Chapter Thirteen #3
My breath stutters, just slightly, the rhythm breaking in a way I feel immediately. His hand is still cool against my skin, still steady, no pulse under it, no give.
I hate how aware of that I am.
“You’re hesitating,” he says quietly, his voice closer now, lower.
I lean in instead of pulling back, letting the space between us close even further, my grip tightening on his shirt. “You’re not.”
His gaze drops for a fraction of a second, not to my face…
Lower.
Then back up again.
Something flickers there. “Should I be?”
My pulse kicks harder. “Depends,” I murmur, my voice just as low, just as steady, even if my body is anything but. “Are you trying to win…” I shift my weight suddenly, wrenching my wrist free and using the movement to drag him forward, “… or something else?”
We crash into another rack, the impact sending a barbell clattering to the floor, plates bouncing and rolling across the room. He absorbs it faster this time, his hands coming to my waist as he redirects the movement.
My breath catches.
His grip tightens for a fraction longer than necessary before he uses it to lift and turn me, my back hitting the mat hard enough to knock the air from my lungs in a sharp exhale.
“Careful,” he says, stepping over me, his voice quieter now, edged with something that wasn’t there before. “You’re getting distracted.”
I push up onto my elbows, breath still uneven, my gaze locked on him. “You’re one to talk,” I shoot back, even as I surge to my feet again, refusing to stay down. “You’re the one who stopped first.”
“I didn’t stop,” he replies, advancing again, slower this time. “I adjusted.”
“Right,” I say, circling him, heat still buzzing under my skin, my chest rising and falling faster than it should. “That’s what we’re calling it.”
His eyes track me, unblinking. “You’re breathing harder,” he points out.
I huff a short breath, something like a laugh slipping through it. “That tends to happen when you’re alive.”
“And yet…” he says, closing the distance again, “… you’re still coming at me like you can win.”
“Of course, I am.” I step in close enough to feel that absence of heat, that stillness that shouldn’t feel this charged. “You think I’m going to let you win after throwing me into a damn wall?”
His mouth shifts slightly, almost a smile, but not soft. “I think…” he says, his voice dropping just enough that it pulls my attention in tighter, “… you’re not fighting just to win anymore.”
My pulse stutters. “Neither are you.”
For a second, neither of us moves.
The room around us is wrecked, debris scattered, dust still drifting lazily through the air, but all of it fades into the background under the weight of the moment.
Then I move first.
Because I have to.
Because if I don’t…
I don’t want to know what happens if I don’t.
I lunge at him again, faster, harder, and this time when we collide, it feels like something tipping over the edge. Then I shift again, everything I have behind the movement now, no restraint left to temper it.
He meets me head-on.
The collision drives us backward, feet sliding over the ruined floor as momentum carries us through the debris, past broken benches and twisted metal, until my back hits the wall with enough force to send a dull crack through the air.
Dust shakes loose above us, drifting down in a slow, lazy fall that feels out of place against the speed of everything else.
His hand comes up, bracing against the wall beside my head, trapping me there without quite touching me, his body close enough that there’s nowhere left to go.
I don’t try to move. My breath comes fast, my chest rising and falling in sharp contrast to the absolute stillness of him.
No breath.
No pulse.
Just presence.
Controlled and contained.
Except it doesn’t feel contained anymore.
Not here.
Not now.
His other hand still has my wrist, the grip firm but no longer forcing movement, no longer turning me, just… holding.
For a second, the fight is still there between us.
Then it isn’t.
The shift is subtle, but it hits just as hard as any impact we have traded so far. The tension doesn’t disappear—it seems to change shape.
His gaze drops.
Not far, just enough.
I feel it like a physical touch, the awareness sliding down to my mouth before lifting again, slower this time, and my pulse kicks harder.
“You going to finish it?” I ask, my voice lower now, a bit rougher around the edges, but steady enough to hide what’s sitting underneath it.
His head tilts slightly, enough to catch the light across his face, across the scar he chose to keep. “That depends,” he says quietly.
“On what?”
His grip on my wrist shifts, just enough to remind me he’s still holding me.
“On whether you want me to.” The words land between us, heavier than they should be, and for a second, I forget what the right answer is supposed to be.
Or maybe I just don’t care.
My free hand slides up, almost without permission, fingers catching lightly at the front of his shirt, anchoring myself there the way I have been all fight, but this time it isn’t about leverage.
This time it’s something else.
The space between us narrows.
My breath ghosts against his mouth, warm against something that doesn’t return it, and the contrast hits sharp enough to make my chest tighten.
He doesn’t move away.
He doesn’t move at all.
But I feel it, the shift in him, subtle but real, like something in that absolute control has edged just slightly out of alignment.
“Still think I’m distracted?” I murmur, barely a breath of sound between us.
“More than you were,” he replies, his voice just as quiet, just as close.
My lips are a fraction from his.
For a second that stretches too long, neither of us moves, the moment hanging there, balanced on the edge of a decision neither of us should make.
And then suddenly…
The door slams open.
The sound cracks through the room like a gunshot, sharp and sudden, shattering the moment clean in two. I jerk back instinctively, my grip on his shirt releasing as I put space between us, breath still uneven, pulse still racing like I’ve been running instead of standing still.
Scar steps back at the same time, the shift immediate, the distance between us snapping back into something safer.
Something colder.
The air in the room changes with it.
The heat doesn’t disappear. It just gets buried.
I drag a hand through my hair, forcing my breathing to even out, forcing my body back under control as I turn toward the door.
I’m standing, arms crossed, putting three feet of mat between us. Scar’s expression is already settling back into that controlled nothing he wears like armor.
Rhett fills the doorway, and the look on his face when he sees the room is something between shock and what the hell did I just walk into?
“Oh shit… sorry—”
Bennett materializes behind him with his usual celestial gravity, takes in the scene in one sweep, and arrives at a conclusion his expression does absolutely nothing to conceal. “We should go…”
“Yeah… we’re going,” Rhett is already backing up, one hand finding the doorframe.
“This never happened,” Bennett says with absolute calm, which would carry a lot more authority if the tips of his ears weren’t turning red enough to betray him completely.
Rhett points. “Oh, it happened, or was about to—”
“Shut up, mutt. C’mon, let’s go!” Bennett drags him by the scruff, and then they’re gone. The sound of them moving fast down the corridor follows. Rhett mutters something, but Bennett doesn’t rise to it. However, the silence between them says it’ll come back up later, just not here.
The gym settles around us while I stare at the wall.
I brush dust from my hands, not looking at Scar. “Well, that was productive.”
A slow chuckle escapes his lips. “It was something,” he replies.
I nod once, as if that is a complete sentence, as if it answers the question I am not asking, and I pick up my water bottle, grab my vest from the hook, and walk out without mentioning the chaotic kiss.
The hallway is empty. The corridor stretches out ahead of me, like none of that just happened. I walk the entire length of it without slowing down, and I don’t look back.
But I feel it anyway.
I can still feel his hands on my hips. His lips on mine. The pressure of them lingers against my skin like he never really let go, steady and grounding in a way that’s gotten under my defenses far more than I’m comfortable admitting.
And it’s not just the touch haunting me.
It’s the space between us.
How fast it disappeared. How close we got before either of us pulled the brakes hard enough to stop whatever the hell that moment was turning into.
I can still feel the ghost of it sitting under my skin, like my body hasn’t caught up to the fact that it’s over.
I take the stairs without slowing down, forcing my focus forward while I drag my breathing back under control.
Doesn’t help much.
The memory follows anyway.
Heavy… persistent…
And entirely fucking inconvenient!