Fierce (14 page)

“Once you get into the swing of it, you won’t want to come back,” said Luca.

“What about petty cash?” she asked.

“I’ll give you a credit card for one of the gym’s accounts. Plus some spending money. Don’t go overboard, but don’t skimp either. Take care of Marlon, make sure he’s in the best frame of mind possible come fight night.”

She thought for several moments, or rather strained to keep the avalanche of doubts and fears at bay. Despite all that, the deciding factors were her career…and Avery. The rest was just in the way and would have to be overcome.

Leap before you look,
she reminded herself. Sometimes it got her into trouble, but other times it had got her exactly what she wanted, against all odds. Like this job. Like this opportunity. Like living with a world champion who drove her wild, even if neither of them had ever acted on it.

“I’m in,” she said.

The brothers shared a knowing, secret smile. Each of them squeezed one of her shoulders; their combined touch sent a thrilling, shivery sensation through her.

“I’ll take you through it in more depth tomorrow,” said Luca. “I only wish I were going with you guys.”

It was a sweltering Thursday afternoon when Rose began her last training session with Avery before their Reno trip on Friday morning. Her waves of nervous energy had repeatedly crashed on the stoic, measured pace of his lesson—he was thorough, made her do every move until he thought it had sunk in—but getting thrown about more than usual hadn’t deterred Rose. She was determined to impress him. To hurl herself into every new Jiu-Jitsu or Aikido technique.

A little sore after being tossed several times by his hip throws, which she’d struggled to perform on him, being so much smaller and lighter, she wanted to try something less strenuous, something she could handily pull off.

“Show me one of those wrist throws,” she said. “You were showing Jerry the other day. I think that’s something I should know.”

He took a swig of ice water, then nodded. “Good call. It’s a handy self-defense move. Okay. I’ll start you off with a traditional one from Jiu Jitsu—a wrist throw into lock.” He took up a stance close to her. His t-shirt, soaking with sweat, clung to his upper body. It revealed the firm curved outline of his pectorals, and his nipples. He looked as though he could break her in two if he wanted. “Throw me a straight punch,” he said.

Rose replied, “How about you throw me one and tell me what to do? I think I’ve been thrown about enough.”

“We can call it a day if you want. No use pushing it if you’re sore.”

“It’s not that. I just want to know there’s a takedown move I can actually do on
you.
This stuff isn’t just for competition,” she explained. “I want to be able to use it on any fucker that attacks me in the street.”

He twitched a smile. “You will. Trust me. We’ve only just started.” He sighed. It wasn’t the first time she’d tried to switch up his teaching, and she knew he didn’t like it; however, Rose had never been a passive or submissive student in her life, and she wasn’t about to start now. “It’s best if I demonstrate first,” he said, an adamant note in his voice telling her he was getting ready to put his foot down.

“Then demonstrate on someone—but show me, don’t keep throwing me about. So far I’ve learned more about how to bounce on my ass than I have about kicking someone else’s. There, get Barrett. He’s always raring to go.”

Avery shook his head at her, then whistled for Barrett Tolliver to come over. One of the most energetic guys in the gym, if not exactly the strongest or toughest, Barrett got on well with everyone in his own quiet, enthusiastic way. As such, he was usually the guy people picked to go doubles with or to spar with. “It won’t take a minute,” Avery told him. “Rose wants to see a wrist throw in action. You don’t mind?”

“Nah. Go for it,” he said, beaming a rather obvious grin at Rose. He’d chatted her up several times in the past few weeks, and he didn’t seem to mind that it hadn’t gotten him anywhere. Dude just liked to hang out with her. That was sweet. It made a nice change from Tony and Troy and a few other sleazes who’d slimed all over her before Avery—or the mention of Avery—had chased them off.

“Thanks, brother.” They took up their stances. “Now then, if you throw me a straight punch…” Avery caught Barrett’s hand, mid-strike, “which I catch. Then I spin clockwise on my left foot, like this…and cup his right wrist with my left hand, pressing my thumb between these two knuckles, like this. Now, I grab his wrist with my right hand as well, for a more solid grip. I then twist anti-clockwise on my left foot until I’m in this position. Notice how it’s applying the twisting pressure on his wrist. I then continue twisting and go all the way down on my left knee, throwing him to the ground.” Barrett landed with a thump, but he wasn’t hurt. “To apply the lock, place your right knee on his right arm—on the biceps, like this—now come up on your left foot, and force his palm down to the ground. And you’ve got him.”

Avery let go, patted him on the shoulder, and said, “One more time.” They got up. “Always try to keep the standing wrist grab close to your middle, because that’s where your power center is. The takedown is easiest from that position. Once you’ve put all the pieces together, it should be a quick, fluid motion from first grip to final lock. And it does need to be quick to prevent a counter. I’ll demonstrate it one more time, piece by piece…”

With Barrett gone, it took Rose several attempts to become proficient at each of the individual movements, but once she had them down, the wrist throw and lock made sense to her. It clicked, so to speak, in a way that pleased her, not least because it left Avery on his back every time. Even someone built like him was powerless to stop it—provided it caught him by surprise, he stipulated.

“Awesome. What’s next?” She started shadow boxing, practicing the footwork he’d shown her last week. “I’m ready to take someone on. I think I could do some damage,” she said.

“Not yet you can’t. You’ve hit all the notes so far, but you’re a long way from Carnegie Hall.”

“You said that the other day.”

“And I’ll keep saying it till you take it in. You want to master anything difficult, you’re talking years of practice. I don’t care what it is: music, writing, science, MMA. The crowds are full of people who dabbled but never followed through. Those who get in the ring and
stay
in the ring, or the orchestra, or the labs, or the publishers—those guys have put it all on the line and they’ve nothing to regret.”

“What about love?”

He eyed her askance. “Huh?”

“Does the same apply to love? The crowds are full of people who dabbled but never followed through? Those guys who put it all on the line have no regrets? Do you think someone who masters music but ignores his love life doesn’t have regrets?”

“That’s different,” he replied, but didn’t look her in the eye.

“How is it?”

“Because it’s not always up to you. With music or fighting, you can master it on your own. It’s
entirely
down to you and your own talent, your own determination.”

“Ah, but the end result could be the same,” she argued. “If you don’t follow through in your love life, you never get anywhere. But if you put it all on the line, like you said, then you might win big. Even bigger than with the music…or the fighting.”

Avery stroked his stubbly chin and glanced around the gym for a distraction. Poor guy was uncomfortable with the spotlight being turned on him, especially his feelings. And she did feel a little sorry for him. He
was
going out of his way to be good to her, to give her this chance to turn her life around. Pushing for more was perhaps selfish on her part, even though Rose knew he liked her too. They were at a strange crossroads. His career went one way. Her idea of a relationship seemed to go another. And any combination of the two, well, there was just no signpost for that. Except in her fantasies.

“All right. One more wrist throw and lock, just to prove that you’ve got it,” he said. Always a good way to break the tension—getting physical.

Rose performed the maneuver with gusto and bent his wrist perhaps a little too far. Avery winced on his way down. After locking his arm to the mat, she straddled him so that he couldn’t get up. Okay, so an MMA god like him always had a trick up his sleeve—they were more like escapologists than brawlers—but she loved that he just lay there and took it, in front of everyone.

“This is more like it,” she said. A smattering of applause emerged from around the ring, along with a few whistles. She bowed to the acclaim. “Now,
who
gets the window seat on the plane?”

He grunted.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” she went on. “And another thing: you
are
taking me out to dinner the night after the fight.”

“It isn’t a vacation,” he replied. “We’re there to help one of our fighters.”

“So if Marlon’s okay with staying on an extra night, you’ll agree to take me out to dinner—somewhere really posh?”

“Tenacious little minx, aren’t you?”

“You bet your—”

Before she could finish, he somehow wrapped his legs around her neck and switched their positions so that he was straddling her. “
This
is more like it,” he said.

She struggled and wriggled and gritted her teeth, but he had her pinned down good and proper. No applause from the onlookers this time, but several wolf-whistles left her cheeks burning self-consciously. Rose was breathing hard. He gazed down at her, helpless in his tightest hold, with a smoldering, almost smug sense of dominance that said:
Any time I want, sweetheart.

Three quarters of this scenario had featured in some of her wettest, horniest dreams and fantasies since that night she’d seen him undress for the shower. Usually, less clothes were involved. Less spectators. But otherwise this was exactly the position she’d craved being in. First, being taken by him, ridden until she moaned. Then, when he thought she couldn’t take any more, she would surprise the hell out of him and show
him
what it felt like to be ridden.

A world champion.

In her mind, fireworks suddenly exploded over Reno. The trip held limitless possibilities.

“Not your usual training style,” a woman’s voice said from behind him. Rose couldn’t see the speaker, but it had to be someone fairly young.

Avery’s eyes darted side to side. He immediately jumped up and spun to face the woman; he didn’t even help Rose to her feet. “Ash? Lena? What are you doing…?”

“We can always come back another time, if you’re not quite finished.”

He flattened his messed-up hair. “We’ve just finished.”

As Rose got to her feet, the springs in her leg and shoulder muscles became leaden. Adrenaline coursed through her; it carried a fizz of fear that excited the horrid memories of lying face down on the asphalt and being kicked and punched repeatedly until she couldn’t feel anything except the scalding, throbbing pain all over. Especially in her sides.

The Twitches had grown up in all sorts of ways since that night. They had the bodies of surfers and the faces of (lower tier) glamor models. Ashley had jet black hair, her natural color, while Lena had dyed hers auburn. They didn’t have cruel faces, Rose decided, except by association. Everything they’d done to her that night, including telling their dad they’d acted in self-defense, was so beyond cruel it was hard to find a word to describe it. As if two against one was ever self-defense, when the two were older and trained in martial arts. Yes, by association they weren’t just cruel, they were demonic.

And they were here. They knew Avery.
Her
Avery.

“I didn’t know you’d started accepting girl fighters,” said Ashley.

Avery looked at her dumbly, then spun round. “Ah, no. We’re not. Rose works here. We’re just having a workout.”

“Not exactly what I’d call it.” Lena winked at him. “Rose…Johnson, right?”

“Jacqueline,” Rose corrected her. “And you’re Lara? Lara and Adrian Culver?”

“Close,” said Avery. “It’s Lena and Ashley.”

“Oh, I think she already knew that,” said Ashley, sneering at Rose.

Feeling the tension between them, Avery cleared his throat. “So how do you ladies know each other?”

“Ask them,” said Rose, her fists balling behind her back. “The two of them together might be able to handle it. It usually takes two. Right, girls?”

“Not if you want to go again, right now.” Lena stepped forward, but her sister grabbed her arm, pulled her back.

In her rush of blood, Rose had already assumed her stance, ready to fight. When Avery saw it, and how rippling with anger she was, he stepped between them and asked the Twitches: “So, what’s up? Anything I can help you with?”

“We just found out you’ll be in Reno the same time as us,” said Ashley. “Thought you might like to hook up with us for a drink. Good old times and all that. We thought it might be nice to see a friendly face.”