Punching and Kissing (7 page)

I closed my eyes and thought of my own brothers. A very different situation, but no less painful.

I rubbed my back, right between my shoulder blades. “Yeah,” I said. “I do.”

Her face filled with hope. “So you’ll help me?” She stepped forward a little and I could smell the scent of her—honeysuckle shampoo and soap and a warm, fragrant spice that was just
her.
She was gorgeous, so beautiful that it took my breath away just to look at her. And she needed me. I could sweep in like some knight on a white feckin’ horse and rescue her.

Except I’m no hero.

I thought about going back to that world. Violence and fear. Glory and excitement. The wonderful savagery of it, the way it changed you. I thought about raising my hands to someone again, and I felt ill. I thought about raising my hands to
her,
even in training, and my guts twisted.

“No,” I said. And turned away.

Sylvie

I’d very nearly not come. Alec’s warning was still ringing in my head. He’d wanted me to stay away from Aedan because he was dangerous, a legendarily brutal fighter. And yet the irony was,
brutal
was exactly what I needed, right now.
Brutal
might just save my life.

But Alec had started to say something else, too, just before the fight. He’d been scared for me.
“The guy’s a real bastard. I heard—“

What? What had he heard? All I’d gotten out of people at The Pit was vague impressions, no details. But they all agreed he was a great fighter...and someone to stay the hell away from.

Instead of staying away, I’d come all the way out to Newark, alone, and sought him out. Because I really didn’t have any choice. And because I’d thought I’d seen something in him, back at The Pit. I thought I’d glimpsed someone, underneath the hardness and the scars. Someone who might just be able to save me.

The way he made me feel only made it worse. Seeing him in daylight, that combination of rugged good looks and raw power was even more acute. He was gorgeous, but not in any familiar, safe way, like the guys I saw around the city. He didn’t belong in New York, with its rules and its civility. He’d have been at home a thousand years in the past, back in Ireland, defending his home from an invading army, bellowing a war cry as he tossed men over his shoulder. It made perfect sense that he’d wound up in The Pit, the most barbaric place the city had to offer.

He should have scared me—he still
did
scare me, in a way. But every time I looked into those eyes, I felt like I was falling. Every time I watched his lips move, I felt the ghost of their imagined touch on mine. That accent was the most wondrous thing I’d ever heard, a complex melody of flowing vowels and upward lilts. It was music made from dirty steel and slabs of stone and it did a number on me every time he spoke.

And then he’d said the one word I hadn’t expected:
no.
The word washed over me and seeped into my skin, chilling it like a north wind. I took a half step back, stumbling as if he’d slapped me.

Maybe Alec had been right about him. Maybe he really was a bastard.

And it was worse than that. I’d got it into my head, somehow, that he liked me. I was sure I’d felt his eyes on me, more than once. The shame rose up in my stomach, hot and wet and flaring scarlet.
Of course he doesn’t like you.
A super-hot guy like
him?
From the way the woman at the gate glared at me, I wasn’t the first woman to come looking for him. Maybe he’d taken a passing interest in me, considered me for a casual fuck, but nothing more than that.

When he’d helped me, back at The Pit, it had been out of pity, or because he felt he had no choice. And now I’d showed up at his work full of expectations and he just wanted rid of me.

I hated him, in that moment. I felt like the geeky girl who smiled shyly at the football captain and heard the whole room collapse into laughter. All I wanted to do was walk away.

But I couldn’t. I still needed him. There was no one else who could help me.

I couldn’t bribe him—I didn’t have any money.

There was only one thing I could offer him instead.

Aedan

“You can have me.”

Her voice was sullen and desperate, close to tears. It took me a few seconds to really process what she’d said.

When I spun around, she was lifting the hem of her tank top. A sleek, tan stomach came into view, then the purple cups of her bra. The tank top pulled tight across her breasts and she hooked it over them. Soft, sweet perfection, the flesh bouncing lightly as it was freed. Everything I’d dreamed of….

“You can have me,” she said again. “I’ll sleep with you.” She was staring right at me, her eyes brimming with tears. “Just—
please
—teach me how to fight.”

I broke out of the spell she’d cast on me and stepped quickly over to her. Grabbing her tank top, I rammed it down again, covering her. Trying not to think about how smooth her skin was, how good it felt as it grazed my fingers.

I stood there panting with the shock of it. I glanced around. No one else was nearby, thank God. “Jesus!” I snapped. “What are you
doing?
”

She looked up at me and blinked a couple of times. I could see the tears start to spill.
Oh feck!
Now she thought I didn’t want her.

She folded her arms protectively over her stomach, hugging the tank top to her. “I’m sorry,” she sobbed. “It’s all I have left. What do you want? What will it take?”

Oh Jesus! What have I done?!
I felt as if Dwight had dropped the damn cargo container right on me, crushing me down into the dirt. I’d reduced her to this. I’d made this angel want to trade her body like a whore because I was too ashamed to go back to—

I can’t. I really can’t. She’s a girl!
And I was a fighter, not a trainer. Even if I could train her, how much good could I do, in a month?

I stared at her hopelessly. Her face was upraised to me, the tears coursing down her cheeks. I’d never seen anyone look so vulnerable. A single word from me, now, and she’d crumble completely.

She has no one else to go to. If she did, she wouldn’t be here.

And what was the alternative? Turn her away and know that she was going into that fight without any preparation at all? I knew that I’d never be able to persuade her to run. She felt the same way about her brother as I did about—

I felt the tattoo on my back itch.

“Okay,” I said at last. “But you don’t need to...do that.”

She didn’t say anything. She was too busy trying to hold back the tears. She closed her eyes and nodded twice, sniffing.

I felt my stomach clench. She was going to feel grateful. She’d want to reward me. Even if she didn’t really like me, she’d offer up the temptation. That face. That body. Every feckin’ day. And I’d have to keep pushing her away because the best way to hurt her would be to let her get involved with me. She wasn’t like one of the women I’d picked up in bars. She deserved better than me.

It had to be all business. Just training.

I took a deep breath. “We start tomorrow.”

Sylvie

I agonized about what to wear. It wasn't like I had a massive collection of gym wear to choose from—when I did exercise, it was a clumsy attempt to follow an aerobics video I'd found on YouTube, in the privacy of my bedroom with the blinds closed. So all I had was sweatpants and Lycra tops.

The problem, as I was hotly and painfully aware, was that Aedan would be there. And however much I was focused on the fight, however scared I was for Alec and myself and what awaited us in a month's time, I couldn't stop thinking about him. I knew his reputation. I knew I should be running in the opposite direction. But instead, I kept thinking about the feel of his hand on mine, when he’d briefly held it. Those blue eyes that seemed to see everything. The jagged, ugly scars on his neck that only made the rest of him seem more beautiful.
I should be scared of him.
I
was
scared of him. But at the same time, I was drawn to him. And so I agonized about what to wear.

Eventually, I screamed at my own reflection in the mirror. And I stood there, listening to the silence and, after a few seconds, I realized I'd been waiting for Alec's answering shout from his room, telling me to shut up. That nearly started me crying again.

It had been a long night. I'd slept alone in the apartment plenty of times, of course—Alec had had plenty of one-night stands, usually with curvy blondes, and he preferred to go back to their place because no one wants to have to introduce their sister over breakfast. But I'd always known, those times, that he'd be coming back eventually.

I threw a towel in a bag and headed out before I could think about it anymore.

***

The gym wasn't what I'd expected. It didn't look much like the gyms I'd seen on TV, all polished wood floors and gleaming machinery and sunlit, airy studios filled with people doing yoga.

This was a boxer's gym.

The walls were whitewashed breezeblocks. There were only two types of equipment: things to lift and things to hit. And the place was full of men lifting and hitting.

That was the other thing that was missing: women. I couldn't see a single woman in the entire place. I stood there feeling completely out of place.

Then an Irish voice from behind me. "You okay?"

For a moment, I thought it was Aedan. I spun around and found myself looking at someone completely new. He was a little smaller in the shoulders than Aedan and leaner, too, though he was ripped as hell. And he was topless. A tattoo on his bicep said
Ruth.
A fresher-looking one on his other bicep said
Karen.

He had blue-gray eyes and similar black hair to Aedan. Almost as good looking, too. What was this? Had I stumbled into some Irish-run gym? Was it a membership requirement that you be blue-eyed and gorgeous? "Umm..."

"Relax," he told me. "You aren't the only woman."

I looked around. "No?"

"Oh, no. Natasha's been here. And Jasmine." He frowned and then gave me a look that managed to be flirty and apologetic at the same time. "To be fair, they only came
once,
but..."