“You’re in training, now.”
“I need the money!”
“Money’s no good to you if you’re dead. Win the fight and you can pay the bills with your winnings.”
She considered. “Okay,” she said at last.
“Get some rest. Meet me at the docks, tomorrow. Wear running shoes. We gotta work on your stamina.” I tossed some bills on the table to pay for lunch. “6:30.”
I walked away before I got in any deeper. But I heard her call after me, “6:30 am?”
Sylvie
Getting to the docks for 6:30am meant getting up not long after five. I couldn’t remember when I’d last been awake at five, but I was pretty sure that it had involved staying up late, not getting up early.
When I reached the docks, I saw Aedan waiting for me outside the main gate. His face was upturned to the rising sun, as if he was bathing in pure morning. He hadn’t seen me, yet, and he had an expression of beatific joy on his face, as if he was doing something he loved, something he hadn’t done for a long time.
Which seemed weird. I mean, he was free and single. If he wanted to get up at this ungodly hour, he could, every morning. So why was he only doing it now?
Unless...he hadn’t had a reason to, before.
“Hey,” I said, to get his attention.
He looked around and, for just a second, I saw those big blue eyes shine as he looked at me. The way they lit up made my heart dance. A hot little thrill went through me, the sort I hadn’t felt in a hell of a long time.
And then he seemed to catch himself and look away. I could almost see his defenses slamming back up. His shoulders tightened, his brow furrowed. “You’re late,” he muttered.
It was 6:35. “There’s no way you can possibly call this late. It’s the middle of the night. We could go for a coffee and come back and it would still be too early.” I yawned and considered that. “Actually, could we just do that?”
He ignored me and nodded at the road. “C’mon.”
And he started to jog at an easy pace. Well, it was easy for the first hundred yards. Then I started to feel it.
“Okay,” he said, not out of breath at all, “Now start punching. Jab, jab, jab, cross, like I showed you.”
“While I’m running?”
“You think that girl you’re fighting is going to stand still while you hit her?”
I tried to punch and run at the same time. It wasn’t just doubly tiring, it was about ten times worse. Every punch threw off my stride. Every stagger threw off my punches.
“Come on,” he told me. “Women are meant to be able to multi-task.”
I huffed for air. “Traditionally,” I managed, “aren’t you meant to be riding a bike alongside me?”
“When you’re running fast enough that I need a bike, I’ll let you know.”
We ran, with me jab-jab-jab-crossing and him snapping orders at me. The sun slowly rose behind the cranes and moored ships, turning the water to glittering gold. I had to admit that I’d been missing out, never seeing sunrises.
We ran right down to the water, where there was an old, disused wooden pier. Some of it had collapsed and its stout wooden legs were all that were left on one side, stretching out into the water like stepping stones.
He veered off from me and jumped onto the first of the wooden legs, then jumped onto the next and the next, using them like stepping stones. When he reached the end, he turned on the spot and jumped back along them. He was as steady-footed as a mountain goat.
“I want you to try that, eventually,” he said. “To work on your balance...and get you out of your head.”
“Out of my head?”
“You’re too much in your head. Not enough in your body.” Was it just me, or had he hesitated before he’d said body? As if thinking of my body tripped him up. “You think too much. You need to feel it more.”
I was still jab-jab-jab-crossing, panting, now. “You’ve—lost—me,” I managed.
He thought about how to explain it. He still wasn’t out of breath. “Your body’s just a vehicle, to you. Something to carry your brain. You’ve got to start feeling it. Feel the road under your feet. Feel each punch. Be in your body, not in your head.”
It sounded like mystical boxer bullshit to me, but I nodded. And, as we ran on, I tried to do what he said. I tried to feel the air whistling past my fists as I punched. I tried to focus on the feel of my legs flexing with each step. I tried to stay out of my head and its thoughts of Aedan, jogging easily alongside me, his pecs stretching out his t-shirt, those wide shoulders rocking from side to side, his big blue eyes regarding me so solemnly….
“You’re in your head again,” he told me.
I gritted my teeth and kept trying. And slowly, despite the distraction of Aedan and his damn eyes, I started to feel it. It still sounded like mystical bullshit, but my body did start to feel more like me and less just a thing I gave orders to. I felt less floaty and distant, more grounded.
By the time we reached the halfway point and turned back the way we’d come, it felt natural. By the time we reached the pier again, I was buzzing with the feeling. My muscles ached and my lungs burned, but I felt alive.
I veered off the street and ran for the pier. It was still too early for traffic and it was so quiet that I could hear every scrape of my shoes on the asphalt, every rasp of the fabric of my sports top as I twisted and punched. As I approached the stepping-stone pier legs, I quit punching and held my arms out for balance.
“Um—” said Aedan.
I ignored him. How hard could it be? I jumped to the first one...and landed, swaying a little. Shit. The legs weren’t as big as they’d looked, maybe a foot in diameter. But I couldn’t stop now. I jumped again and landed on the next one, swaying a little more. Another. Another. I was over the water, now, and it suddenly looked a long way down—eight or ten feet.
“Sylvie, I said you should try it eventually….” Aedan called from behind me.
In less than thirty days, I was going to be in The Pit. I couldn’t afford eventually.
I jumped again. One foot hit the pier leg...but right at the edge, and the other foot missed it completely. My stomach lurched as I felt myself tip to one side, arms windmilling...and then I was falling towards the water.
Aedan
I watched in horror as she hit the surface almost headfirst. She hadn’t had time to get her arms out so she plunged right under, going down deep.
I raced to the edge and dived in. The water was colder than it had any right to be in the summer, and it wasn’t the cleanest, either. But I could see her beneath me, her long hair fanning out around her like a dark halo. I grabbed her under the arms and hauled her up.
We broke the surface together, gasping in air and daylight. She spluttered a little, but seemed okay.
“You gotta work up to it,” I panted, “you daft mare.”
She tossed her wet hair out of her face, sending gleaming jewels of water out in arcs. Then she looked at me. “Sorry.”
“I’ll take you to my place to dry off. It’s not far.”
We swam and then waded ashore. It was worse, once we were out. Our clothes seemed to have absorbed half the water in the harbor and our shoes squelched. Neither of us felt like running anymore, so we trudged back along the street leaving a trail of water behind us.
For a while, we walked in silence. Then a sudden splatter of water made me glance to the side. Sylvie had twisted her long hair into a rope and was wringing it out, arching her back so the water missed her back as it fell. That meant her chest was thrust out, and—
Her running top and bra were plastered to her breasts and the water had chilled her enough that her nipples were standing out hard through the fabric. I lost all capacity for rational thought for a few seconds.
She realized I was staring at her. “What?” she asked, bemused.
“...nothing.”
I forced my eyes forward and told myself I would not—absolutely would not—look at her again.
I’d keep my eyes off her all the way to my place like a feckin’ gentleman.
Except when we reached a side road and I had to look both ways.
And when I thought I might be walking too fast, or too slow.
And sometimes when I needed to just, you know, check she was okay.
This woman had stripped all my self control away in just a few hours.
***
“You live here?” she asked when we arrived at my apartment building. She was careful to make it sound neutral, but I knew what she meant. Suddenly, she understood why I was okay for money. I just nodded.
As soon as I opened the door, I wished I’d cleaned up. I’m not a slob, but...well, guys have different priorities, when it comes to cleaning. I kicked some pizza boxes under a table.
To my surprise, she went straight over to the shelf over the TV. I’d gotten so used to the trophies being there, they didn’t even register.
“You won all these?” she asked in wonder.
I shrugged.
“County Champion?”
“Only in my weight category. And it was years ago.”
She picked up another one. “Twice?” She spun to face me. “What the hell were you doing fighting in The Pit? Why aren’t you on the pro circuit?”
I shook my head. “A lot of stuff happened, back in Ireland. When I came over here, things were a little...complicated.”
“To do with your family?”
I stared at her. “Didn’t you want to get out of those clothes? I’ll find you something to wear.”
She stared back at me stubbornly for a moment but, when it became obvious I wasn’t going to break, she headed for the bathroom.
I let out a long breath and tidied a few more things away. Then I stripped out of my clothes, toweled off and pulled on clean pants and a t-shirt. And then I stopped, because I was listening.
I could hear her undressing.
Never in my life had I imagined that just the sound of clothes hitting the ground could be so sexy. But that heavy thump could only be her soaked sweatpants. That wet stretching, peeling sound must be her running top coming off. A creak of elastic—her bra coming off. And now she’d be standing there topless, her breasts dripping wet, nipples hard from the cold. Right there, not six feet away from me, on the other side of a thin wooden door.
The sound of wet fabric rubbing past skin. Her panties. I heard the sodden cotton hit the tiles and then she was completely nude. In my mind, I could see her naked ass shining with little beads of water, and between her thighs...what? Was she shaved? Waxed? I wanted to see her lips. Kiss them. Lick them.
The door opened and her head stuck out. “Um...you were going to find me something to wear?”
I dug in my closet and found a t-shirt and a pair of shorts. Then I had to hand them to her. Which meant walking right up to that damp, suspicious face and trying to forget that it was attached to a damp and very naked body.
She could have stretched her arm out, so that I didn’t have to come so close. But she kept it right up against the door, so I had to come close. Really close. Until our faces were only a foot apart.
Come to think of it, why hadn’t I stretched my arm out to pass the clothes to her?
Too late now.
I put the clothes into her hand, but for some reason I didn’t let go of them.
“Thank you,” she said, and pulled the clothes a half-inch towards her.
I still didn’t let go.
She looked up into my eyes. I saw her go through a whole range of different emotions, lightning fast. Surprise. Doubt. Her eyes went big and she took a little breath in. Lust.
Does she want this to happen? I sure did. At this point, my cock was ready to break its way through the feckin’ door. One kiss. I’d still be snogging her when I lifted her naked body in my arms and carried her to the bed.
No. Jesus, Aedan, stop thinking with your cock. That was okay with the women I picked up in bars. We both knew what we were getting into, then. Sylvie would expect more than a one-night stand. She deserved more. And I couldn’t give it to her.
I let go of the clothes.
She frowned, confused...and then it turned to anger. She ducked back into the bathroom and slammed the door.
She put on the fresh clothes faster than I would have thought possible. When she came out, the t-shirt hanging almost to her knees and the shorts in severe danger of falling down, it should have been funny. It would have been, if it hadn’t been for her expression. “Do you have a bag?” she snapped.
I found a plastic grocery bag and passed it to her. She went back into the bathroom and started squeezing the water out of her wet clothes. The door was open and I watched as she twisted her sweatpants into a rope. It looked a lot like she was wringing someone’s neck. Then she shook them out, as loudly and violently as possible. Every time she moved, the shorts threatened to fall down and she had to stop and grab at them, and that only seemed to make her madder.
Maybe I messed that up.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said stiffly. “At the gym. Okay? Eight?” She crammed her clothes into the bag so hard it nearly ripped.
I definitely messed that up. “Um. Yeah. Eight.”
She stalked out of the bathroom and over to the door. I spoke up just as she turned the handle. “Sylvie?”
She looked over her shoulder, eyebrows raised. I felt myself falling into those gorgeous, liquid eyes. Say something, you idiot! Make it right! Tell her—
What? That I really liked her? That I wanted more than just sex? That I’d never met anyone like her before?
“Will you be okay, walking in wet shoes?” I asked.
“Yeah,” she said. “Yeah, I’ll be just fucking fine walking in wet fucking shoes.”
And she slammed the door.
There are some times when banging your head against a wall isn’t sufficient. As soon as my shift was done, I resolved to get very, very drunk instead. Drunk enough that I could forget all about Sylvie and her wet running top and her unseen, naked breasts in my bathroom. Drunk enough that I could resolve to stop all this, all the little moments and glances and nearly-kisses. Stop them before they drove us both crazy. Before she got close enough to see me for what I really was and fled, leaving her without any preparation at all for the fight.
From now on, it had to be all business.
Sylvie
Why didn’t he kiss me?
I’d asked myself the same question several hundred different ways, but I wasn’t any closer to an answer. For days, I’d been sure that he liked me. I’d been one hundred percent sure that he’d been about to kiss me, when I’d been poking my head out of the bathroom. And then, just as everything should have come together, he’d backed off.
I told myself that it didn’t matter. That I’d just focus on what mattered—the fight. I told myself that it had been stupid of me to act like some lovesick teenager when things were so serious.
But it wasn’t as simple as that. As soon as I stopped thinking about him in that way, I realized what I was missing. My feelings for him had been the only thing holding back the fear of what was going to happen in less than a month. Without that one positive thing in my life, the fear took over.
Besides, it wasn’t just about me. I knew something was wrong. I knew he was hurting inside because of something in his past. I owed him. Every day, he was helping me—saving me. And there wasn’t a damn thing I could do to help him, if he wouldn’t open up and let me in.
I had no choice. I locked my feelings down tight, and only let them creep out when I was on my own in the apartment, in my bed, my fingers stealing down between my thighs and under my panties. And when I visited Alec in hospital, I’d perch on the edge of his bed, put my head close to his and whisper in his ear about the gorgeous man I couldn’t have.
And we trained.
***
We trained for two weeks, five hours a day, six days a week. I’d never worked so hard in my life. Every day started with a run a
nd then a long session in the gym, with just a quick break for lunch. In the afternoons, Aedan would go to the docks to work while I’d retreat to my apartment and sleep, curled up like a cat on top of the covers. It was my only chance to catch up on rest before my evening shift at the hotel. I’d cancelled my morning shifts to train so the evening shifts were vital to keep some money coming in. Without Alec’s income, the bills were piling up rapidly. Aedan was right, though: the money wouldn’t be any use to me if I was dead. Winning the fight was everything.
He worked on my core with endless rounds of crunches and medicine ball twists. He built up my strength by getting me to pump iron, whispering encouragement in my ear when my arms trembled and I thought I was going to drop the weight on myself. He got me to hit punch bags, pads and, eventually, him.
My body started to change—and fast. It wasn’t magic; it was the sheer brute force of the training. My midsection lost its pudginess and became taut and toned. My arms started to develop shape. My legs became leaner, from the endless squats and footwork.
I wasn’t ready for a fight, yet, but Aedan had me try light sparring, both of us in gloves and head protectors. He let me go at him again and again: he fended off my attacks with casual ease, but that wasn’t the point. The point was to find my style.
“You’re an out-boxer,” he told me. “Fast. Good on your feet. You hit from a distance. You don’t have much power, but you can wear the other girl down, wait until she makes a mistake.”
I thought about that for a second. I quite liked the idea of not having to get too close. Hopefully, that meant I’d get hit less. “What are you?”
“A brawler.” He smiled. He did that more often, these days, and when he did all that darkness just dropped away. “Slow and stupid. I just hit them—hard.” He crossed his arms and regarded me. “It’s like rock-paper-scissors. Each style’s got an advantage over another, and each one’s beaten by another.”
“So who do I have to watch out for?”
“A swarmer. They’ll get right up in your face and hit you with flurries of punches—they’ll overwhelm you. A swarmer’ll be beaten by a brawler, like me.”
Saving Liberty (Kissing #6) Page 32