Punching and Kissing (22 page)

Aedan

I woke up with a start and then listened.
What was that? What the hell was that?!

It took me several seconds to realize that the thing I could hear was
quiet.
No trucks. No clatter of chains and whir of cranes.

I wasn’t in my apartment near the docks. I’d done what I never did: stayed over at some woman’s place after sex.

And then my brain caught up.
Sylvie.
It wasn’t some woman I’d picked up in a bar. It was my angel, and we were finally together. A warm calm descended on me. I smiled in the darkness.

I rolled over as carefully as I could. There she was—sound asleep, her black hair fanned out across the pillow. Her lips were slightly parted and she looked utterly serene. I could only see her bare shoulder, but I remembered her peeling off her dress before we fell into bed, which meant she was naked under the sheets. If I just pulled them back, I’d see every gorgeous inch of her….

I got up before I could succumb to temptation. I was wide awake and buzzing with energy, even though it was still the middle of the night. Why? Why wasn’t I cuddled up with Sylvie, in the same deep sleep? God knows we’d fucked hard enough to be exhausted.

I found my shorts and pulled them on, then stumbled to the bathroom. It was only when I turned on the light that I saw it. Something was different about me. I looked...
normal.
I looked like a boyfriend. Some guy that Sylvie had met at a coffee shop or on the subway. A nice, normal guy who could take her on dates and buy her presents. Someone, somewhere, had granted me my secret wish—

I was still half asleep, so it took me a few seconds to realize what had happened. In my bathroom, the light comes from the other side.

I twisted slightly and my scars appeared from the shadows that had been hiding them. And everything they represented slammed back into my mind.

Coming here hadn’t fixed me at all. I hadn’t changed. I’d just forgotten what I was for a few hours, thanks to lust...and maybe deeper feelings.

I’d been weak. I’d thought with my cock instead of putting her first. She said she wanted a bad boy but I was a
feck
of a lot more than a walk on the wild side. I was the worst sort of guy. She just didn’t know it, yet.

For her sake, I had to push her away.

Sylvie

In the shower the next morning, I looked down at my body. The changes were easy to see. My core had tightened up. My thighs and calves were toned from all the footwork. My posture had even gotten better, because I’d strengthened all the muscles in my back. And the bruises were fading a little, enough that they could be mostly covered with make-up.

When I came out, Aedan was making coffee, which made me want to kiss him. So I did, snuggling up behind him wearing only a towel and touching my lips to the back of his neck.

He tensed up. “Hi,” he said.

I froze. Something was wrong. Something had changed, since we went to bed. He was back to that silent, brooding guy he’d been when I first met him. “What’s up?”

“Nothing’s up.” He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Here. Coffee.”

I frowned. “Aedan, what’s the matter?”

“Nothing’s the matter. Come on, let’s go shopping.”

Shopping?
Neither of us had money for shopping. Was he going to surprise me again with another dress? That was sweet, but I couldn’t let him do it a second time.

Or was this him attempting to be romantic? I suddenly relaxed.
That
was it! He was just some big, dumb guy and he was trying to play the boyfriend and getting it slightly wrong. Okay, I could live with that. It was actually kind of cute.

Something about it still didn’t seem right, but I was ready to believe anything rather than admit something was horribly wrong.

I dressed and we headed out. When we hit the street, I wished I’d brought a jacket because the summer heat had finally built to the point where a storm felt inevitable. Already, dark clouds were spreading over the city, coming our way. But it was too late now.

On the subway, I tentatively took Aedan’s hand and he smiled and held hands with me, but it felt mechanical and forced. Was this his past again, his belief that he shouldn’t be with me? Or was it simpler than that—was this just morning-after regrets? Had he just wanted to fuck me and now he was looking for a way out? But then why not just say something at the apartment? What was the shopping trip all about?

It’s romantic,
I told myself furiously all the way to the mall.
It’s romantic. What other reason could there be?
I just had to give him a chance. He hadn’t dated in a long time so he wasn’t used to all this hanging-out-together stuff. That’s what it was.

And I wanted it to work so badly. He’d put on this faded blue t-shirt that hugged his arms and brought out his eyes and, every time I looked at him walking alongside me, my heart soared. This went beyond liking him, now. This was much more than that.
But what if he doesn’t feel the same way?

Of course he does. It’s romantic.
We walked into the mall.
It’s a romantic shopping trip. In a minute, he’s going to surprise you with—
“Okay,” he said, stopping and turning to me. “This’ll do.”

We’d stopped in the middle of the mall’s main hall. My heart was pounding against my ribs, my face flushed with excitement.
I was right! What is it? What is it?

“I want you,” he said, “to start a fight.”

His words rang around my head for a few seconds.

“What?” I croaked.

He crossed his arms, which meant he had to let go of my hand. I looked down stupidly at my empty palm. “You were intimidated by Jacki,” he told me. “A fight’s not just about fists. Half of it’s in the mind. You’ve got to get up in her face, next time. You’ve got to let her know she’s going to lose. Once she believes that, she
will
lose.” He looked around us. “So pick a woman and start something.”

“Wh—What?” Someone had driven a chisel into my chest and was hammering it home, cracking me apart. I felt so goddamn stupid. Of course it had just been about sex. Of course this wasn’t some big romantic gesture. It was a training exercise. But I couldn’t let him see how upset I was. I felt stupid enough as it was. I redirected my pain. “I can’t just attack someone!” I snapped.

“You don’t have to hit her. Just get in her face. Yell at her.”

“I can’t do that!” My voice was savage and raw, all of the hurt spilling out. “I’m not some psycho!”

I stared at him. He didn’t answer but he knew. I could see it in his eyes. He knew he was hurting me and he didn’t want to.
So why are you doing it? Why are you playing games with me?

And then I remembered how I’d pressed him the night before, outside the restaurant. He’d told me he shouldn’t be with me, that he was wrong for me, and I’d kept right on pushing. Was this the inevitable outcome? The sex was done, and now we had to go back to being just pupil and mentor? For the first time in a long while, Alec’s warning swam back into my brain.

What if the stuff in Aedan’s past was bad?
Really
bad? What if Alec had been right all along? What if this whole thing really had been doomed from the start and I was the only one too stupid not to see it?

No.
I couldn’t accept that.

I shook my head determinedly. “I can’t just yell at some woman. I don’t even know these people. I don’t hate them. I can’t just turn it on like that.”

He put a hand on my shoulder. Despite everything, it felt good.

“Do you hate Jacki?” he asked.

I hadn’t ever thought about it. I was scared of her—scared as hell. And angry, because she’d hit me and humiliated me. But she’d done all that because Rick had ordered her to. She probably needed the money just as badly as Alec and I did. “No,” I said at last.

“You’ve
got
to be able to turn it on,” he said gently. “You’ve got to be able to
hate
your opponent. You’ve got to want to destroy her. You’ve got to think that you
deserve
to win. She has to be scared of you. That’s the only way this works.”

I shook my head again. “I don’t know how to do that.”

“That’s why you’re going to learn. Go on.”

I stood there and stared at him. I didn’t say anything, but my eyes were pleading with him.
Tell me! Tell me what’s going on! What’s changed?

I saw his eyes soften slightly. He didn’t want this any more than I did. But at the same time, he wasn’t going to change his mind. He was back to being my trainer—what I needed, not what I wanted. “Go on,” he said firmly.

I turned and walked away. I could feel the tears prickling at my eyes, but I blinked them back. God, I was pathetic. I was crying, just as I needed to be intimidating and strong. Because the worst part was, I knew Aedan was right. I
did
need to learn this stuff, or I’d be continually backing away from Jacki next time I met her, hitting the wall and tripping over my own feet in my hurry to get away.

I tried to think of what Aedan would do.

Aedan would
man the fuck up.

I looked around for a woman on her own, because that seemed like a good place to start. I felt worryingly like a lion, looking for the weak deer to prey on. Someone who’d scare easily.

But each time I headed towards someone, I veered away at the last moment. That fifty-something woman with the fussy neck scarf? That was someone’s grandmother. The harassed mom towing a three year-old? I couldn’t yell at her—the kid would hear.

And then I nearly ran right into someone. Bleached blonde hair and a smile that was all lip gloss and confidence. About my age, but socially the polar opposite. Her arms were loaded down with bags and she was flanked on either side by what I thought of as bookend friends—designed to support her and make her look good. One had glossy black hair, one chestnut. They only needed a redhead and they’d have a complete set.

The leader didn’t say anything. She just looked at my cheap t-shirt and my worn jeans and sneakers and her lips curled into a patronizing, fake-apologetic sneer. She exchanged a quick look with her friends, as if to say,
Oh dear.

I stumbled back a few paces to get out of their way, but not fast enough. The blonde tossed her hair and they walked around me. It wasn’t anything that hadn’t happened a million times before, on the street or in a bar. It was just how it worked, how the social elite let everyone else know who was in charge.

I thought of how scared I’d been of Jacki. How scared I’d been of everyone, my whole life.

And I reached out and grabbed one of the blonde’s shopping bags.

She pulled up short as the handle snapped tight. “Hey!” She rounded on me. “What the fuck?”

For the first time in my life, I took a step forward, towards the danger. “Why don’t you watch where you’re going, bitch?” My voice didn’t sound how I wanted it to sound at all. It was a thin, shaky croak.

There was a second’s silence and then she burst out laughing, close enough to my face that I could feel her warm spit hit me. Her breath smelled of cherry lip gloss. Her friends joined in.

I drew myself up to my full height. My fear was still there but a hot tide of anger was overwhelming it. “Why don’t you watch where you’re going—
bitch?”
I said again. And this time, my voice didn’t shake at all.

She stopped laughing. Her eyes betrayed just the tiniest flicker of fear, like a crack in the side of a mountain. But a crack was all I needed to split that smug exterior wide open, if I muscled my way into it. “I’m not scared of you,” she said.

“Yes you fucking are.”

She glanced sideways at her friends, who’d stopped laughing.

“You think they’re going to help you?” I asked, my voice low and cold, now. I nodded to the store we were standing next to. “You think they’re going to stop me when I push your goddamn face through that window?”

She went pale.

I leaned in close. “Say sorry,” I said.