Chapter 18 Taking It Slow （Eden） #2
By the time we move to the second set, his compliance frays. He slows down, moving deliberately out of alignment, testing the waters.
My spine stiffens. “No, hold it. Keep this position locked—”
“Like this?” His tone is all faux innocence, but the curve of his mouth gives him away.
Heat prickles at the back of my neck. He knows exactly what he’s doing. “Stop playing around, Russo. Focus.”
He steps in.
“You’re bossy.” His voice drops, low and smooth. “And we need to make one thing clear.”
My nerves are on edge, frayed like a live wire. I stumble back half a step, heart pounding. “What’s that?”
His smile sharpens, slow and wicked. He takes another step, shrinking the space I tried to put between us. “Except in that one PT room at the Defenders complex, I’m the one in charge. You do what I tell you.”
My pulse trips, my mouth opening and closing with no sound.
“That’s not going to be ideal for your recovery,” I deadpan.
“Then maybe, for the sake of my recovery,” he continues, every word measured. “We do the session for an hour. I will allow you to set the tone.”
“You will allow me?”‘ I huff incredulously, trying to make him sound ridiculous but his face doesn’t move.
“And then…we practice.”
I swallow hard, the protest dying in my throat as the air thickens between us, charged enough to crackle.
“We practice?” My heart is pounding so loud it drowns out everything else.
He steps back slightly, granting me enough space to breathe, but his eyes hold me pinned. “Giving up control.”
My eyes widen, lips parting, though the words stay stuck. The truth is, part of me—as terrifying as it is—wants to know exactly how that feels.
I clear my throat, forcing my focus back to the session. “Let’s move on. Hip rotations. Hold the stretch.”
He complies, but his eyes stay locked on me, fire flickering behind them.
“You’re tight here,” I say, pressing at his side.
His mouth curves, and he mutters, loud enough for me to hear, “Not the only thing tight right now.”
My head snaps up. I shoot him a glare, but he only smirks. I turn away before he can see the flush creeping up my neck.
“Let’s work on stability,” I say, stepping back, trying to reclaim the upper hand. “I’ll show you something different.”
His brow ticks up, amused. “You gonna try to take me down, Trouble? You want to roll Jiu Jitsu?”
“That’s not what I had in mind,” I shoot back, arching a brow. Then, with bite, “But I could absolutely take you down.”
“Is that so?”
Instead of arguing, he steps in and lets his eyes sweep over me. Not a casual glance. A slow, deliberate inventory. Hair, throat, shoulders…lingering at the lines of my scrubs. His gaze drags over my hips, my legs, back up again, taking his time.
My pulse spikes for all the wrong reasons.
“What do you weigh, Trouble?” The question is low, almost conversational, but the way his voice curls around it makes it anything but harmless.
“Coming in hot, Magic Man,” I snap, ignoring the heat climbing my neck. “No one ever tell you it’s bad form to ask a lady her age and weight?”
He doesn’t even blink. Just that faint, infuriating smirk. “You’re heavier than you look—it’s all packed muscle from what I can tell. Hundred forty? Fifty?” A quick final look, then he pins me. “I’m up by eighty, Trouble. Still game?”
The brat dig still stings, and his spot-on weight call only adds salt. “Try me.”
His gaze catches fire. “You’re on.”
He drops into a crouch, playful and cocky. It’s only a game. Even though it feels anything but.
I move before he can blink—drop low, hook behind his knee, drive my weight into his center of gravity. I feel the moment his balance falters, the tiny hitch of surprise in his breath. He still thinks I’m that scrawny fourteen-year-old he used to pin in the sand.
And now he doesn’t anymore.
One sharp shift of my hips, and he’s flat on his back, eyes wide, breath knocked shallow. I’m straddling him, my knee pressing into the solid plane of his chest, my palms planted on top. Heat radiates between us—his and mine—filling the space faster than either of us can name it.
I grin down at him, not giving him the satisfaction of seeing how hard my pulse is kicking.
“Tap, Magic Man.”
For a beat, he just stares up at me—chest rising hard under my palm, darkness bleeding into his eyes. Then, slow and reluctant, his fingers tap the mat.
“Not bad.” His voice is rough, gravel and smoke. “You’ve built some strength since we last played.”
“You underestimated me,” I shoot back, though my pulse is thundering so hard, it’s all I hear.
A low laugh rolls through him, and I feel it under my hand—warm, steady, familiar in a way that makes my stomach knot. “Maybe I did.”
I start to push off him, but his arm snakes around my waist without warning. The air shifts, heavy and electric, and before I can react, the world tips upside down.
He rolls me with raw, unfiltered power—no finesse, only brute force and that impossible size—and the mat smacks cold against my shoulder blades.
My breath snags. He’s above me now, pinning me, his weight a solid wall I can’t move through. One big hand gathers both of mine, pressing them over my head, the other braced beside my ribs.
I’m back on the dock for half a second—sixteen, sunburned, his body brushing mine when no one was looking, that same rush of electricity and danger I pretended not to feel. But now it’s sharper. Older. Worse.
“Hey—” My laugh is thin, trembling, breaking under the hammer of my pulse. “That wasn’t BJJ,” I manage, glaring up at him even as my body remembers him in ways I wish it didn’t.
“No.” His voice is a low growl now, his breath fanning over my lips. “That was me not playing fair.”
He’s wedged between my thighs, solid and unyielding, all that muscle and power. My body reacts before my mind can catch up—warm liquid flooding through me, pooling low, blooming into an ache so deep it’s almost unbearable. A sensation I haven’t felt before—sharp, consuming, terrifying.
And yet…I don’t flinch. I don’t shut down.
Because it’s Nate.
And with Nate, my fear feels small. Manageable.
My hips shift of their own accord, seeking him, and the answering groan that rips from his chest is pure, raw need. The sound claws deep inside me.
“Fuck, Eden,” he rasps, voice fraying at the edges. “I’m trying to be good here.”
The air between us snaps, charged and wild, but my heart isn’t pounding from panic—it’s pounding from being alive under his weight. From knowing he could hold me here forever and I wouldn’t be afraid.
“I like this,” I hear myself whisper, unguarded, almost shy.
“Oh yeah?” His eyes are pools of lava. He seems to be unable to look away. “I like this too, baby.”
The endearment undoes me. His front is molded to mine, gaze dropping to my mouth, and then he gently captures my lips between his.
His soft mouth is moving over mine, rhythmically, then his claim turns hard, fast, starving.
My breath stutters, his warmth enveloping me, and I melt.
The kiss is a surge of electricity—tongues tangling, teeth grazing, every stroke claiming a piece of me I didn’t know I still had to give.
Butterflies detonate in my belly, fluttering against the ache that’s building with every drag of his mouth.
The way he feels against me is pure ruin.
His grip on my wrists loosens, but I don’t push him away—God, I want closer.
The second I’m free, my hands are on him, sliding over the ridges of his back, fingertips digging into warm skin.
“Take this off,” I gasp, my voice breaking on the plea. “Please, Nate. I…I want to touch you.”
I barely recognize the sound of my own voice—raw, hungry, primal.
With a guttural growl, he pushes up enough to strip his T-shirt over his head with one hand.
The fabric lands somewhere behind him, forgotten, and then he’s back, covering me in his strength, in everything I’ve been starving for and never dared to claim.
My palms skate over the warm expanse of his bare skin, mapping every hard ridge of muscle, every place his body yields and then tenses beneath my touch.
The raw power in him hums under my fingertips, a force I should be wary of but somehow trust completely.
Each stroke of my hand winds me tighter, pulling me deeper into a place where fear can’t reach me.
My back sinks into the mat as his mouth crushes mine, consuming and fierce. The thick, unyielding bulge in his pants presses hard against my clit, and my gasp rips free before I can swallow it, his name breaking on my tongue.
He growls around my bottom lip, teeth grazing, and I try to keep up. It’s wild, impossible, thrilling. “Tell me, Trouble,” he snarls, voice dark and unsteady, “what will I find between these sweet thighs when I slide my hand under your panties?”
I can’t speak. Words are useless when my entire body is burning from the inside out. I can only feel every inch of him pressed to me, his pulse sinking into my bones.
“My girl wants this, doesn’t she?” he rumbles, hips grinding into mine, each thrust stealing another piece of my self-control. His voice slides down my spine like molten metal, dangerous and impossible to resist.
He pushes up, towering over me, eyes dark with hunger and something deeper—something that makes me feel possessed in a way that’s both terrifying and safe.
“Arms up,” he orders.
The command slices through me. Before I can think, my arms lift. He grips the hem of my scrub top, peels it up and over in one smooth, deliberate motion, and flings it aside.
His gaze drags over me. I flutter beneath the weight of it—exposed, but not unsafe.
When he tugs down the cup of my bra and closes his mouth over my nipple, I gasp, arching into him. His tongue circles, his teeth graze, while his free hand teases the other peak until sensation riots through me, sharp and unbearable.
“Your tits are spectacular. Has anyone ever told you that?”
I manage a small shake of my head.