Axel: A Bad Boy Romance (7 page)

Chapter Twelve

She woke up in an immense amount of pain. Axel had instructed her to take an ibuprofen before going to sleep. But she had felt great the night before. She had felt energetic and invincible, like she could do anything. She wanted to run a marathon and paint a masterpiece all at the same time. Now she could barely get out of bed. Her abs and arms and legs were all crying out in pain every time she moved.

She managed to struggle to the bathroom where she swallowed two Advil and then she walked to the kitchen and drank a big glass of water before making coffee. It was her first day off since she had moved here. Her first Saturday. She didn’t need to do anything at the museum. They had a local girl from the high school working the door and giving tours.

But the museum wasn’t open yet. It was still too early. Marie walked over to the security panel and turned the alarms off. She walked down the stairs that led to her apartment and went down into the mansion proper. It was quiet and dark, but Marie never felt afraid down here. The house was just too interesting to keep her away.

Barefoot she walked over the hardwood floor and ducked into the nursery. There were antique dolls and trucks and little trundle beds. In one corner was a small table and chairs all set out for a fancy tea party. Edith had raised eight children, all of them successes. It seemed everything Edith Hawks did was touched with gold.

She could be my saint
, Marie thought as she walked through the house in her pajamas. Saint Edith of the museum, patron saint of women in hiding. She imagined Edith would have been proud of her for sticking up for herself the other day. Sure, it was no building a new town, but it was something. Edith would understand that.

She walked down to the parlor and looked out the windows. When the mansion was empty like this, she liked to pretend this was her house. The whole thing, not just the attic upstairs. She would move from room to room like a great lady of an old house in an Austen movie. She would be wearing an old-fashioned dress and sighing about the servants. She would have a gallant and handsome husband with perfect genteel manners.

At eleven o’clock she and Cate walked down to the park. The air was starting to get warmer. It was spring and soon enough summer would be here. They left their heavy coats at home and wore their lighter jackets. It was a bright day and the people of Harksburg were out in full force. They passed a group of ballerinas practicing in their open-air studio and a book club meeting with wine and cheese on a blanket in the park.

They walked past the gym, but Marie didn’t see Axel through the window, so they kept walking. Her terribly hot trainer. He was so strong and almost graceful. She never saw him drop anything. The weights she struggled with were nothing to him. He had walked around the gym with such confidence. She wondered how he had come to own it.

She brought Cate to the park where to other kids from her daycare were already running through the plastic tubing of the equipment. Marie sat down on a bench and pulled out her burner phone. It was a smartphone with a data cap, but, fortunately, the park had WiFi and she was able to Google the name: Axel Connelly.

She wasn’t expecting anything. When you search Marie De Santa all the results were for a biochemist in San Paolo. But Axel Connelly was another story. The first thing that came up was his face; it was a stern-looking picture with the title
3rd in the Northeastern League
. He had an actual Wikipedia page. He was an MMA fighter and a good one at that. She scanned through pictures of his bruised and battered smiling face holding trophies and belts.

She looked around the playground shocked. She had no idea her trainer from the other day was a professional cage match fighter. She couldn’t deny that the thought turned her on a little. She watched the last few minutes of his most recent fight. She watched as Axel and his opponent danced around each other. His opponent threw a punch and Axel dodged and returned with a sidekick and a punch right to the side of the other man’s face. He went down in heap as the crowd went wild.

Why had he been training her? He was famous and well known and he owned the gym. Had her threat of a bad review really made him nervous enough to take her on himself? It seemed crazy. Marie stood up and stretched out her sore muscles using the bench to help her. The muscles in the back of her legs were tight and she felt a sweet sort of relief as she stretched them. She had worked harder than she thought the other day.

He had pushed her, really pushed her. But not like Austin. Axel had only offered her criticisms in order to help her. He hadn't been mean or short tempered; he had been patient. She had wanted to impress him – that was what kept her going. It wasn’t fear or intimidation that pushed her. It was something else. It was a desire that came from inside. She wanted to impress him and even more she wanted to prove to herself that she could do this.

He had seen something in her. He had decided that she was worth training and he was an expert. That had to count for something. She stretched her arms high above her and smiled into the sunlight. Maybe she would become a kick-ass fighter. Then she would never need to fear anyone. If she saw Austin she could take him down herself. She wondered how long it took to get that good.

On her way back to the house Marie passed a clothing shop and, with an agreeable Cate in tow, she stepped inside. She had left almost all of her and Cate’s clothes with Austin. She had taken only what she could fit in the trunk and left the rest behind. She was pretty confident Axel had destroyed all of it by now; her grandmother’s quilt and her photo albums were probably nothing more than ash and smoke. But she could make new memories.

She walked around the store looking at the summer dresses and little black numbers, but stopped herself before she bought anything. She didn’t have any plans to go out and the training sessions at Axel’s gym were not cheap. She considered it a good investment, though. Being able to defend herself was worth any price. So she wouldn’t be able to buy anything fun for a few weeks, but she noticed some items she might come back for.

She did grab a few workout clothes on sale. They were black and fitting and little bit more professional than her yoga pants and t-shirt outfit from the other day. She wanted to prove to Axel that she was serious about this. She was ready to work and learn. He could push her as hard as he wanted; she was ready.

Later that night, after she had tucked Cate into bed and the alarm had been set, Marie stood next to an open window in the mansion and looked down onto the little town below. She imagined what it looked like back in Edith’s day. There would be no electrical light, only fires and candles. She would be able to see more stars. Trees would stretch in all directions and there would no real roads, only cleared tracks in the mud.

What would she have been like back then? Could she have done what Edith had done? Could she have built a town out of nothing? Probably not, but it was fun to imagine. She had another training scheduled with Axel and she was nervous. She didn’t feel stronger. If anything, she felt weaker. Her legs and arms were like jelly and they hurt with every move. But she wasn’t going to quit or pull a no show. She was going to get up and go and prove her worth.

Chapter Thirteen

There was no way he was going to get away with this for much longer. He didn’t train people. Axel hadn’t worked as a trainer in over five years. He made enough money from his fights and the gym that he didn’t need to. So why was he standing at the juice bar in the gym waiting for Marie to show up? He was planning on giving her to another trainer, a female trainer. But when the time came, he couldn’t quite bring himself to do it.

Marie wasn’t ready yet. She technically shouldn't even be in the program. If he gave her to another trainer, they might send her away, or put her on a treadmill instead of a boxing ring. She didn’t want to get into better shape. He understood without needing to ask that Marie wasn’t interested in bikini season or slimming down to look better in photos. She wanted to learn how to fight.

Hayden was out of town; he was in Philly meeting with the promoters. There would some kind of press tour leading up to the fight with magazine interviews and television interviews that would need to be scheduled. It was a lot of work, but that was Hayden’s job. Axel’s job was to train and mentally prepare for the fight. Hayden didn’t know about Axel’s little training sessions with Marie and he was hoping he could keep this going a little longer.

She arrived five minutes early. Her long dark hair was pulled in a sleek ponytail. She was wearing tight fitting, black stretch pants and a black tank top. With a bottle of water in her hand she looked ready for a work out and he was going to give it to her.

“You’re back,” he said when she walked into the gym.

“Did you doubt me?” she asked.

“Not for a moment,” he responded. “But you know it only gets harder from here on out, right? It doesn’t get easier. The weights get heavier, the reps grow higher; it’s an uphill climb the whole way.” He didn’t know why he was trying to scare her away, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself.

“I’m ready,” she said.

He led her back down to the boxing gym, which was almost empty at this hour of the day.  “This is the heavy bag,” Axel said, hitting the large punching black bag that hung from a heavy chain on the ceiling. “We’re gonna work on this today. Now, I don’t want you to just hit it. I want you to imagine it’s an enemy. Imagine it’s someone coming to get you, someone who’s determined to fight you. You can’t run away; you have to face it.”

Something shifted in her face when he said this. The fear wasn’t pretend for her; it was very real. But he wasn’t going to shield her from it and he wasn’t going to coddle her. If she did have someone coming for her, gentle whispered words weren’t going help. Only hard work would help.

“Give me your hands,” he said. Tentatively she held out her hands, like a criminal waiting to be cuffed. Her took her delicate wrist in one hand and he couldn’t help but caress the back of her hand with his thumb. It was a quick gesture, one that could easily be confused for an accidental touch. But it wasn’t accidental. He had wanted one brief touch of her knuckles before she destroyed them on the heavy bag.

He took a roll of white tape and slowly wrapped it around the knuckles on her right hand. Around and around he wove the tape as she made and unmade a fist to make sure the tape wouldn’t be too tight. He glanced up at her when he switched to the other hand and he could see her wide brown eyes staring up at him. She looked away quickly, as if she had been caught doing something naughty.

“So, I want you to stay on the balls of your feet. Your feet need to always be moving,” he said. He stood across from him and demonstrated the moves, bouncing from one foot to another. His motions were quick and swift. “Keep yourself moving, always moving. In a fight, you never stop. You’re on your toes so if someone tries to make a jab at you, you can duck out of the way and land a punch when he’s weak and vulnerable.”

She nodded and he could tell that she was taking all of it in. He positioned her in front of the bag. “On your toes,” he said and she complied, standing up and bouncing back and forth a little bit, weaving and bobbing in front of the bag. Her hands were up, the white tape of the knuckles standing out in sharp contrast to her tanned skin. She looked gorgeous.

“You always want to aim for the center of the bag. Later we’ll go over weak points, but we’re focusing on the basics right now. So, I want you to rear back not just your arm, but your whole body. Put all your weight on your right leg and then step forward and give a hard punch, right here.”

She nodded and did as she was told, but her punch was weak and the bag barely moved. “Oh no,” she said a look of defeat coming over her face.

“Don’t worry,” he responded. “Everyone’s first punch is that bad. I promise you. Now you know what it feels like. You know it will only hurt your hand a little; it has some give. So try again.”

Marie nodded and she took her previous stance up again. She took a deep breath and stared at the bag. Her expression changed. She didn’t look scared anymore. Now she looked fearless and angry. She was like some ancient goddess of vengeance. He wanted her. Right then and there on the gym’s floor. He wanted to rip her clothes off her and throw her down.
No!
he reminded himself.
You are doing a job; you are helping her. You aren’t hooking up with her. You can keep it professional. You have to
.

She hit again, and this time her punch landed with some real force. “Good!” he said, hearing the surprise praise in his own voice. “Again.” She hit again, this punch even more confident than the one that came before. “Other hand,” he said and she switched and hit with her left. The hit was a little weaker with a non-dominant hand, but it was still solid. “Back and forth,” he ordered and she complied.

He could have watched her all day. He never wanted her stop. Sweat was dripping down her face and onto her chest. There was nothing other than the heavy bag for her. She was focused and dedicated on hitting it and thinking about nothing else. It was beautiful to behold.

Finally, she stopped. Her arms fell to her side and she threw her head back as she took deep gasping breaths. “My arms are killing me,” she said putting her hands on her knees and resting. She was right. He should have stopped and given her a break, but he hadn’t wanted her to stop.

“Yeah, get some water,” he said, shaking his head to clear his mind of the image of her body moving before him.

He kept pushing her. He added more weights and more repetitions. Her arms and legs were shaking with the stress and exertion, but she didn’t quit. She kept going, kept pushing herself. Axel could see her glaring at him out of the corner of her eye as she completed one final, painful, exhausting repetition. He could see that she wanted to hit him, to yell at him. Anything to make it stop. But she didn’t She just grit her teeth and keep going.

He had her sitting on the bench with her arms behind up lifting up fifteen-pound weights in a seated dumbbell extension when her arms finally gave out. He was there; he supported her back with one hand and grabbed the light weight with his other. She gave out a small cry of pain as her arms came down to her sides and she sunk into the bench.

“Are we done?” she asked, glancing up at the clock.

“Almost,” he said. He saw her face fall and he added, “we just need to stretch you out.”

She blew a stray lock of hair out of her face and nodded. He handed her a towel and she wiped the sweat from her face and arms and chest. He had to force himself to stop staring at her, but she was all around him. Her reflection looked back at him from every wall. When he looked away from her, he only ended up looking at reflection in the mirror, her pale neck, the curve of her ass. It was far too dangerous.

Together they stretched. He put his hands on her and guided her movements. He ordered himself to be professional. But his imagination would not cease. He pressed down on her back to increase her stretch. He touched her thighs and her arms and her stomach. They didn’t speak as he stretched her. She from exhaustion, he worried about what he might say.

“Take this,” he said at the entrance to the gym as he handed her a bag of Epsom salt. “Put a cup of this in a hot bath and soak in it for at least thirty minutes. Take two ibuprofens and drink a lot of water. Be sure you’re eating a lot of protein and potassium; coconut water and bananas should be a staple of your diet going forward.”

She nodded. The redness in her face had left leaving behind a dewy glow. “I’ll see you in a few days,” she said as she left.