11. Dimitri
11
DIMITRI
We eye one another warily, and once I’m gloved up, we begin dancing around.
Can Jinx even haul his bodyweight up on a pull-up bar? The way you’re trained in the military is very different to simply going to the gym and lifting the heaviest weights. To be truly in shape, and to make an incredible fighting machine, one needs to be able to use one's own body weight effectively. The way we trained pushed our bodies to the very limits of fatigue and exhaustion.
I'm able to kill a man with my bare hands. If this were a real fight, and I was trying to survive, Jinx would be in danger. I'm not going to use those skills here and now; I'm simply going to box with the man. Jinx does a lot of sparring, so he might beat me. I'm interested to find out.
I get the first few hits in. An uppercut to his massive chin and a punch to the side. He tenses his muscles just before I connect with his side, and I don't think the blow hurts him.
Jinx gets the next few hits in; one glances off my shoulder, and the other hits me in the side of my arm. I dodge backward and shake my arms out, trying to get the feeling back. Jinx certainly has a lot of power behind his punches.
I dance around for a while, using my speed to tire him. He throws punches and misses, and beads of sweat pop on his forehead as he begins to exhaust.
Aiming low, arms up, I dodge and weave and hit him with four rapid-fire punches to the core of his body in quick succession. He brings his arms down to defend the area, which is just what I want. My blow straight into his cheek is hard, and he stumbles back, staggering a little.
They say pride comes before a fall, and so I'm careful not to let my guard down or feel triumphant. Jinx roars and rushes me, his arms swinging fast as he batters the center of my body with a stunning barrage of blows.
Air rushes from my lungs, and I bend over trying to get more in, winded and in agony.
Jinx takes his chance and aims right for my ear. I manage to dodge the blow, but the gym turns red as the blood pulses in my veins, rage bathing everything.
I don’t think he's aware of my injury. My stepfather knows, and I never asked him to keep it a secret, but I doubt he shared. After all, a big part of my work is to terrify the enemies of my stepfather. Right or wrong, they may not fear me as much if they think I have a disability. It's stupid because I'm just as capable of killing them with or without the tinnitus. People are strange, though. When it comes to any kind of disability, they let their prejudices and ignorance show.
It's doubtful that Jinx knows what he almost did, but that doesn't bank the rage. I'm the kind of person who likes my revenge best served cold, and instead of roaring my aggression and storming him the way he did me, I dance around him, jabbing lightly here and there, and catching him off guard. He’s increasingly exhausted as he swings at me, missing time and time again. My punches are lighter, but they connect far more often than his.
Finally, I manage the blow that I need. My fist connects with his face, smashing hard into the side of his mouth. Spittle flies from his lips, and his mouth guard falls to the mat.
As he goes down, his arm comes up, and he catches me in the face. It's not controlled because the punch was thrown as he was already falling, and my cheekbone takes the full impact. I’m thrown to the side, and pain bursts behind my cheek as I hit the ground.
I breathe through the pain but realize I may have broken a bone. Thankfully, it's on the other side of my face from my damaged ear. I press my fingers along my cheekbone and can't feel anything out of place.
“Jesus Christ.” The rumbled groan comes from the corner of the ring.
I manage to stumble to my feet, staggering over to Jinx. He groans as blood trickles from the corner of his mouth. I reach down and hold out my hand. He takes it with his own, and I pull him up. We look at one another and then like the idiots that we are, we both burst out laughing.
“You broke my tooth, motherfucker,” he says. “Good fight.”
There's a grudging respect in his tone, and I'm glad— despite the searing pain— that we did this.
I needed to work out some of the tension building in me, and our relationship will be better moving forward now.
“Oh my God,” a feminine voice exclaims from by the door. “What the hell are you two doing?”
I turn to look at Adriana, and my jaw drops.
She's wearing what appears to be a pair of my shorts but with the waistband rolled down slightly and a t-shirt tied under her bust. Again, it looks like one of mine. I don't think she's trying to be sexy. But fuck me, she’s achieved it.
The way she's tied the T-shirt does nothing but highlight her bust and small waist. With her hair pulled back, and a flush of outrage brightening her pale cheeks, she’s the hottest thing I've ever seen.
Christ, I'm going to have to ask Jinx to fully knock me out. Even the searing pain in my cheekbone isn't enough to tamp down the desire I feel for this woman.
She walks over to us, and she is not her usual subdued self. Instead, she's angry and full of outrage. “I hate boxing. It's utterly barbaric. What do you think you're doing?” Her gaze takes us in. “Oh, look at you.”
I rub my cheek, thinking it surely can't look that bad, and then realize that she's talking about Jinx.
“You're bleeding,” she says. “This is terrible.” She storms across the room, and I watch her go, perplexed. She reaches the far end of the small gym where there's a desk with drawers and pulls them open. When she bends down to open the final and lowest drawer, my shorts pull tight across her ass, and the muscles in her smooth legs stand out sleek and long.
This girl works out. I'm not sure what she does, perhaps something like Pilates or dance. She's far too toned not to do anything.
“Haha,” she exclaims. She stands and brandishes a green box in her hand as if she's a magician. “There's a first aid kit,” she says in triumph.
She marches back to us and climbs into the ring. “Sit,” she orders Jinx.
Her fear is gone, and I see something brisk but maternal in her. It’s as if seeing Jinx injured has brought out a motherly side to Adriana.
To my surprise, he does exactly as she says, planting his ass on the stool in the far corner of the ring. Adriana opens the first aid kit and goes to work. She tilts his chin up with one hand and uses the other to gently clean the split on his lip. She dabs it with a medicated wipe, shaking her head and muttering to herself the whole time about stupid, adolescent men.
“It’s a good job I’ve had to clear up Cade’s boo-boos plenty of times, so I know what I’m doing,” she says as she works.
“Cade?” Jinx asks. “Your boyfriend?”
“No, silly. My stepbrother. He’s a gorgeous little bug, but he’s clumsy as hell. Always taking a tumble, and I’m always cleaning him up. Boys will be boys.” She pauses in her dabbing at Jinx for a moment to narrow her eyes. “Even when they’re in their thirties and should know better.”
If I was capable of it, if only my heart would let me, this woman would be the one I would fall in love with.
When she has finished cleaning up Jinx’s cut, she stands back and turns to me. She shakes her head and rolls her eyes. “Yours is not going to be as easy to deal with,” she says. “You don't have a cut, but there's a massive bruise forming. You might need to go to the emergency room and have an X-ray to make sure you haven't broken anything.”
“It isn’t broken,” I reassure her.
“How do you know?”
“Because I pressed the bone, and trust me, if I had broken it, I would have realized.”
“That's not a scientific way of telling whether you've broken a bone.” She huffs out an annoyed breath as she looks in her first aid box as if there will be some sort of magic that can tell whether my bone is broken.
“Trust me,” I say. “We had to do it out in the field often enough. It's not broken. It hurts, though.” I look at Jinx and smile. “You have a strong right hook, even when you're going down.”
He winks at me. “Had to take you with me.”
I laugh at that, and we shake hands. A new current of respect flows between us now. Adriana is standing to one side looking at us as if we're idiots or animals in a zoo.
“Men,” she says and shakes her head. She marches back to replace the first aid box, still muttering about idiocy and being just like kids on the playground.
“More of a handful than she first appears, that one.” Jinx smirks at me as he steps out of the ring. “Good luck with her.”
I chuckle under my breath.
The door closes behind him with a soft sound, and I step out of the ring and walk over to where Adriana is still bent over the lower drawer, rummaging around inside it. I take a seat on the small, sliding stool nearby and watch as she gives me the perfect view of her ass.
“There are all sorts of papers in here.”
“Yeah, they took the yacht of some other fuckers,” I say, disinterestedly. I’m focused on nothing but her.
“These papers are Dorian’s,” she replies.
“What?”
They were only on here a short while. To party. So why store paperwork here? Still, this is great for me.
“Show me,” I say.
She straightens, steps forward as she turns around, and ends up right between my legs. She’s standing there, my t-shirt tied under her tits, her smooth belly on display, and I try to focus on the fact that she’s holding papers that might be important, but damn, it’s hard.
“Um, these.” She swallows and waves the papers at me. She doesn’t step back.
I glance at the documents and then back to her. Her free hand floats up slowly, as if it’s riding the air currents and not being moved by her brain, and she touches my face. “Does it hurt?”
I nod.
She touches it again, and I’m gone .
Every last damn bit of control I had snaps as my brain is overrun by my hormones.
My arms snake around her, and she gasps as I pull her into me. I lift her and sit her on my knee, straddling me.
“Dimitri,” she says.
Nothing else. Just my name.
“Little blue, what does this tattoo represent?” I brush my fingers over my t-shirt, rucking the material up along her shoulder until the edge of the bird is revealed.
“Freedom,” she whispers. “It’s supposed to be freedom.”
I let my finger rub over the edge of the ink. My hand moves up, along the side of her throat and into the nape of her neck. Her arms come around me, one hand clutching at me, the other still holding those papers.
“Littleblue, I made you a promise. I’m a man of my word. So I’m asking. Can I kiss you?”
The world stills. My breath holds. So does hers. Even the gentle swell of the boat seems to stop for a moment.
“Yes,” she whispers.
Triumph roars in my arteries, pumping the blood harder, faster. That whispered yes is the single most erotic moment of my life. God help me.
I don’t kiss often, and if I do it tends to be in the heat of fucking. Lots of tongue and teeth.
This is going to be different. She’s been kissed before. She told me she had boyfriends, but I want to obliterate them. To wipe their memory away forever.
This kiss needs to be the best kiss I’ve ever given anyone in my entire life.
I lower my head and let her hair sift through my fingers. She shivers slightly and stills, my mouth next to hers.
Her breath is minty. For a long moment, I let myself hang in space and time, so close to her I can feel her breath in and out ghosting over me, but not touching. Not quite.
Then I close the distance, and my mouth meets hers. Soft, warm lips press against mine. Mint toothpaste and cherry perfume collide against my senses.
Something darkly magical happens.
The breeze stills, waves gentle, clocks stop. My whole being seizes, air freezing in my lungs, heart stuttering before…
Boom .
Air rushes in, my heart canters into a new faster rhythm, and the ocean swells.
Like the explosion that altered my life, this moment does the same.
The kiss has me aching for more, but wary of it too.
This kiss shows me that every other woman I’ve tasted before was somehow wrong. This kiss is so right , it should terrify me.
This kiss is my new home.
I angle her head and take more.