Chapter 20 Sylvie
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 and 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.”
“And who do you have to watch out for?”
“You.”
I blinked at him.
“Out-boxers can beat brawlers. I’m only dangerous if I can get in close—like this.
” He stepped right up close, so close that I had to look up to look into his eyes.
He took my hand in both of his and used it tap himself on the jaw, pushing himself back.
“So what you need to do is keep me at arm’s length.
Where I can’t hurt you.” He was still holding my wrist, his fingers hot on my skin. I felt his hand tighten.
“Understand?” he asked, his voice strained.
I nodded.
He let out a long, slow breath and we went back to it.
And I focused on keeping him at a distance.
I didn’t think I’d ever get used to the huge, high-protein boxer’s breakfasts.
But after a week, I could shovel down my steak and eggs and be hungry for chicken and vegetables a few hours later.
My weight went up, but the mirror showed I was leaner.
The fat was burning off and being replaced by muscle.
Each morning, Aedan would have me shadow box so that I could see how I looked to someone else. At first, it was comical: my tiny, weak shadow throwing punches while his muscular bulk stood watching next to it. But after a few weeks, I began to see changes. I moved faster. I was leaner...meaner.
It still didn’t feel right, though—hitting something. It didn’t feel natural, in the way I suspected it felt natural to Aedan. Maybe it comes naturally to men.
During one of the long bag sessions—I don’t know how many punches I’d thrown, but it felt like infinity plus three—I mumbled something about this to Aedan. Who shook his head.
“You think you’re weak because you’re a woman,” he told me. “You’re not.”
“We are. Physically, we are.”
“Not mentally, though, and that’s what it’s all about.” He looked at me seriously. “What you did, volunteering to take Alec’s place...you are strong, Sylvie. Stronger than anyone I’ve ever met.”
I gave him a look, my cheeks flushing, and hit the bag again.
He grabbed my elbows and held my arms back so I couldn’t punch again. “Say it with me,” he ordered. “I am strong.”
“I am strong,” I mumbled, embarrassed.
“Like you mean it.”
I twisted around to look at him. I was all ready to say something snarky but something in his expression stopped me. I’d never seen him looking so solemn, so….
Jesus, he almost looked impressed with me.
I looked back at the bag. “I am strong,” I said. It didn’t sound so stupid, this time.
“Again.”
“I am strong.”
He let my arms go and I hit the bag as hard as I could.
Keeping my mind on the training wasn’t easy with Aedan around.
I knew he was trying to keep things professional and I was, too.
But that didn’t stop things happening—little moments that would stay with me the rest of the day.
Like he’d pass me the water bottle to drink out of and it would still be warm from his touch.
Or he’d really lay into the punch bag to show me a technique and emerge all sweaty and perfect, his shoulders gleaming, and I’d have to drag my eyes off of him.
The training was working—I could feel it.
But every day, the attraction between us was growing tighter, pulling us together.
Little things. Like we’d walk to the diner, and we’d walk closer together.
Closer than trainer and pupil should walk.
I told myself that it was just because we were friends.
Or we’d share a joke, despite—or maybe because—of how serious things were.
We’d blow off steam by doing something stupid, like emptying a water bottle over the other one’s head and.
..I found myself laughing more easily and more genuinely than I ever had.
And he was definitely smiling more...but each time, he’d catch himself and get serious again, pushing me away.
Once, on a really scorching day, the air conditioning in the gym went on the fritz and the place became unbearable.
Aedan took me out into the disused lot behind the building and had me hit pads in the open air, with the sun beating down on us.
After a half hour, he stripped off his tank top and I saw him topless for the first time.
Jesus. I’d known he was in good shape, but he was ripped.
His pecs looked like they were carved from stone.
His abs had deliciously hard ridges on them that I immediately wanted to run my fingers over and there was a centerline running all the way up, from just where I’d kiss the base of his neck, to just where I’d finish kissing his top half, before I proceeded down below… .
Ahem.
It was only when he turned around that I spotted the tattoo. He only had one, a small shamrock right in the middle of his upper back, over his spine—it must have been painful as hell to get.
“Ireland?” I asked when I saw it.
He turned around to face me, looking a little surprised that I’d noticed it. Did he not know I was drinking in every inch of his body? “Brotherhood,” he said at last.
Things came to a head near the end of the second week. I was standing with him in the ring when I realized I’d left my gloves down on the floor. I bent over the ropes to get them, bending almost double with my ass high in the air and my hands down near my feet.
When I turned around, Aedan was standing there watching me.
It hit me that he’d been staring right at my ass, upthrust and presented to him.
And when I happened to glance down, I could see it—a long, thick bulge along his thigh, standing out through the thin material of his shorts. Jesus, he was big. And hard. For me.
When I finally got my gloves on, my fists kept slipping off the bag because I couldn’t get the image of his hard-on out of my mind. It soaked down through me again and again, lighting me up and pooling as liquid heat at my groin.
That night, I ran a hot bath to soak the aches away.
I lay there and soaped everywhere, studiously avoiding the area below my waist and above my knees.
I wasn’t even going to get close. I wasn’t going to tempt myself.
I was absolutely not going to start jilling off to memories of Aedan and the bulge in his pants and how he’d been watching me, bent over the ropes, and what might have happened if the gym had been empty and he’d suddenly stepped up behind me and ripped my sweatpants down my thighs and pushed my legs apart and oh God—
I came, back arched, hips jerking, foam and water splashing. When I finished, I lay there, sated but guilty. He was managing to keep things under control. Why couldn’t I?