Chapter 7
Teaching Seth to fight was a mistake.
Zain knew it the moment they stepped onto the mats.
Knew it in the way his blood heated when Seth stripped off his shirt, all sharp angles and pale skin stretched over lean muscle that two weeks of regular meals was starting to fill out.
Knew it in the way Seth's eyes tracked him, hungry and watchful, waiting to be shown something he could use.
Six AM. The safehouse basement, overhead lights humming overhead. The air smelled like rubber mats and old sweat and the faint chemical scent that drifted up from Ghost's server room through the drywall partition.
"First rule," Zain said. "Fighting isn't about strength. It's about control."
"I can do control."
"We'll see."
He showed Seth the basics. Stance, feet shoulder-width, weight forward. Guard, hands up, elbows tight, chin down. How to throw a punch without breaking your own hand, which was harder than movies made it look.
Seth was a quick learner. Quicker than Zain expected.
He absorbed instruction like he was starving for it, his body remembering what his mind commanded within two or three repetitions.
Four months of helplessness would do that to a person, make them desperate for capability, for the feeling of their body doing something other than enduring.
"Again," Zain said.
Seth threw the combination. Jab, cross, hook. Better this time. Cleaner. His footwork was still sloppy, he led too much with his right shoulder, telegraphing the cross, but the speed was there and the intent was there and the controlled ferocity was absolutely there.
"Good. Now defend."
He came at Seth slow. Controlled. Giving him time to react, to find the rhythm of block and counter. Seth's hands came up. He read the jab, slipped left, caught the follow-up on his forearm. His green eyes were laser-focused, pupils dilated, every molecule of his attention pinned on Zain.
Zain picked up the pace. Faster. Sharper. Seth kept up for thirty seconds, forty, his breathing going ragged, sweat darkening the collar of his borrowed t-shirt. Then Zain feinted left and came right and caught Seth off-balance, and suddenly they were on the mat.
Seth on his back. Zain on top of him. Wrists pinned.
Both of them breathing hard.
Seth's eyes were inches from his. Wide. Bright. Not afraid. the opposite of afraid. Zain could feel the heat of him through two layers of clothing, feel the rapid flutter of his pulse where Zain's thumbs pressed against the thin skin of his wrists.
"What happens now?" Seth asked. His voice was low. Different from his usual sharp edges. Rougher. Wanting.
"Now you learn to break the hold."
"What if I don't want to?"
The air changed.
Zain should have let go. Should have stood up, offered a hand, reset the drill. That's what the training called for. That's what every rational part of his brain was screaming at him to do.
He didn't let go.
Instead, his grip tightened. Not enough to hurt. just enough to hold. Seth's breath hitched. His body went taut under Zain, not resisting but waiting, every muscle strung tight with anticipation.
"Then we have a problem," Zain said.
"Do we?"
"Yes."
"Show me the problem."
Zain kissed him.
It wasn't gentle. Wasn't tentative. It was days of watching this man walk through his house like he owned it, days of catching himself tracking the line of Seth's jaw, the way his hands moved, the way his voice softened in the small hours when the defiance dropped and the real person underneath looked out.
The mat was warm beneath them. Gym rubber and body heat and the friction of two people who had been circling each other for weeks finally making contact, not the controlled contact of training, not the careful distance of cohabitation, but the graceless, desperate collision of two systems that had been holding pressure and had run out of containment.
Seth kissed back like he was drowning and Zain was air.
Zain felt it happen, the exact moment the training exercise stopped being an exercise and became something else. Seth's hips shifted. His fingers tightened in Zain's shirt. The sound he made, low, involuntary, pulled from somewhere deeper than speech, went through Zain like voltage.
His wrists twisted in Zain's grip, not to break free but to get closer, to arch up against him, to press their bodies together in a line of contact that went from chest to hips.
Zain released his wrists and Seth's hands were immediately in his hair, pulling, dragging him down, and the sound Seth made against his mouth was the sound of a man who'd been starving for this without knowing it.
Zain's hand found the hem of Seth's shirt. Slid under. Skin: hot, damp with sweat, stretched over ribs that were still too prominent. Seth shuddered at the touch, his back arching off the mat.
"Wait. " Seth gasped.
Zain froze. Immediately. Completely. "What?"
"No, I don't mean stop, I mean. " Seth's hands tightened in his hair. "Don't be careful with me. Whatever you're holding back. Don't."
Something in Zain cracked open.
He flipped Seth over. One smooth motion, hand on his hip, body weight shifting, and Seth was face-down on the mat with Zain pressed against his back. Seth's breath punched out of him. His hands scrabbled at the rubber surface.
"Hands flat," Zain said. Low. In his ear.
Seth's palms spread against the mat. His whole body was trembling.
Zain rolled his hips. Slow. Deliberate. Let Seth feel exactly how hard he was through two layers of fabric. Seth moaned, not a sound of distress but of what had been locked up too long finally finding a key.
"This is what you want?" Zain asked. His hand slid down Seth's side, over his hip, around to the front. Found him hard, straining against his sweats. "This?"
"Yes. God, yes."
"Then don't move."
He took Seth apart on that gym mat. Rough and slow and ruthlessly thorough, pulling sounds out of him that Zain would remember for the rest of his life.
He stripped Seth's sweats down enough to wrap a hand around him, stroking with a grip that was just this side of too tight while his other hand pressed between Seth's shoulder blades, holding him against the mat.
Seth cursed and begged and tried to push back against him, and every time he moved, Zain stopped. Held still. Waited.
"I said don't move."
"I can't. Zain. "
"You can."
Seth sobbed. Actually sobbed. And then he went still, boneless, surrendered, letting Zain set the pace. Letting someone else hold the controls.
Zain rewarded him. Stroked him faster. Bit the back of his neck, the juncture of shoulder and throat, tasting sweat and soap and the clean salt of skin. Seth came with a shout that echoed off the basement walls, his whole body convulsing, Zain's name torn out of him like something involuntary.
After, they lay on the mat. Seth on his stomach, face turned to the side, eyes glazed and half-lidded. Zain on his back beside him, staring at the water-stained ceiling, his own body still hard and aching and demanding and absolutely not relevant right now.
Seth's hand found his. Fingers interlaced. Neither of them spoke.
Then Zain stood up.
He pulled his shirt straight. Adjusted his pants. Ran a hand through his hair.
"Same time tomorrow," he said, and walked upstairs.
He didn't look back. If he looked back, he wouldn't leave. And if he didn't leave, he was going to do something stupid, like pull Seth into his arms and hold him until the trembling stopped, and then he'd have to face the fact that this wasn't just physical, and he wasn't ready for that.
Not yet.
Maybe not ever.