes she’d packed – fresh underwear, jeans, a deep purple cable-knit sweater. Her hair was wet, and she took a few minutes to towel dry it roughly before combing her fingers through it and pulling it into a rough bun on the back of her head. It was a short walk to her car. Wet hair wasn’t going to kill her.

Whereas sleeping with Beau might come close.

She took a deep breath once she’d packed her sports gear into her bag, then cautiously exited the changing room. Now that she was wearing her boots, her footsteps sounded overloud on the concrete floor as she made her way down the short hallway.

She stepped into the open space, a surge of relief hitting her when she realized Beau was nowhere to be seen. Awesome. She could call out a goodbye, and skedaddle. Then she could do something later to thank him for his time – buy him a bottle of Scotch or whatever.