Growing and Kissing (45 page)

I saw the fight again in my head. It had been so
quick!
I’d seen plenty of fights in The Pit, but nothing like that. He’d hit with unstoppable power. It had been like watching the men get hit by a truck.

I was still shaking, but it seemed to be dying down. I wrapped my arms around myself and that felt better. But his presence felt better still. It made no sense. I’d seen him destroy those three guys—I should have been terrified of him. But I felt...protected.

“Are you okay?” he asked. That granite-hard accent again, brutal yet beautiful.

He kept glancing down at the guy on the floor—the leader, the one who’d had me pinned against the wall. He was giving the guy such a look of pure, undiluted
hate
that I thought the floor was going to start bubbling and melting. The guy was still breathing—for now. But I realized with a lurch that whether he lived or died depended on my answer.

It scared the hell out of me...but it was strangely reassuring, too. I nodded.

“You’re crying,” he said tightly. The accent went with his looks, somehow, but my overloaded brain refused to process it. This time his gaze swept around all three of the fallen men, as if he was considering snapping each of them over his knee in turn.
Ending
them, so they could never hurt anyone again.

“I’m okay,” I said. I pawed at my cheeks. I
was
crying. Big, fat tears of despair or relief—I didn’t know when they’d started, but they seemed to be stopping.

He stared down at me, his eyes full of sadness. And he moved his hand back from my shoulder and offered it to me.

I slowly took it, my small hand almost disappearing as he clasped it in his much bigger one. He drew me away from the bathroom, leading me down the corridor with a gentleness completely at odds with his strength. With every step we took, I breathed a little more easily. I knew that what had happened was going to live on in my nightmares for a long time—maybe forever—but I felt the strength returning to my body.

As we moved through the dimly-lit corridor, I started to glance up at him. The sheer size of him, up close, was imposing. It wasn’t just that he was big; it was the hardness of him, as if he was carved from rock under his jeans and hooded top. He didn’t seem to have an ounce of fat on him but he probably weighed close to twice what I did. And I swore he wasn’t even breathing hard, as if beating those guys up had been nothing at all.

“Thank you,” I said, because I realized I hadn’t said it yet.

He shrugged awkwardly, glancing back at the three men on the floor.

I was slowly taking in how gorgeous he was. The strong jaw and heavy brow, softened just enough by high cheekbones...and those eyes, pale blue and alive with a fierce, protective fire. I flushed at the memory of how I’d lusted after him when I’d seen him in the crowd. It was fate’s cruel trick—the man who’d seen me at my worst was the one I would have liked to see me at my best. As I blinked back the last of the tears, I pleaded silently,
don’t remember me like this.

He stared at me...and then he nodded. As if he could read my mind, as if we’d known each other for years. His grip was warm and comforting and, looking at where we joined, it felt...
right,
somehow. I didn’t feel as if I was in danger, despite everything I’d seen him do.

“What’s your name?” I asked. “I’m Sylvie.”

“Aedan,” he said reluctantly. And the name finally helped my brain make the connection between his looks and that flint-like accent.
Irish.
“You going back in there?” he asked, jerking his head down the hall towards the fight. “It’s not safe.”

“I have to. My brother’s in the next fight,” I blurted.

He stared at me, probably confused by the lack of family resemblance. “The blond fella?
Koning?”

I nodded, surprised that he actually knew our surname. Real names weren’t used much. The fight organizers gave people stage names to hype them up. Alec was
The Dutchman.
For Aedan to know his surname, he must be pretty close to the scene, more than just another spectator—

Of course. He was a fighter, or maybe an ex-fighter. I didn’t recognize him, but then I’d only been going to the fights since Alec got involved.

Aedan shook his head, looking even more troubled, now. The shake dislodged the hood and it fell the rest of the way, exposing his neck. He’d been….
ruined
there. It wasn’t just a simple, raised scar. I could see where something had cut deep and then twisted, tearing as it went. Then the wounds had been inexpertly stitched up and thick scars had formed, stretching down under his collar.

I felt my heart tear in two. It wasn’t that it was ugly. It was that someone had done something so vicious and cruel to him. I wanted to tell him that it was okay, that it didn’t make him any less beautiful. But like an idiot, I just stood there, staring.

He caught me looking and jerked his hood back up, throwing his face into shadow. I cursed myself, trying to think of a way to apologize, but the damage was done.

“I gotta go,” he said, and dropped my hand.

I felt something wrench, soul-deep. This was wrong. I knew, somehow, that he was important—maybe the most important person who’d ever walked into my life. But he was already walking, his powerful shoulders squared as if to fend off any attempt to stop him. With his hood up and his back turned, he was suddenly closed off and distant.

And alone.

“Wait!” My hand was tingling where he’d held it. I grabbed it in my other hand, not wanting to lose that warm glow. “How do I find you again?”

He kept walking. I could hear the sudden bitterness in his voice. “You don’t.”

<<<>>>

Punching and Kissing
is out now