Chapter 24 Don’t Pull Back
Sunday evening the fighting gym was quieter than usual. Four men worked the machines while a pair sparred in the ring. Music drifted from someone's phone, low enough to fade into the background.
I had not been back since the day I sparred with Tom.
He was here tonight, working a heavy bag along the far wall. His shoulders rose and fell with each solid strike. When he spotted me, the punches slowed, then stopped. Tom wiped the sweat from his face with the back of his arm and gave me a small wave.
I lifted my hand in return and moved to an empty bag.
After dropping my duffel, I rolled my shoulders and stretched my wrists until the tape felt right.
A few light jabs woke the muscles, then I set my feet, breathed out, and let the first combination roll through me — jab, cross, hook. The bag rocked hard under the impact.
My body remembered the rhythm even when my mind was somewhere else. I kept going until the noise in my head softened. Footwork, breath, impact. Simple things. Predictable things.
After twenty minutes, Tom drifted over from his own bag.
“You hit like you’re mad at it,” he said, watching the way the bag swung.
I didn’t stop. I shifted my weight, drove another hard cross into the bag, and felt the impact travel up my arm. “Maybe I am.”
His mouth twitched, not quite a smile.
The bell over the door rang.
I didn’t need to turn around. My cat already knew who had just walked in.
Tom looked past my shoulder. His expression tightened.
Then, unless I was imagining it, a flash of guilt moved across his face.
I furrowed my brows and glanced back just as Jackson crossed the floor toward us.
Tom took a quick step away from me, muttered something that sounded like an excuse, and went back to his own bag without another word. I watched him go, still frowning.
Without a word, Jackson stepped in behind the heavy bag and braced it for me.
“Why does Tom look like he’s expecting trouble?” I asked, throwing a jab.
“No idea.”
“Try again.”
The bag thudded under my fist. He braced through it easily.
“Jackson.”
“Harper.”
“Why is Tom afraid of you?”
He let out a slow breath and glanced across the gym at Tom, who was suddenly very focused on his own bag.
“I had a conversation with him,” he said.
“What kind of conversation?”
“The kind that came after your bruises. I told him he wasn’t sparring with you again.”
I huffed and threw the cross harder than necessary. “You are unbelievable.”
“I know.”
“You went around me.”
“Yes.”
No apology. No hesitation.
I was annoyed. I hit the bag harder, letting the sting in my knuckles sharpen every punch until the rest of the room started to blur. Breath, step, impact. The bag rocked under the force. Jackson absorbed it without shifting his feet, steady and silent behind it.
Part of me warmed at the thought that someone had stepped in for me without being asked. I hated that warmth the second I felt it. I threw another hard cross. “Don’t do that again.”
“Do what?”
“Fight my battles for me.”
“I didn’t like the bruise on your jaw.”
The words landed heavier than they should have. I lowered my hands.
“I’ll be careful.”
“That’s not what I’m asking for.”
“I know.”
“No more bruises, Harper.”
I looked at him. He held my gaze.
“I'll try.”
He let out a breath. “Okay.”
I turned back to the bag and kept working. He held it, adjusting the angle whenever I asked, and said nothing more about Tom. The silence between us was easy enough to fall into. Punch after punch, the earlier irritation burned off through my shoulders and arms.
When I finally stepped back to wipe my face, he held the towel out before I even reached for it.
“Have you had enough?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Come with me.”
“Where?”
“Somewhere quiet.”
I looked at him. He watched me back with quiet patience, not pressing, simply ready. I had come to the gym to outrun the noise in my head. The bag had taken some of it, but I wasn’t ready to go home and let the rest catch up.
“All right.”
I showered quickly in the locker room, changed, and met him outside. The night air had teeth. Jackson opened the passenger door of the SUV without a word and I slid in.
He drove east, away from town. The radio stayed off, and he didn’t try to fill the silence. The dark road stretched ahead of us, quiet and empty.
“Where are we going?” I asked after a while.
“A friend’s place,” he said. “It’s empty this weekend.”
I glanced at him. “And what’s the plan?”
“Heated pool,” he answered, the corner of his mouth curving. “Thought you might like to use it.”
“I don’t have a swimsuit.”
His voice dropped a notch. “You don’t need one.”
“You’re very confident.”
“A guy can dream.”
The road climbed steadily. After twenty minutes he turned off the main road, then again onto a paved drive that wound through the trees and ended at a wooden gate.
He pulled a card from above the visor. The gate rolled open without a sound.
Beyond it, a low timber house sat back among the trees. Dark windows. Deep porch.
He parked on the gravel and killed the engine.
“We won’t go inside. Pool’s around back.”
“Okay.”
We walked along the side of the house until the deck opened in front of us.
It sat under a high wooden pergola, lanterns strung along the beams throwing warm light across the boards.
The pool was set into the deck itself, steam rising slow and lazy into the cold October air.
Underwater lights turned the water a clean pale blue.
Beyond the edge the land dropped away into trees, and above them the sky was clear and crowded with stars.
I stopped at the edge of the pool and looked down at my blurred reflection in the steam.
“I’m not swimming in jeans.”
“No,” he said. “Didn’t expect you to.”
I glanced over my shoulder. "And I'm not swimming naked."
“I gathered that.”
He stepped past me, toed off his shoes, and pulled his shirt over his head. The low light caught the hard lines of his chest and shoulders. Lower, the sharp cut of his hips disappeared beneath black boxer briefs. Solid all the way through.
And entirely aware of being looked at.
“Want to take a picture?” he asked, voice low.
“I’m thinking about it.”
He smirked, then dove in clean. When he surfaced he pushed the wet hair out of his eyes and looked back at me, that cocky edge still there.
“Your turn.”
I exhaled through my nose. Fine. I hadn’t expected this to be easy.
I pulled the sweater over my head. Black lace bra underneath, minimal. His eyes stayed on me. I unbuttoned my jeans, stepped out of them, and left them at the edge of the pool. Matching thong. He still hadn’t looked away.
The cold air hit my skin and my nipples hardened against the lace. I didn’t check whether he was still watching. I stepped to the edge and dove, staying under for the length of one full breath before I came up against the far wall and let my arms float on the surface.
He moved closer and turned, resting his back against the wall beside me.
“Worth it?” he asked.
I met his eyes. “Ask me again in an hour.”
He gave a quiet laugh. “Fair enough.”
We stood like that for a long moment. The heater hummed low under the deck. Somewhere in the trees an owl called once.
I put on my best attempt at a flirtatious smile, trying to distract him, lower his guard a little. It must have looked wrong, because his eyes narrowed slightly like he wasn’t buying it.
I splashed water at him.
He wiped his face, clearly amused. “Really?”
“Seemed like a good idea.”
He pushed off the wall and came after me.
I ducked under and kicked away, but he was faster in the water than he had any right to be.
Two strokes later I surfaced near the middle of the pool, already laughing — the kind of real, unguarded laugh I hadn’t let out in years.
Fingers closed around my ankle and he pulled me back with almost no effort.
I twisted hard and tried to dunk him. It didn’t work. He was too big. I only managed to get half his face wet before his arm locked around my waist and we both went under in a tangle of limbs and bubbles.
When we came up again I was still laughing, breathless and a little shocked at the sound of it.
Jackson’s expression shifted as he watched me.
The playfulness drained out of it, leaving something quieter and more intent.
We were still close, legs brushing under the water.
His hands settled at my waist and held me there.
The laughing faded into something else entirely.
“We should not,” I said, barely above a whisper.
He didn’t answer with words. He just leaned in and kissed me, deep and sure, like he’d been waiting for this all night. I kissed him back before I could talk myself out of it. The last of the resistance went under the water with us.
When he pulled back just enough to speak, his voice was rough. “You were saying?”
I had nothing.
He lifted me easily and my legs wrapped around his hips on instinct.
He carried us through the water until my shoulders met the cool tile.
His mouth found my throat, slower now, brushing the hollow beneath my ear.
His hand slid lower, stroking me through the lace.
A broken sound left me against his shoulder.
"Tell me to stop."
I didn't.
"Harper."
My fingers tightened against him.
“Tell me what you want.”
I exhaled, unsteady, and met his eyes. “Don’t stop.”
His mouth crashed back onto mine. The last of his restraint disappeared. His tongue pushed deep as his hands moved over me, thighs, hips, shoulders, pulling me harder against him. I met him with the same force.
The water made everything easier. Our bodies felt lighter, shifting against each other with almost no resistance. I shoved his briefs down far enough to free him and gripped the hard muscle of his ass as he pressed hard against me.
His hand hooked the lace aside and slid a finger into me. I gasped into his shoulder. He answered with a rough breath against my throat.
“Do we need a condom?” he asked, low.
“I’m on the pill.”