Chapter Eight #2
A sly grin slipped over her shoulder as she stepped out of the shower and wrapped herself in a fluffy towel. Gone was her earlier sadness and in its place was a guileless batting of lashes. “But I’ll just get wet again.” She tossed him a second towel and danced away.
He raked his towel over his head and down his body.
He might be a patient man, but he was powerless against this particular fae, especially when she dropped her seal coat.
He hung his towel on the rack and stalked after her.
Her nipples were already tight from the air-conditioning, and the sway of her hips was enough to help him forget whatever lurked in their pasts.
When she crawled onto the disheveled bed and peeked over her shoulder, he almost forgot to grab the condoms from under her bed.
“That is, in fact, the plan, Princess.”
* * *
Sebastián held the ring light stand. Lily’s phone, already recording, captured Kieran and Lily’s full bodies.
They had finished introductions for the video, and she didn’t know yet what hold they’d be filming.
When she knew what was coming, she anticipated his attack, and her movement grew stilted.
Inauthentic. When she didn’t know, their Hit It audience took notice.
Their StreamScene audience was growing, too, after Hit It users begged for videos too long for the platform’s three-minute video interface.
“Do I have your permission to touch you?” Kieran asked.
Lily’s shoulders relaxed on an exhale, and she shook out her hair. He’d asked her to leave it down today.
“Yes. You have my permission.”
The words were no sooner out of her mouth than he exploded toward her. She stumbled back, and he crowded her toward the gym wall. Sebastián kept pace, and Kieran trusted him to keep them well within the narrow frame of the camera. He’d already been briefed on today’s lesson.
Before her back could hit the wall, he wrapped both of his hands around her neck in a stranglehold.
He kept his grip firm but positioned so he wasn’t blocking her airway.
Fingers at her muscles, not her trachea.
Lily’s lips parted on a gasp, and her chin tipped back.
Her pulse danced under his fingertips. Her lashes lowered and one side of her mouth lifted.
Just as quick her playful expression disappeared, and her hands closed around his wrists.
He stepped into her space and growled loud enough for the phone to pick up his voice. “Now try to escape.”
She tugged at his palms and tried working her fingers under his.
“Remember, if this were real, you’d only have ten seconds before you’d pass out.”
With his thighs pinning hers to the wall, she couldn’t lift her leg enough to stomp on his feet or jerk her knee up.
She lifted her hands, her fingers curling into claws. “Would this work?”
He eyed her short nails. He still bore the scratches she’d left on his back during round two, but he didn’t need any more scars on his face. “It might, but you run the risk of your attacker holding on.”
Her hands circled his wrists. “Then what should we do if we’re ever in this situation?”
If by “we” she meant him and her, he hoped she’d arch her hips against his and beg him to fuck her.
As if she could read his mind, her throat warmed under his touch.
Her blush crept heavenward. Knowing where it originated from, it was all he could do not to drag down the neckline of her workout top and her sports bra and swirl his tongue around one of her dusky pink nipples.
Though that kind of video would be more appropriate for Just for Fans.
Kieran cleared his throat. “Tighten your neck. Shoulders up, chin down. Gives me less neck to choke.”
She followed his directions. “Now what?” She blinked up at him, all innocence. The tip of her tongue darted out and wet her lips.
Playing dirty. Was she trying to give him a hard-on on camera? Two could play that game.
“Next you’ll want to do a monkey grip,” he explained and let her go long enough to raise his hand toward the camera and curve his palm and fingers into an arc.
“It’s a thumbless grip.” Lily copied him.
“You’re going to want to hook underneath one arm and over my wrist on the other arm.
” She followed his direction. “Without as much room on your neck, my fingers don’t lie flat.
So, with your other hand, pry up one of my fingers. You only need one.”
They settled back into the hold, and she got her fingers under one of his. Without even needing to be told, she yanked it back toward his wrist like she meant to snap it.
His hand spasmed, and his hold broke. “Clever girl.”
Her pupils spilled like ink across her irises until only a sliver of bright blue remained. Oh, she liked praise. He’d have to remember that for next time. If there was a next time.
She’d never texted him after he left on Saturday.
“Let’s do it two more times,” she said, surprising him with the cue.
They flowed through the motion again, their movements methodical. On the second, Lily whipped through the hold escape fast enough to make it look real. At least one of them remembered this was an exercise in self-defense and not in self-control.
“And remember,” she spoke to the phone’s camera, “if you’re in the Chicago area, come check out South Side MMA, but if you’re not local, be sure to like and subscribe for more self-defense tips.”
“And cut!” Sebastián removed the phone from the stand and handed it to Lily for inspection. “One take. Not bad.”
Lily nodded and swiped her thumb across the screen. “We’re getting better. Pretty soon I won’t have much to edit at all.” She directed a grin at Sebastián. “Thank you for helping. I know you have better things to be doing.”
Before Sebastián could respond, a booming voice cut him off.
“Sullivan. Parker. My office. Now.”
A muscle in his neck twinged as he whipped his head toward the voice. It was unmistakable. Neal. The man stood in the doorway of the group classroom, his arms crossed and his jaw tight.
How long had he been standing there? Had he seen the whole thing?
Lily straightened and shot Kieran a look he couldn’t interpret. “Sebastián, would you mind folding up the ring light and putting it in my gym bag?”
“Yeah, no prob.” Sebastián turned off the light and nodded toward the weight room. “Buena suerte.”
As they followed Neal, Lily didn’t say a word, but her hand did bump against his—once—and he wasn’t sure if it was accidental or on purpose.
They were so fucked. He hadn’t been hiding how much he was enjoying his self-defense lessons.
She hadn’t either. Or maybe she was playing it up for the camera.
She’d mentioned how #ThatGymGuy was moving up in the trending list. No, biological arousal was hard to fake, and there wasn’t a doubt in his mind she hadn’t enjoyed their time together over the weekend.
He could tell Neal they weren’t dating. There wasn’t a rule against it. They were just fucking.
No. It didn’t matter if he and Lily were both consenting adults.
With a small business, relationships were a ticking time bomb of possibility.
He’d decided when he became a coach that no relationship was worth risking the gym.
They couldn’t afford South Side MMA’s staff to implode and draw battle lines.
Not now that Lily was attracting so much attention to them through social media.
The kind of damage she could do as an influencer was catastrophic, and it would be his fault if it got that far.
They crowded into the office, and Lily settled herself into one of the chairs with one of her professional smiles. It didn’t meet her eyes. “What can we help you with, Neal?”
“I have to say, Lily. When I hired you, though hopeful, I thought it would be a long shot. We’ve struggled to get new membership over the years, and our main demographic has remained solidly in the male and over thirty bracket.
” Neal didn’t sit down. He continued standing, his bulk filling the room.
Kieran kept his back to the closed door. After the meeting, he could talk to Neal. Tell him the flirting was entirely one-sided and that it ended today. He could talk to Lily afterward. Maybe she’d understand.
“And while our membership hasn’t grown exponentially, I have seen an uptick in younger clientele. Mostly women in their twenties and thirties. They say they found us through Hit It.”
Lily nodded and folded her hands in her lap. “Is it enough to keep the gym alive?”
Disappointment rippled over Neal’s face. “Not enough at this rate. We need more support than likes and follows.” Then his face hardened again.
Kieran winced. That didn’t sound promising.
“The self-defense tips aren’t enough to get us out of the hole. We need to go bigger.” Neal’s brown eyes focused on Lily. “I want the two of you working together on content for the Local Legends tourney. Anything you can. Highlights. Sparring. Even just candid moments.”
That…wasn’t what he’d been expecting. Kieran glanced at Lily. Her professional mask remained in place. This couldn’t be real.
“I know you two don’t exactly get along.” Neal eased into his office chair with a grunt. “But can you at least pretend to like each other?”
Pretend to… Kieran’s brows slammed together. Had Neal even watched their videos? Considering the man still used one-cent phones from his phone carrier, it was possible he hadn’t.
Lily’s head tilted. “How much do you need me to like him? You don’t expect me to kiss him, do you?”
He had no business getting hopeful over her question. He swung his gaze back to Neal.
“No, no.” He waved his hands as if it were an outrageous question. “I’d never ask you to compromise yourself.”
Kieran crossed his arms over his chest and barked out a laugh. “What the hell is that supposed to mean, Neal?”
His boss leveled him with a glare, but his eyes crinkled with humor. “Do you remember what you were like at eighteen?”
Barely. “Point taken.”
Neal leaned over his desk and wrote a note on a pad of yellow legal paper. “And while you’re at it, I’d like to see more of the gym staff. Show off our team. Show all of Chicago we’ve got some of the best fighters in the city, and we can train new recruits, too.”
Lily spending more quality time with his fighters? That meant more time with Carter. Oh, he’d love to see the look on Carter’s face when he realized Lily was no longer interested. Kieran smirked and opened the door. “We’ll try our best, boss.”
Crossing the threshold, Kieran hesitated. Going into that conversation, he’d been sure that his shenanigans with Lily would come to an end. He’d been ready to drop everything for the gym.
He took a deep breath. He’d still drop everything for the gym. Things between him and Lily were casual. There was no danger of upsetting the balance at South Side MMA.
Lily met him in the main lobby and raised her brows. “I don’t know, Sullivan. It’s a tall order to pretend I like you.” She rubbed her neck and shot him a secretive smile.
The last dregs of tension bled from his shoulders. They were back to their familiar heckling. “The feeling’s mutual, but we should talk about the tourney.”
Lily settled behind the desk beside Rachel and grabbed the desk calendar. “What about it? It’s just a fight, right?”
Kieran shook his head as he planted each of his hands on the desktop and leaned forward.
Rachel stretched across the desk, shooing his hands away from her meticulous piles of brochures.
He leaned further into Lily’s space and turned the pages of the calendar instead.
“It’s not just a fight. It’s a charity. Half the proceeds go to area schools for their wrestling programs. The other half goes toward women’s shelters.
” He pointed first at the highlighted box for August 5: the day of the tourney.
“This is the night of the fight. All the gyms are closing early to draw in their crowds.” He slid his finger up the page to a date two weekends before.
“And this is the charity dinner where the investors pledge their donations and place bets on their favorite fighters.”
“And who’s the local legend for our gym?” she asked as she entered the information from the calendar into her phone.
Kieran grinned. How could she not know? “You’re looking at him, Princess.”