Punching and Kissing (19 page)

Us.
Just the previous morning, I’d never have imagined using that word about Aedan and me; now, I couldn’t imagine using any other.

What the hell had happened? Apart from the obvious, which was that he’d taken me up on the roof and fucked seven shades of hell out of me. My knees still weakened when I remembered it. This man drove me crazy, with his eyes and his warm, muscled arms that could wrap around me just right and that accent that turned anything into poetry. And now we were together, in some ill-defined way. It didn’t feel casual, like two friends who drunkenly sleep together and then just move on. It felt very, very
un—
casual, but was that just me? What was
he
expecting to happen, now? Why hadn’t we talked about it?

Actually, I knew the answer to that one. Because we were both scared we were going to mess this whole thing up. It wasn’t just the usual relationship nerves. We both knew something was wrong.

The sexual tension had been building for weeks. I’d felt it on my side and I’d thought I’d felt it from Aedan, too. So why had it taken him this long? He didn’t strike me as a guy who was nervous about going after what he wanted. The polar opposite, in fact.

He’d held back because of something else, some deep-seated fear about us getting together. What worried me was that I wasn’t sure he’d conquered it. It felt more like our feelings had just reached the level where they submerged it. But it was still there, lurking in the depths.

What would happen when it surfaced?

Aedan

I watched her pound the bag: hair pulled back into a ponytail, little beads of sweat rolling down her back between her shoulder blades. I’d wanted her to go easy, today, but she was hitting the bag as if she saw Rick’s face on it. She was hurting inside, burning with the frustration of losing. Asking herself what had gone wrong, beating herself up for every little mistake.

I knew the feeling because I’d been there myself. Every fighter had, the first time they lost. In some ways, it’s a rite of passage. Some people even say it’s better to lose your first than win your first, so you don’t get cocky.

But none of that applied to Sylvie. She wasn’t a professional fighter and didn’t want to become one. She was doing this to save her brother, nothing more. And yesterday’s defeat had thrown everything into jeopardy. Tomorrow, we had to get on with training. But she wasn’t going to be able to get her head in the game until I got her in a better mood.

She needed a break. Something that would make her feel good.

As if in answer, I glanced down at the swells of her breasts under her Lycra top. My cock swelled and thickened.

Not
that.
Not yet, at least. She needed something….

The word felt alien in my mind. Something
romantic.

I’d seen, over the last few weeks, how she never got to do anything girly. All she ever wore were jeans and t-shirts. Her hotel shifts barely left time to go out, so she wasn’t hanging out with her girlfriends, chatting about...I don’t know, guys and... what
do
girls talk about, anyway? Whatever. She wasn’t getting that. She’d been surviving, these last few years with her brother. Not living.

She needed to live for a night.

I knew, deep down, that it was a mistake. I knew the sex had been a mistake, and that the smartest thing I could do was end this thing before we got in any deeper. She still thought I was a hero—what would happen when she realized the truth?

But I couldn’t stop thinking about those eyes, those lips. I was feckin’ addicted to her. And so, however stupid it was, part of me still wanted the fantasy. I still wanted to be with her.

The only problem was, I had no clue what to do. I hadn’t been on a date in years. I didn’t
do
dates. I fucked and was gone by morning.

So I called Jasmine.

Connor, the other Irishman who trained at the gym, had charmed his way into the bed of some posh cellist on the Upper West Side. I’d thought it wouldn’t last, at first. But, from the few times I’d see them together, they were a cute couple. Anyway, the cellist—Karen—had been to some fancy performing arts school with ballet dancers and actresses and people like that. And one night, on a rare night out for me, I’d run into them all and wound up doing tequila shots. Jasmine had been there. She said she was an actress and I vaguely recognized her from that cop show,
Blue & Red.
And she would have been hard to miss anyway—hourglass body and long red hair. If she hadn’t already had a boyfriend, I would have tried my luck.

We got talking and kind of split off into our own little corner for almost an hour. Nothing happened or anything—just friendly chat. But by the time I’d walked her to a cab stand and then waited there with her for a cab, we’d gotten to know each other pretty well. And she’d given me her phone number, “Because you’ll need it, someday.”

Now I did.

I told Sylvie to take five, found a quiet corner of the gym and dug through my phone for Jasmine’s number. She’d entered it herself, complete with a selfie of her pulling a goofy face. She answered on the second ring.

“Hey! Who’s this?”

I had her number, but she didn’t have mine. I must have come up as “unidentified caller.” Would she even remember meeting me? “Ahh...well….” I began.

“Connor! Shit, did it all go wrong? Listen, I warned Karen those were
advanced
tips and to practice on a salami first, so don’t blame me if you’ve got teeth marks—”

“Ah, no,” I cut in quickly. “It’s Aedan.”

“Oh.” If there was any embarrassment, it was gone in a second. “The boxer, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Who quit because—”

“Yeah.” Shit, I must have told her everything. In my memory, it had been a nice, friendly conversation but I must have poured my heart out. Jasmine was that sort of person—easy to talk to. And there
had
been a lot of tequila shots.

She was suddenly all serious. “How’s it going, Aedan?

“I need some female advice.”

“My middle name. What have you done and who did you do it to, you Irish rascal?”

“Nothing! No one!” God, I was actually blushing. She was always like that—flirty and outrageous and yet somehow innocent at the same time. When I’d met her, I’d thought she was the most spellbinding woman I’d ever met. I’d cursed the fact that she was attached. Now I was glad she had been, because—if there was such a thing as fate—it had been saving me for Sylvie. “It’s complicated,” I told Jasmine. “There’s this girl…” I looked across to where Sylvie stood in the ring. She was meant to be on a break, but she’d started hitting the bag again, determined to squeeze every minute she could out of training. “She’s incredible.” I was surprised by how my throat caught. “And she’s had a really tough time of it, and I just want to do something nice for her. Like, romantic nice. Something that’ll make her feel...
girly.”
I sighed. “Does that make any sort of sense?”

She told me what to do.

“Really?” I blinked. “It’s that simple?”

“It’s that simple.”

Sylvie

“Where are we going?” I asked for the tenth time. Normally after training I’d be running off to my maid job. Tonight, I’d called in sick rather than show up looking like I’d been in a fight. I’d presumed we’d head back to Aedan’s apartment and—hopefully—talk about things. But he’d dragged me in the opposite direction as soon as we’d left the gym and now we were in a shopping street. It was evening, but the day’s heat had soaked into the sidewalks and buildings and now it was throbbing slowly out around us, turning the air to soup.

“Down here,” he said, checking a map on his phone. “Apparently.” He’d changed, after the gym, putting on a blue shirt that matched his eyes. I hadn’t even known he
owned
a shirt. Thinking about it, it looked suspiciously new.

We rounded the corner. The next street seemed to be nothing but boutiques.

“There,” Aedan said, satisfied. “This must be it.”

“
What
must be it?” I was looking around for a bar, or a cheap diner, or maybe a sports club. I wondered if he was taking me to see a fight, as some sort of training exercise.

He took hold of the top of my head and gently turned it to look at the boutiques.

“I don’t get it,” I said.

“We’re going to buy a dress.”

“That’s ridiculous. You don’t have the knees to pull it off.” I looked up at him to see what the hell was going on.

“I’m serious,” he told me. “I’m buying you a dress. As a gift.” I could hear how utterly alien the words felt to him, even though he was trying to make it sound as if he did this every day. I just stood there and blinked at him.

He towed me over to the nearest window. “You’d look great in that one,” he said, pointing to something that was all red velvet and laces.

I shook my head—in disbelief, not disapproval, because actually it
was
a pretty awesome dress. “What’s got into you?” I asked. “I don’t have money for stuff like this.”

“I’m buying.”

“
You
don’t have money for stuff like this! And neither of us have time! I’m fighting Jacki again in two weeks! We need to be training! We need to be planning! We—”

“We need to be taking a break.
Especially
you.” He grabbed my hands and held them. “Look. I know you’re scared. I know you feel like you’ve gotta work every hour until the fight, or it’ll be all your fault if you lose.”

I went to protest...and then realized that he’d described exactly what I’d been feeling.

“I know because I’ve been there,” he said. “I understand. But the fight can’t be the only thing in your life or you’ll burn out. That’s why I had to get you out of the gym.”

“But why
this?”
I asked, waving my hand at the store windows. “Why not just take me for a beer?”

“Because you deserve nice things,” he said softly.

I stared at him, my heart swelling in my chest. It had been a hell of a long time since I’d worn anything other than jeans. The girly, dress-buying, nail salon side of me had died with my mom. And I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed it.

“Okay,” I said grudgingly. “But maybe not
that
one. I’m not sure all the laces are...
me.”

“I kinda like the laces,” Aidan said with a wicked grin.

I pulled him to the next store. “How about
this?”
I asked. It was white and long and silky and just about the prettiest thing I’d ever seen.

“That could work,” he said, grinning. But he wasn’t looking at it as much as he was looking at me—at my own stupid smile. He just wanted me to be happy.

“Aedan?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you.”

***

When we came out of the store, I had not just the dress but shoes to go with it. The bill would have fed me for a week, which was exactly why I’d barely bought myself any new clothes in the last few years—I hadn’t been able to justify it.

And he’d known that, somehow. It was scary, how well he could read me.