Chapter 40 Aedan
AEDAN
For the next two weeks, Sylvie trained like crazy. With the barriers between us removed, we could both focus on getting her ready to fight Jacki. Both of our futures hung on her winning. If she won, she’d be free...and I was starting to believe that maybe I’d redeem myself.
Telling Sylvie about my past had changed everything.
Hitting things still felt good, as it always had, but now it felt honest and clean, not darkly addictive.
I started to have daydreams about going back to fighting, when all of this was over.
Not for some scumbag like Rick, but on the official amateur circuit.
It was a crazy dream and I knew it...but at least I was daring to dream again.
We spent almost every waking hour together, at the gym or at my place.
She basically moved in, disappearing only for her few remaining shifts at the hotel.
I hated to think of her down on her knees, scrubbing for rich guests who barely acknowledged her.
But she needed to keep a job. If she won, she needed a future after this.
If she won. She was getting better each day, not just at the basics of punching and footwork but at the little tricks.
I taught her headbutts and elbows to the face, eye gouges and stamps to the back of the leg.
Some of it would be useless when fighting a woman, of course, like the knee to the groin.
But I figured she’d be able to hold her own against Jacki.
We got past our fear of hitting each other.
We left the sparring for the end of the day, when the gym was deserted and the owner was dozing in his office with a dead six-pack of beer.
Then we’d get in the ring and turn it into a game.
We’d circle and pant, the adrenaline flooding our veins like a drug.
I’d lose myself in the gleaming perfection of her sweat-slick skin, in those gorgeous green eyes, narrowed in concentration.
I’d throw big, heavy punches at her, but she’d dart out of the way, gasping and sometimes giggling, letting fly with flurries of her own and sometimes landing one.
And eventually, when the tension got too much, I’d rush her and pin her up against the corner post and snog her.
And we’d stand there, tongues entwined, punching and kissing, before I finally dragged her off to the rooftop.
A few days before the fight, I figured she needed a break so I took her for a picnic in Central Park.
Nothing fancy—just pastrami on rye and takeout coffees.
But we sat in the sun, with Sylvie in a little strappy top, and feck me if we didn’t look just like some real, happy couple who’d met through a dating site, or a matchmaking friend or something.
Connor’s girlfriend, Karen, was playing as part of a string quartet—not really my kind of music, but it was relaxing.
And there were some other girls from the same posh performing arts place—ballerinas, doing pirouettes and those spooky jump things, where it looks like they don’t weigh anything at all.
Sylvie was sitting between my legs on the grass.
I wrapped my arms around her from behind, put my chin on her shoulder and pretended I wasn’t watching the dancers too hard.
“You’re looking at the ballet dancers, aren’t you?” asked Sylvie.
“What ballet dancers?” I kissed her ear.
She twisted around and whispered. “You could always buy me a leotard.” I felt my cock harden against her ass. Then, watching the dancers do the standing splits, she added, “Not sure I could manage that, though.”
“I’d rather have you,” I told her truthfully. The dancers were pretty and all, but they were nothing compared to Sylvie. I looked around at the people watching the dancers, because if Karen and Connor were here and their other friends were here—
Even as I thought it, a shadow fell across us—one with curves that reminded me of an old movie femme fatale. I looked up into a cloud of auburn hair.
“Your shopping trip worked out, then,” said Jasmine.
I introduced them and, even if Sylvie was just a little suspicious at me knowing a TV star, they were chatting away happily within minutes. When Jasmine left, she gave me a sidelong glance and a grin that said, You’ve done good. Don’t mess it up.
I grinned back at her, squeezed Sylvie a little tighter, and nodded. I won’t.