Smiling, I peeled myself up from the bench. “I was. You’ve got a bit of catching up to do if you wanna keep this body.” I jabbed him playfully in the abs, which he tensed before my knuckles connected. Ouch.
A sly look crossed his face, and he took in my sweaty appearance. “Give me twenty minutes to warm up, then I wanna spar with you. Show me what you’re really capable of.”
A loud laugh escaped my mouth before I could stifle it. “Yeah alright, tough guy, you’re on.”
I gave him a condescending slap on the shoulder and headed over to the padded mats to stretch. For twenty minutes, Kai put himself through some impressively punishing sets of weights, and I pretended not to perve on him while limbering up my tight body on the mat.
When he was done, he stalked over and put out a hand to pull me back to my feet. First thing Kai needed to learn about fighting a mercenary, though, was that we never played fair. I threw a hard uppercut before he even released my hand, and he staggered back with a grunt of shock.
“It’s like that, huh?” he gritted out, glaring at me with an inferno of determination and lust.
I smirked. “You asked to spar, Ares. Show me what you’ve got.” But rather than waiting for him to gather his thoughts, I followed up with a couple of quick strikes to his kidney and a kick that would leave a solid bruise on his thigh.
“You don’t even have gloves on,” he snapped, enraged.
“You don’t get to stop and put gloves on in a real fight, Kai baby, toughen up.” A throaty laugh bubbled out of me, and I darted forward to swing a right hook. Kai dodged just in time to deflect the full force, my knuckles just barely kissing his cheekbone, then he shifted into a better fight stance.
“That’s better,” I purred. “Reckon you can get a hit in?”
I was waving a red flag at a bull, but he had no idea who he was messing with. His responding strikes were too slow, too restrained, and I barely even needed to try to avoid them connecting. After a few minutes, I started getting annoyed.
“You’re insulting me now, Big Man,” I snapped. “Either try or we can end this now.”
To drive my point home, I delivered a solid roundhouse kick to the side of his head. It was a move that required every fucking inch of my leg span because he was so freaking tall, and it unbalanced me for a second.
Kai took the opportunity, going for my supporting leg to try and knock me to the mat, and I just barely managed to tuck and roll back to my feet before he pinned me down. No joke, a guy his size would have an infinite advantage on the ground, so I tried to avoid it as long as possible.
Not to say I couldn’t still win from the floor, it was just harder.
“Shit, you’re slippery,” he muttered, and I gasped with laughter. I mean… yeah. Fighting with Kai did that to me, apparently.
That moment of distraction gave him the upper hand, and the next thing I knew, I was pinned beneath his bulk, his hands holding my wrists tight to the mat.
“Unfair advantage,” I complained. “You short-circuited my brain.”
His grin was pure victory, but as he leaned down to kiss me, I bucked and rolled with all my strength, knocking him off and reversing our positions so that it was me pinning him to the mat. Of course, now I was straddling him, and there was no mistaking the fact that he also got turned on by our brief sparring session.
“You win,” he grunted, rocking his hips so that his erection ground right against my core. “Now what?”
Shit. So much for keeping my hands off Kai.
Deep down, I knew that had been a stupid fucking idea anyway.
29
Sex with Danny was easily my favorite addiction. Given half an opportunity, I’d never let her put on clothes again. She was intoxicating, and I couldn’t get enough. For a full day, I managed to convince her to stay naked, and we fucked all over the house. I blew my load in her so many times I lost count, and only let her sleep when I was pretty sure I’d pulled a muscle in my groin.
She didn’t bother showering or dressing before crashing into bed, not even pulling a blanket up over herself. The woman had no modesty whatsoever, and nor should she with a body like that. She was a fucking goddess.
I sat there beside the bed for way too long, staring at her like a goddamn creep. The wet sheen of my cum still glistened on her thighs, and I eventually had to leave the room before doing something totally perverted, like take photos.
Gritting my teeth, I knew I needed to deal with something important. Something time-sensitive. And it wasn’t something I could ask my sister to handle for me. I needed to do it myself.
So with a heart of lead, I wrote out a note to my Siren and left it on the pillow beside her, then let myself out of the house. I made sure to reactivate all the security systems and walked down the long driveway to the ornate front gates.
The car service I’d called was waiting for me there, and I cast one last longing look up at the mansion behind me. I hated leaving her. It went against every instinct in my body. But this was the best way I could protect her, even if she didn’t think she needed it.
Still, the knowledge that I was helping her didn’t lessen the anxiety churning in my belly as the car service drove me away, taking me to the private airfield on the south side of Shadow Grove. Jae was there, waiting for me as arranged, and I needed to force my feet up the stairs to the jet.
“Boss man,” Jae greeted me with a huge smile. “I missed your grumpy ass.” He grabbed me in a burly hug, and I just grunted a nonverbal response.
“Let’s go,” I muttered. “I don’t want this to take any longer than it needs to.”
Jae gave me a curious look as he closed up the cabin door. “How is she?”
There was an edge of intense interest in his question that raised my defenses. “None of your fucking business, Jae,” I snarled. “She’s mine.”
His hands went up, and he gave a nervous laugh. “Whoa, boss, I wasn’t implying otherwise. Just wanted to ask how she was doing. Mo said she was pretty bruised up when you guys met up with her the other night.”
I glared, not buying his innocent shit. When I’d returned to the island after Sam nearly killed Danny, I’d found her unconscious in Jae’s bed, while Jae hovered over her with his pants undone. He was damn lucky I hadn’t killed him then and there. Probably his only saving grace was that I hadn’t fallen for her then. Not as hard as I had now.
“Just fly the fucking plane, Jae.”
I slouched into a seat and pulled my phone out, dismissing him. He muttered something under his breath but went to do as I told him. A few minutes later, we were wheels up and on our way back to my second home. It wasn’t always practical to fly all the way back to Europe when so much of our business was conducted in North America. So we had a secondary base on a small hundred acre island in the British Virgin Islands.
Even being closer than Croatia, it was still a good seven hours flying time, so I settled in. I was so exhausted from the day of activity with my siren my body was practically begging for sleep. The moment we reached cruising altitude, I reclined my seat into a flat bed and curled up to rest.
It took longer than I’d have liked to fall asleep, though. I missed her already. Eventually I had to grab a couple of pillows to hug just to trick my brain into letting me sleep.