“So fucking perfect.” He rocks slowly, gently, and grinds against my hips so his dick is merely a slide against my most sensitive places. Friction and rhythm, that’s all it takes to bring me closer to the edge. Our breath comes faster, but it’s not like how it was last night.
“Ally.” He buries his face against my neck and bites down on a quiet groan.
He’s going to leave marks, but I can’t find it in my heart to care as I wrap my arms around his muscular shoulders. So large, so tanned and defined. Tattoos cover the muscle, and the muscle ripples as he moves. The sight alone is an aphrodisiac, to have someone so strong, so capable, glide over me with such tender care.
“I wanted your name,” he whispers by my ear. “I wanted your smile. But I got so much more.”
“You callin’ me easy?”
He chuckles and slides his lips along my collarbone. “No, I’m calling you important.”
Ally
Next Step
It’s a workday for me, which means I need to get up and get back to my hotel so I can shower, dress, and eat before heading to the office. But laying here might be the most luxurious thing I’ve ever done in my life. It’s warm, but not hot. It’s comfortable, but without making me sleepy.
I’m running on only a handful of hours’ sleep, and those hours were broken up. But still, I’m not tired. I’m not dragging.
Mostly, I’m flying on the adrenaline that comes with feelings. And damn me, I swore I wouldn’t catch any of those.
Luke lays on his back, and I lay on mine, but with my head on his shoulder. He plays with my hand, twines our fingers together, turns our hands over to see what they look like from a different angle.
Groaning with contentment, I draw a deep breath, then let it out on a sigh. “I need to get up and go to work.”
“Mmm. Call in sick,” he murmurs. “Tell her you got rabies or something.”
“Rabies.” I snicker and study the bracelet that shimmers on my wrist as he spins our hands. A gift from a thirteen-year-old. A premonition from a child. “Not sure she’ll believe that.”
“Then you underestimate the situation you’re in. Sonia sent you on an anti-crime crime mission last night with me. A Hart twin. That makes rabies a completely realistic outcome. She won’t even question it.”
“And still…” I stretch my head back and try to catch his eye. “I’m gonna get up and go to work. And you need to go to your job.” Then I frown. “But I only just realized I have no clue what your job is.”
“I work at my family’s gym.”
“Oh.” I roll my eyes and laze back against his shoulder. “Of course you do. That explains why you’re always fighting. And your complete lack of caring about being on time.”
“First of all, Judgy McJudgerson, I’m always on time to my job. Just because you don’t see it doesn’t make it not true. And second, I’m not always fighting. Not how you mean, anyway.”
“No? How do I mean?”
“Brawling with guys and getting slapped with court orders to stop.”
“Right.”
“I rarely do that. And it’s not often the law catches up with it. I spar at the gym every single day, but that’s sport, so it doesn’t count.”
“You enjoy hitting people. Admit it.”
“I do admit it,” he chuckles and brings our joined hands to his lips. “Hitting folks turns me the fuck on.”
“I’ve come to learn everything turns you on. Including looking in the mirror.”
“Especially looking in the mirror,” he laughs. “Wanna fuck again? My dick is hard.”
“No.” I have to work hard to pull my hand from his, then when he tries to grab on again, I slap his thigh and move away before he can pull me back.
My palm sings from the smack, and Luke’s laughter is replaced with a pain-filled yelp, but I move away before he can grab on. “I seriously have to get up.”
I stumble away from his bed and move around in search of my things. Despite finding my panties for my midnight walk of shame, they’re missing once again, so I search under the piles of clothes on the floor. I check on the end of the bed, and for shits and giggles, I check behind the TV sitting on top of a set of drawers.
Shaking my head, I take them from their spot, hooked on the back of the TV, and slide my legs in. “You just toss things away when you deem them unnecessary, don’t you?”
“No point letting a scrap of lace get in our way when we’re trying to have a good time.” He sits at the top of his bed, leaning against the headboard so his stomach and chest are bare for me to see, but the sheet covers him from the hips down. For once in his life, he’s going for modesty. “You got handprints on your ass, by the way.” He grins when I glance up. “Thought you oughtta know.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t hit so much in bed, then. It leaves marks.”
“Please,” he scoffs. “When you cream the way you do after a smack?” He smirks and shakes his head. “I’m gonna keep doing that.”
Thank god, is all I can manage to think as I grab my jeans and stab my legs into the denim. “You getting up?”
“Yup. But your boobies are still out, so I’m not moving until I absolutely must. Or, ya know, until you put a bra on.”
And so I spin in search of my bra. “What do you do at your family’s gym?”
When he says nothing, I stop dressing and turn to meet his eyes. “Luke?”
“What do you mean what do I do? It’s a gym. The answer is in the name.”
“Actually, it’s not, and for someone who doesn’t regularly go inside a gym, especially not the kind of gym that people beat other people up in, I can’t say I automatically know what you do.”
“I train.” He relaxes back and rests his hands behind his head. “I train other people – that’s what I’m paid to do – and I train myself, or I let my cousins help train me. That’s how we prepare for the tournament each year.”
“So what do you do when you’re training other people? Humor me, since I’m trying to understand it in my head.”
Smirking, he nods and watches my every move as I sit on the end of the bed to pull my sneakers on. “My gym hosts classes for the regular folks who think they wanna learn how to hit someone. These people aren’t going to become contenders, they just wanna have fun and get fit. Every now and again, someone in those classes shines extra bright, so we push them harder, and perhaps bump them over to one-on-one sessions if they’re interested. The group classes are usually talking about technique, so we run them through drills, partner up and spar. Those classes are fun, because mostly, folks are laughing and having a good time.”
“Okay. What else?”
“Then I’m also paid to train one-on-one. That’s paid from the client, directly to me. Any client at any time can approach any one of us and ask if we’re available for one-on-one. Me, my brother, my cousins, or even my dad or uncles. Any Kincaid or Hart who is an employee of that gym – which is basically all of us – is able to teach. It just comes down to who has time in their schedule. Naturally, some of us are busier than others, so those schedules are trickier to get into.”