Chapter Eleven #2
“I will need a sparring partner,” she said, tossing her hair back behind her shoulder. “I don’t suppose you scrounged up one of those.”
He studied her with those dark eyes. There was a spark of something that had her chest aching, and yet she couldn’t name it.
Understand it. She certainly hadn’t hurt his feelings.
This meant nothing to him. He had made it clear she meant nothing to him beyond revenge and some pleasure in the bedroom.
“I can act as your sparring partner,” he said, with a slight curve of his mouth that made it seem like an offer for a lot more than sparring.
Still, she pretended to take him at face value, to protect herself in a moment of feeling off balance.
She eyed him skeptically. He had the body for it, even if the exquisite clothes didn’t make it look so in the moment. But she had felt every inch of that body, under her hands, over her skin. Yes, he could no doubt handle the simple act of boxing.
But he didn’t have her knowledge or skill.
“Are you worried that I might actually be able to hold my own?” he asked, one eyebrow raised in challenge. “Are you afraid, Ari?”
She rolled her eyes dramatically. “Many an arrogant man has received a jab to the face thinking he was better than a woman.”
“I have no doubts you are the better boxer, glikí mou, but I know how to hold my own.” He gestured toward the ring. “It is only practice. I have seen you pull punches in practice. What is the harm?”
“I pull those punches, yes, but they still land.”
“Then I’ll ask you not to break my nose. Or do I need to beg?”
For a moment, her brain fractured—from the insult of using him as a sparring partner to the idea of him begging for anything.
It brought to mind the way he’d knelt before her that first night. What he’d said about her belly button ring. That dangerous flicker of passion began to sputter to life when she’d told herself she wouldn’t go looking for this.
She had to be careful. Addiction to anything so good would be ruinous.
So she stepped away from him and pretended to survey the boxing ring. She considered her clothes. The travel set was casual, a little loose for actual boxing. But they weren’t boxing. They were… She wasn’t sure. One of them was trying to prove a point, probably. She just wasn’t fully sure who.
As long as she won, though, she didn’t have to worry about what kind of point. So she moved for the ring.
There was a shelf of gloves and wraps and punch mitts just outside it. Ari took her time selecting what she wanted, then climbed into the ring without looking at him again.
She walked across the mat, tested the give. Since she was wearing sandals, she tossed them off to the side. She turned to face him.
He’d also taken off his shoes. They stood facing each other from their separate corners, and Ari couldn’t seem to stop a laugh from bubbling out from her. “This is ridiculous.”
His mouth quirked, but he shrugged rather than agreed. “Humor me.”
He crossed to the center, so she did, too, then frowned when she saw that he’d chosen mitts over gloves.
“You should wear gloves, not just those pads. You can hit me back. I can take it.”
“No,” he said, with no further explanation. “Let’s just see if you can land one around me blocking with the mitts.”
Again, she rolled her eyes. Of course she could land one.
He was bigger and just as strong, and he might be faster, though she wasn’t fully convinced of that.
But her life was boxing. If she couldn’t land a punch on a random man—no matter how good of shape he was in—she shouldn’t be in a boxing ring.
She sighed. “Fine.” She started moving back and forth on the balls of her feet, enjoying the feel of the mat beneath her bare feet, the clean gloves on her hands. All so familiar.
Except facing a man with intense dark eyes and an expression she couldn’t read. She started easy. A jab, one at a time with a break between.
He blocked the pulled punches with his mitts, as she’d expected.
Slowly, over time, she worked up to sequences, still keeping her full power locked. She bobbed, she weaved, and she didn’t go for the blow. She could have. Many times. But she couldn’t seem to bring herself to do it. Even a pulled punch would hurt, could leave a mark.
He was always so perfectly put together. What would an imperfection do to that perfect face?
“Come on then,” he said, a flicker of irritation in him now. “Show me what you’re really made of.”
She could have. She saw the pattern—his and her own. If she jabbed with her right, and he blocked with his right, his left hand fell just enough she could have gotten a solid uppercut in.
But she did not take the opportunity.
He had not put on gloves. He would not hit her—even at her invitation. It was a kind of, well, integrity to choose that. To refuse, so instantly and flatly, to return a blow, even in practice.
Perhaps she didn’t have to appreciate it, but she could admire it. And it could undermine her desire to land any kind of blows upon him.
So she went for the clinch, with the thought if she pushed him back to the ropes, she could call it a win without actually hitting him.
She managed to get him close to the ropes.
She could have landed a few jabs. She could have done a lot of things, but she could not bring herself to even kind of hurt this man.
She didn’t understand why. What it meant.
Who she was in this strange world of Paris and delicious meals and lovely clothes and…
Him.
He flipped it around in a quick, easy move. Not a boxing move at all. No, it spoke more to some kind of ground fighting. She faced the ropes, he was behind her now, his arms wrapped around hers so that hers were trapped at her sides.
She was breathing heavily from the exertion of bouncing around and from holding herself back. From whatever was assaulting her mind. This strange, confusing waterfall of feelings and doubts—in herself, in her choices, in everything.
Except him.
“That isn’t a boxing move,” she told him, breathless and probably not from exertion.
He didn’t address that accusation. “Are you losing on purpose, Ari?”
She could feel the long, hard weight of him. The rumble of his voice in her ear. The press and pull of his chest moving against her back. It all shivered through her, sensation and need. But more so when he said Ari.
She had told him to call her that, since no one aside from him used her full name, but here in the moment it had a weight she could not really wade through.
Mostly because all she wanted was to feel him moving inside of her.
“I have never thrown a fight in my life,” she shot back at him, frustrated and emotional in ways she did not understand.
“But this wasn’t a fight, was it?” he said, still low and in her ear. Accusatory. But the accusation felt deeper than words.
All of this felt deeper than what they were actually saying, and she hated it. So she strove for some kind of flippancy in her return.
“Would you have rather I bloodied your lip?” she demanded.
She felt his sigh against her cheek. “Perhaps.”
She didn’t know why that had her eyes prickling with tears. Perhaps because it spoke to something deeper inside herself. She would rather feel unencumbered by the idea of landing a blow. She would rather not feel this restless, pounding need inside of her every time he was near.
But she could not be smart enough to eradicate it in any way except one.
“Touch me, Zervou.”
A sound rumbled through him that then rumbled through her. It seemed to touch nerve endings all along her skin, this sound.
“Ask nicely, glikí mou,” he murmured, sliding his mouth down her neck.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, she thought she should be offended. Should hold onto some kind of pride. Why should she ask for anything?
But the “please” was out of her mouth before that dim thought had a chance to take root. She wanted his touch more than she wanted her pride.
It should be a terrifying prospect. It should feel wrong.
It didn’t.
His hands loosened at her sides so that she could free her arms, but she didn’t.
Not really. She let them hang there as she leaned back against him, his clever mouth doing arousing things to her neck as his hands moved under her shirt, found the bare skin there.
He traced muscle and bone, unclasped her bra with nimble fingers, then pulled both items of clothing from her body.
She arched into him, into his touch. Fingers brushed taut nipples, teeth scraped against the curve of her shoulder. Physical pleasure after wave of physical pleasure… That coiling rush of need…
It made no more sense than her whirling feelings, but it was concrete. He would take her up peak after peak, and there would be a conclusion. Simple. Straightforward.
He tugged the loose pants from her, and they fell easily to her feet. Her underwear were next, until she was once again naked, with him fully clothed behind her. What did that say about them?
Didn’t matter. All that mattered was that he touched her where she throbbed in desperate anticipation. “Zer—”
He turned her to face him in a rough move, his eyes blazing. His breath heaving nearly as much as hers was. But it was the direct gaze that had her heart tripping over itself. Had her wishing she was stronger, smarter, something.
But she was none of those things. Not when his mouth crushed to hers. Then she was only his.
He lowered her to the ground, the give of the mat beneath her, the hard, hot weight of him above her. He slid his hands over her arms, arranging them over her head, then clasping her wrists together with just one of his hands.
She knew moves that could knock him off, and she had no doubt he would get up if she asked. If she demanded.
This was not force. It was something else entirely.
And it required her acceptance as much as his. His understanding as much as hers. She had been coming to grips with trusting a man she shouldn’t, but she had allowed him to believe she was still skeptical.
Now he must know. Now he must see.
And still she did not try to buck him off. She did not tell him to stop when he sheathed himself in a condom. She arched her body to his and moaned in time with him as they joined.
It was an explosion that eviscerated foundations. That tangled up and crossed all her carefully placed wires. Wild, restless, desperate. Different than other times before, like they were fighting each other in the midst of all this erotic pleasure.
She shuddered through one climax and then the next, sobbing out his name, his grip on her wrists never loosening. She never wanted it to.
“Ari.” His voice was rough, fierce. “Look at me.”
She blinked her eyes open to meet his gaze, held it as he slowed, driving her up into something else. Not a fight this time. No… But she only knew of fights and survival, so she didn’t know what this was.
Except too much. Too big. Her heart felt like bursting and tears pricked her eyes, but she still couldn’t look away from the dark depths of his. Even as the crash came over her, and he thrust deep into her one last time, growling out his own climax, they held each other’s gaze.
For ticking moments after. As if they both had the same question echoing unanswerable in their heads.
What was that?
Pinned beneath him, the waves of pleasure slowly ebbing out as her breathing began to even enough to realize his was in the same state hers was, and that did nothing to steady her or make her feel better.
If they were both upended, how would they survive this?
She closed her eyes on a wave of emotional pain. What was she doing? She knew better. She’d always had to know better. She was letting a soft life make her soft when that would only lead to her own doom. Perhaps his, too, but he was a man. A rich man. He would survive.
What would she do?
He finally released her wrists. Carefully, balancing his weight, he moved off her and got to his feet. He held out a hand to help her up.
For a moment, she could only stare at the offered hand. Her brain wasn’t functioning. Everything inside of her was jumbled.
“Come. Let us get ready for dinner.” His voice was little more than a rasp, belying the simply words.
What had happened wasn’t simple, for either of them.
But. Dinner. Yes. They had…plans. And that was just…sex. They had done it before. They’d likely do it again. It wasn’t different. She had to determine it could not be different.
But when he helped her to her feet, he did not meet her gaze, and she did not meet his, and everything that had once felt easy no longer did.