Twenty-Five
Caiden
The air in the Russian training hall always smells the same. It’s not pleasant, but it’s familiar, and today it feels like it’s suffocating me, sitting on my chest instead of just in my lungs.
“That’s him up next,” one of the lads mutters beside me, nodding toward the mats.
As if I wasn’t already painfully aware.
Ari steps onto the mat as if the whole thing bores him.
Hands loose, shoulders relaxed, mouth in that faint, sharp curve that says he’s already figured out how this ends and is only sticking around to enjoy the scenery.
He rolls his neck and shakes his arms out.
There’s no pre-fight ritual, and no theatrics. He doesn’t need them.
He is the theatrics.
I swallow and shift my weight, trying to look like everyone else — just another bloke watching another spar. The hall is crowded with bodies pressing in on either side of me. Men from both units stand shoulder to shoulder along the edges.
It’s usually easy to disappear in this crowd, but not today. “Sergeant Zakirov versus Petrov,” the soldier on the mat calls. The Russian opposite Ari looks solid, mean, and the kind of man you don’t want to meet in a dark alley unless you’re holding a tank — maybe two.
He’s bouncing on his toes, ready for action, and Ari just tilts his head, his eyes half-lidded, as if he’s wondering how quickly he can end this without getting told off for showing off.
It’s been weeks now since that first kiss by the fence.
Weeks since the showers, since his thumb on my lip, his fingers against my throat, the word ‘detka’ in Russian curling hot, wrong and right in my ears.
Weeks since the broom cupboard, my back hitting the wall, my hand— nope.
Not going there. Not in a room full of soldiers.
Not when I’m supposed to be functioning like a human being and not a grenade with the pin already halfway out.
We still haven’t fucked. That was the deal. No sex on base, his promise to Niko, and my insistence that I still had some shred of self-control left. We haven’t crossed that line, but we’ve done everything else, every chance we’ve had.
A stolen five minutes in a storage room, his mouth on mine, my hand up under his shirt, and his teeth in my shoulder to keep the noises down.
My back against a wall in some forgotten corridor, his thigh between my legs, his fingers around the back of my neck holding me there while we kissed like we were trying to erase the concept of oxygen.
I grip the railing in front of me so hard my knuckles ache.
This is why I’ve been avoiding him all day.
I can barely think straight around him anymore.
I’m always two seconds from grabbing his throat and dragging him somewhere with a lock.
That’s not control. It’s barely sanity. “Ready?” the soldier barks.
Petrov nods sharply, and Ari nods lazily, as if he’s being asked whether he wants tea.
It’s horrible and beautiful at the same time. Horrible because of what it does to me. Beautiful because he’s infuriatingly good.
They circle each other. Ari’s stance is loose, his hands are low and inviting. Petrov takes the bait and lunges. Ari slips to the side like water, his hand flashing out to redirect, using the other man’s momentum to spin him, twist, and bring him down to one knee.
The crowd murmurs, and Petrov surges back up, pissed.
They clash again, harder this time. Fists, forearms, and shoulders colliding.
Ari’s movements are clean and economical, every strike precise and every dodge just enough.
He doesn’t waste anything. Energy, space or opportunity.
He’s sharp, efficient, and just the right amount of cruel.
It shouldn’t be sexy. But it absolutely is.
I watch the muscles in his forearms bunch under his skin, the line of his throat as he ducks a hook, and the flex of his back when he pivots and drives a kick into Petrov’s ribs that makes the big man stagger.
There’s sweat at his hairline already, dampening the hair at his nape.
He’s breathing harder, but not much. He loves this, I can tell.
It’s the same look he gets sometimes when we’re alone, in those stolen seconds before he leans in and says something that melts my bones.
That focused, hungry spark like he’s about to ruin me and he’s already enjoying the anticipation.
I shift my stance, grateful for the crowd, the dim lighting, and the part of me that still knows how to keep my face neutral.
Someone on my left whistles when Ari catches Petrov’s wrist mid-strike, twists, and takes him down in a move that looks almost lazy. Then Petrov hits the mat hard enough that I feel the slap of it in my teeth. “Davai, Arseny!” a Russian behind me yells.
Ari doesn’t even look at them. He pins Petrov’s arm with a knee, a forearm across the man’s throat, and weight placed just right so it’s domination, not damage.
Then Petrov slaps the mat twice in surrender.
Round over.
The room exhales as one, and the tension in the air softens into scattered jokes, applause and shouts. Ari rocks back, releases, and then — of course — helps Petrov up, clapping him on the shoulder, saying something low that makes the bigger man huff a reluctant laugh.
He can be kind when he wants to be, which is a complete mind fuck.
He steps off the mat, rolling his shoulders.
His shirt is clinging now in places, damp with sweat, outlining the lines of his chest and his stomach.
He wipes the back of his hand across his mouth, and my imagination, the traitorous bastard, supplies an image of that same mouth on me.
On my throat, my chest, lower. I drag my gaze away so hard it’s almost physically painful.
Focus on the floor. On anything that isn’t him.
He’s just a man, I tell myself. Just a sergeant who gets under your skin. You’ve handled worse.
That’s a lie and I know it the second I think it.
I’ve handled danger. Bullets. Explosions. Screaming, bleeding chaos. I don’t know what to do with someone who looks at me like he can see right through the bullshit and likes what’s underneath.
The crowd shifts as the next pair is called up. Bodies move in front of me, blocking my view, and I let them. I use the excuse to step back, away from the edge, away from the line of sight. Space. I need space. “Going somewhere, Cai?” Collins asks.
“Yeah,” I say. My voice coming out steadier than I feel.
“Need water. I’ll be back in a bit.” He nods, already turning back to the mat.
No one pays me much attention as I edge around the hall, keeping my head down, skirting the wall.
It’s noisy enough that no one notices that my heartbeat is trying to break my ribs.
I tell myself I’m leaving because I’ve been on my feet all day, and I’ve done my duty watching the joint training, and now I’m just another warm body taking up space.
I don’t admit, even inside my own skull, that I’m leaving because if Ari looks up in the next thirty seconds and catches me watching him like I was, we’re going to have a problem.
I reach the corner of the hall and turn down the narrow corridor that leads toward the locker rooms and exits. It’s dimmer here; the overhead lights buzz occasionally like they’re considering giving up.
The noise from the main hall dulls to a muffled roar behind me, and my shoulders relax a fraction.
“Running away again, detka?” The words slide in behind my ear like smoke.
My body reacts before my brain does; every muscle goes tight, like someone yanked a wire.
I don’t turn around straight away. Instead, I stand very still, staring at the scuffed floor tiles, counting a second, then another.
He’s not touching me, there’s just the heat of him at my back, not quite close enough to be obvious if someone glanced down the corridor, but close enough that I can feel where he is. Close enough that if I step back, I’ll touch him. “Not running,” I manage. “Just... walking.”
He makes a low, amused sound that curls around my spine. “Semantics,” he murmurs. “You were watching me.”
“Everyone was watching you,” I say. “You were in the middle of the room trying to kill someone.”
“Not kill,” he says lightly. “Just... remind. There’s a difference.”
“Right. Very reassuring.”
I can hear him breathing, as if we’re not standing in the sort of proximity that should come with hazard pay. “Looked like you enjoyed the show,” he adds.
I swallow. “You’re very pleased with yourself, aren’t you, Sergeant?”
“I am very good at what I do,” he says. “It would be rude not to enjoy it.”
I can feel the smirk on his face, even without seeing it. That lazy, cutting almost-smile that says he knows exactly how he sounded. “Go away,” I whisper. “I’m not in the mood.”
“I think you’re exactly in the mood,” he says softly. “I’m just not sure which one yet.” I could walk away; all it would take is three steps forward, turn the corner, then keep going. “I’ve been thinking about you,” he says, and that... makes my heart skip a beat properly.
Like a damn misfire in my chest.
“I’m sure you’ve been very entertained,” I say. “Find a new hobby.”
He ignores that completely. “Last night,” he continues, voice dropping lower. “I couldn’t sleep. Tried all the usual tricks. Cigarettes, music, pacing, but none worked.”
“That’s such a shame,” I say, because if I don’t cling to sarcasm, I’m going to slide right off the edge.
He leans in a little, still not touching, still officially safe. Unofficially? My body is convinced he’s everywhere. “You know what worked?” he asks. “Thinking about you on your knees again.”
My fingers curl into fists in my pockets. “This is wildly inappropriate,” I say, and immediately realise that it comes out too thin to be convincing.
“I was thinking about how you sound,” he goes on. “How hard it is for you to stay quiet. The little noises you make when you try not to make any at all.”