Chapter 21 Aedan
AEDAN
We trained for two weeks solid.
Sylvie was working her ass off, slamming the bag and really improving her footwork.
In fact, I was starting to see that she had real potential—fate had thrown me a bone.
This scared, sweet angel, who’d never hit anything her entire life, had the agility and speed to really go places.
In some other life, if she’d started young and been paired with a proper trainer instead of a dumb fighter like me, maybe she would have wound up doing women’s boxing professionally.
Here and now, though, I just had to pray that her potential and my experience were enough to see her through this one fight.
And me?
I watched Sylvie.
I heard myself speaking, saying things like, “Keep your hands up,” and “Watch your balance.” But the training was almost automatic, happening in some far off part of my brain, because every last scrap of my conscious mind was filled with her.
Her hair, long dark strands of it whipping around as she ducked and weaved.
Her breasts: soft, perfect mounds I couldn’t drag my eyes from. When she was hitting the speedball and they were bouncing in their sports bra, it was bloody hypnotic.
Her smile, not easily given but a glorious prize every time I won it.
I was becoming obsessed and I knew it.
I had two more weeks to get Sylvie ready for her fight and I honestly didn’t know if I could control myself that long. Every day was worse. Every day we got cruelly closer, while knowing we couldn’t take the final step. It was torture.
Every time I hit a bag or a pad to demonstrate something, it was like a drug had been released into my system. Using my fists again felt so good I wanted to weep. Every impact was a reminder of what I really was: a monster.
And then came the day I’d been dreading. The day I had to hit her.