Chapter 4 - Chloe
I can't breathe properly until we're in Sarah's car.
The cold night air hits my face as we burst out of the gym's back entrance, and I'm gasping like I've been underwater, my heart slamming against my ribs so hard it hurts.
Sarah is talking. She's been talking since we started up those stairs, a steady stream of *oh my god did you see that* and *holy shit he's even scarier when he's fighting* and *are you okay*, but I can't process the words.
I can only hear the sound of fist hitting flesh.
The grunt of pain. The roar of the crowd.
The moment his eyes found mine across that basement.
"Chloe. Chloe, are you okay?"
Sarah's hand is on my arm. We're in her car now.
"I'm fine," I manage.
"You don't look fine. You look like you're about to pass out."
"I'm not going to pass out."
"Do you need to sit down? Do you need water? I have water in the car—"
"Sarah." I grab her hand, squeeze it. "I'm fine. Really. I just… I wasn't expecting that."
That's the understatement of my entire life.
I wasn't expecting any of it. When Sarah texted me yesterday asking if I wanted to go to some underground fights in Blackwater Falls, I said yes because I've been trying to say yes to more things, to be less of a hermit, to prove to myself that I'm not letting my ex control my life just because he won't stop texting me.
I said yes because Sarah is my closest friend and she's been trying to get me out of my apartment for weeks.
I said yes because I had no idea the fights were at Steele's Gym.
I had no idea Cole would be fighting.
I had no idea what he would look like in that ring.
"I'll drive you home." Sarah says.
She pulls out of the parking lot and I lean my head against the window, closing my eyes, trying to calm my racing heart.
It doesn't work. Every time I close my eyes, I see him.
Shirtless. Sweat dripping down his chest, his arms, gleaming on his skin under the dim lights.
The way he moved, fluid and brutal and completely controlled until that moment when he looked at me and the other guy's fist connected with his face.
He got hit because of me.
He was looking at me and he got hit.
I don't know what to do with that information.
"So," Sarah starts. "That was intense."
"Yeah."
"That guy, Rampage, he's incredible. Did you see the way he just—" She makes a gesture with her hand that I think is supposed to represent violence. "I mean, terrifying, obviously, but also kind of hot? Is that wrong? That feels wrong."
It's not wrong.
That's the problem.
He is terrifying. I watched him beat a man unconscious with his bare hands.
I watched the way his face changed when he was fighting, something cold and distant and utterly merciless settling over his features.
I watched violence happen three feet in front of me and I should be horrified, should be scared, should be reconsidering every decision that led me to that basement.
Instead, I'm soaking wet.
Again.
Still.
The same way I was after my lesson on Tuesday, except worse now, because now I've seen what his body looks like without a shirt.
Now I know exactly how broad his chest is, how his muscles shift when he moves, how sweat drips down his abdomen and disappears into the waistband of his shorts.
Now I've seen his hands wrapped in tape and covered in blood.
Not his blood, the other guy's blood, and my brain is doing something deeply fucked up where it's connecting that image to the memory of those same hands on my hips.
I am genuinely afraid something is wrong with me.
Normal women don't get turned on watching men beat each other unconscious.
Normal women don't spend the entire drive home pressed against the car window trying not to squirm because they're so wet it's uncomfortable.
Normal women don't go home and lie in bed with their hand between their legs thinking about a man who terrifies them.
Sarah drops me off at my apartment. I thank her, tell her I had fun even though I'm not sure that's the right word, promise to text her tomorrow. She makes me promise twice, which means she's worried, which means I did not hide my reaction as well as I thought I did.
I go inside. Archie greets me at the door, winding between my ankles, demanding attention. I pick him up, bury my face in his fur, and try to ground myself in something normal. Something safe.
It doesn't work.
I put Archie down. I go to my bedroom. I lie down on my bed still fully clothed and I stare at the ceiling and I think about Cole Steele in that ring.
The way he moved.
The sound he made when that fist connected with his face.
The look in his eyes when they found mine.
My hand slides between my legs before I make a conscious decision to put it there. I'm still wearing my jeans and I can feel how wet I am through the denim, through my panties, soaked and aching and I have never been this turned on by anything in my entire life.
I should feel guilty about this.
I don't.
I slip my hand inside my jeans, inside my panties, and I touch myself thinking about him, about his hands, about what it would feel like to have him pin me down with that same brutality he used in the ring.
I come in less than two minutes, biting my lip to stay quiet even though I'm alone, my body arching off the bed as the orgasm rolls through me in waves.
And then I lie there in the aftermath feeling satisfied and confused and absolutely certain that I am in serious trouble.
A few days later…
By the time Tuesday rolls around, I've almost convinced myself not to go.
I've spent the last six days trying to talk myself out of it.
Telling myself I can find another gym, another instructor, someone who doesn't make me feel like my entire nervous system is short-circuiting.
Someone who didn't beat a man unconscious while I watched.
Someone I didn't go home and masturbate to thinking about.
But when two o'clock approaches, I get in my car.
I drive to Blackwater Falls.
I park outside Steele's Gym.
And I sit there for five full minutes with my hands on the steering wheel trying to figure out what the hell I'm doing.
The smart thing would be to leave. To send him a polite email canceling future sessions, to wish him well, to find somewhere else to learn self-defense.
The smart thing would be to acknowledge that I am clearly having some kind of breakdown where my judgment is concerned and remove myself from the situation before it gets worse.
Instead, I get out of the car.
I walk into the gym.
He's behind the front desk again, same as last week. Same position, back to the wall, eyes on the entrance. He looks up when I walk in and our eyes meet.
There's a bruise on his face. Purple-black along his cheekbone, the kind of bruise that says someone hit him hard. I did that. Not directly, but I might as well have, because he was looking at me when it happened.
"Hi," I say.
My voice comes out smaller than I intend.
"Chloe," he says.
Just my name. Nothing else. But the way he says it does something to my stomach, something warm and fluttering that I absolutely do not have time for right now.
"I'm here for my lesson," I say, which is obvious, which is stupid, but my brain is not cooperating.
"I know," he says.
There's a pause. He's looking at me differently than he did last week. More directly. Like he's trying to figure something out.
"We should talk first," he says finally.
My heart drops. "Okay."
He comes around the desk. "Training room."
I follow him through the gym to the same space we used last week. He stops in the middle of the mat and turns to face me, arms crossed, and suddenly the room feels very small and I feel very exposed.
"What were you doing at the fights?" he asks.
His voice is level, but there's something underneath it. Not anger exactly, but something close.
I swallow. "My friend invited me."
"Your friend."
"Sarah. She… She wanted to go. She'd heard about them. She asked if I wanted to come with her."
"And you said yes."
"Yes."
"Did you know I'd be fighting?"
"No," I say quickly. Too quickly. "No, I had no idea. I didn't even know the fights were here until we showed up. I didn't know you—" I stop. Take a breath. "I didn't know that's what you did."
He's quiet for a long moment, watching me. I can't read his expression. I don't know if he believes me.
"You left," he says finally.
"What?"
"You left. As soon as the fight ended, you left."
"I—yes. I did."
"Why?"
Because I was terrified. Because watching you fight did something to me that I don't understand and don't know how to process. Because I went home and touched myself thinking about you and I can barely look at you right now without wanting to do it again.
"It was intense," I say instead. "I wasn't expecting it to be that intense. I needed air."
He nods slowly. Like he's accepting this answer even if he doesn't entirely believe it.
"Are you going to come back?" he asks. "To the fights."
"I don't know," I say honestly. "Maybe. Sarah wants to."
"If you do," he says, "stay toward the back. Away from the ring. It gets rowdy sometimes. People get careless. I don't want you getting hurt."
The concern in his voice surprises me. It's genuine, unguarded, and it makes me wonder if there's more to us than just a teacher-student relationship.
"Okay," I say softly. "I will."
Another pause. The tension in the room shifts slightly, becomes something different.
"You ready to train?" he asks.
"Yes."
"Good," he says. "Because today we're going to work on what to do if someone grabs you from behind. And I'm going to need to touch you more than I did last week."
My breath catches.
He notices.
"Is that going to be a problem?" he asks.
Every part of me wants to say yes. Yes, it's going to be a problem, because every time you touch me, I stop being able to think, because I'm already wet just standing here talking to you, because I don't trust myself to be professional when you put your hands on me.
"No," I say. "That's fine."
"Then let's begin," he says.
I’m fucked.