by Emilia Finn
“So a crash course, then?” Her grin creeps up. “I’ve watched every single film Bruce Lee ever made. I doubt there’s anything you could teach me that he hasn’t already.”
“Perhaps.” I slowly wander forward. A predatory prowl. An obsession as my eyes continue to flick back to her hip bone. Her bellybutton. The swell of her breasts beneath a Rollin Gym logo. “But like I said, I can’t send you home without at least trying. And next week, when I call you, we’ll work on a little more.”
“Over the phone?” She turns as I walk around her. “You’re going to train me over the phone?”
“I’m gonna try my damnedest to take care of you, Cam. Even if you’re somewhere else. Here.” I grab her arm and draw her into me so her back presses to my chest and her ass sits on my hips. I’m hard, though I swear I don’t mean to be. Wanting, because there’s no other way to be. “Widen your stance a little bit.” I gently kick her ankles apart until there’s a whole two feet between them. Then I hold the balls of her shoulders and sway her gently to the left, gently to the right. “Wide stance,” I murmur. “Put your feet too close together, and you’ll fall down.”
“Okay.” Cam’s smartass remarks are gone. Her flippant replies. Her witty shutdowns. Instead, she leans back against me and she swallows what may be nerves, but she listens. “Shoulder-width apart. Got it.”
“Shoulders up.” I run my hands along the tops, over the collarbone, and then to the narrow column of her neck. “I know dance teaches you to keep them down. I know it’s going to be a hard habit to switch between. But in my world, your shoulders have to be up. Use them, guard up. Because if someone clips your jaw, you’re down. And I refuse to let you fall after one jab.”
I leave her standing where she is, come around to her front, then I take her left hand. “Bring it up here.” I ball her hand into a fist, and bring it up to stop about six inches in front of her face. “Strong arm. Strong fist. Shoulder up, fist up.”
For the first time since I met her, Cam’s eyes aren’t laughing at me. She swallows again, then nods. “Okay.”
“Right arm.” I bring it up to match her left, but a little closer to her jaw. “Up here. Guard that jaw, Cam. Guard your head. It’s the only part of your body that isn’t easily fixed.”
“All right.”
“Good.” I grin and come around to her left side. Taking her fist in my hands and surrounding it with my palms, I move closer so that our legs almost twine together. “Shoulder stays up, left jab comes out.” I guide her fist forward. Slow motion. Controlled movements. “Out, then straight back in again.” I guide her hand back toward her face. “Snap it out, follow through, snap it straight back in again.”
“That’s contradictory advice.”
She’s listening. And that knowledge makes me happy. “It kind of is, to follow through, but then snap it back. It’s a tricky balance, but you’re gonna have to figure it out. To not follow through means your strike is just a swat. We want to hurt whoever we’re squaring up against. But if we don’t snap it back, we leave ourselves open to attack. That beautiful jaw needs protecting.” I lean closer and, for the first time in my life, kiss a student while teaching. “Don’t leave yourself open, Cam. We already talked about what happens if you do.”
“Knocked the hell out.”
“Unacceptable.” I drop a dry kiss on her wrist, then come back around to stand behind her. “Out, then in. Break a motherfucker’s jaw, but then pull that arm back in before he realizes he’s hurt and mad about it.”
“I’m never going to be in a fistfight with someone, you know that, right?” She looks over her shoulder so I see her upturned nose in profile. “You’d be better off teaching me how to shoot.”
“Shooting’s not my thing. But this…” I slide my hand to her hip and straighten her stance again. “This is my bread and butter. It’s the very blood that runs through my veins. Which means this is how I teach you.” I pull her shoulder back a little, straighten her out, because she was leaning a little too far forward. “Stand tall, shoulders up, hips squared. You ready?”
We run through jab after jab after jab. I use my hands instead of pads, come around to her front, and catch her strikes. Because I want to know exactly how she’s hitting. I want to feel the pain. The pressure. The angle. I want to know that she’s doing it right, and I don’t want inches of padding between us when she does as I teach.
We transition from single strikes, to combos.
Not so she can be fancy, but so she can back herself up after the first strike. Cam needs to know that one is rarely enough. She needs to not stand in shock after the first, and give her attacker time to recover. So we work on twos. Then threes. We work on hooks, then uppercuts. We work on fours and fives. And though I was trained since toddlerhood to fight fair, I teach her faster ways to disable an attacker.
Eyes. Throat. Balls.
A man’s weakness. The end of a man’s attack.
“If you can slam his jaw down in such a way, not only won’t he be able to bite—”
When her eyes go wide, I shrug. “Don’t ask me. Some folks do that. And word on the street is, it hurts bad. So it’s really quite simple to neutralize that kind of attack.”
I show her my balled fist, bring it to her jaw, then I go through the motions, but without the part where I hit her. “There’s a joint right here,” I show her where, “that controls a human’s jaw. That’s the weak point. So if you’re coming in with a hook, that’s where you’re gonna aim. Break that joint, and he’s gonna be in a world of pain.”
“Here?” She brings her hand up to cup my face. We stand just a single foot apart. Her chest almost touches mine. Her breath feathers along my lips. But instead of hurting me, she slides her thumb over the sensitive part of my jaw. “In there?”
“Yeah.” I slide my hand along her arm, pull it away, but only far enough that I can press a kiss to her wrist. “When you’ve hurt him there, you can grab his jaw, tear it down, and completely remove it from its socket.”
“Like… off?”
“Not, like, all the way off,” I chuckle. “Are you some kind of psycho, tearing half a guy’s head off?”
“No! I…” She nervously laughs. “I just… I don’t understand.”
“Like… Can I?” I lift a hand and bring it up between us. “I probably don’t have any deathly germs on my hands.”
“You wanna…” Her brows pull together. “My mouth?”
“Ya know what?” I lower my hand again and shake my head. “Lemme teach you how to—”
“No!” She grabs my hand and brings it back up between us. “Show me. It’s alright.”
“I don’t think I…” My cock pulses in my pants. A painful, throbbing ache that only grows worse when Cam opens her mouth and stares into my eyes. “Cam…”
“Like this?” She cups my hand with both of hers, opens my fingers so they fan apart, and when I think it can’t get any worse – or better – she takes two fingers between her lips and suckles.
My body shudders; a war is being waged between the devil that wants to consume, and the caretaker that refuses to do anything that might put her in harm’s way. But then Cam’s tongue slides over the pads of my fingers and sends me to the very edge of insanity.
Her eyes, heated and dancing stare into mine. “These are the fingers you…” Her lashes flutter down, then back up until our gazes meet. “You used these to give me my first orgasm.”
“Fuckkkk,” I groan. “This isn’t… this wasn’t…” I swallow the devil down. “Cam, I didn’t set out to—”
“What if I told you I wanted to?” She brings my fingers between her lips, closes them, then nips with her teeth.
Maybe I’m a little more experienced at this than she is, maybe I could say that I would be the teacher when it comes time for Cam and I to be intimate, but I’m a man who hasn’t been with a woman in a long time, and Cam’s mouth is hot, wet, and sinful enough that I damn near blow in my pants.
“Cam…”
“I’m going home soon.” She slides her tongue along my finger in a way that suggests my finger is something else entirely. Warmth floods her cheeks – she’s not as in control as she’d like to imply – but she’s active. She’s willing. She’s asking. “I’m eighteen, and I met a man that I love.”
“I love you too,” I croak out. “I really do.”
“But we all know long-distance things are hard. We know that we both have a very lonely year ahead of us.”
“Cam, stop.” I switch our grips, take her hand in mine, and pull her closer so our chests touch and her hips slam against mine. “I’ll come visit you.” I press a kiss to her jaw. Her cheekbone. Her forehead. “You couldn’t keep me away at this point.”
“A whole year,” she rasps out. “And what if we have a fight?” She pulls back and stares into my eyes. “We both know we’re kinda jerks. We’re both stubborn. We’re both proud.”
“I’m not proud when it comes to you,” I promise. “I told you last year, I will bow. I’ll be what you need me to be. I’ll do whatever you need me to do.”
“So do this,” she whispers. She takes my hand and forces it lower between us.
Maybe she wants me to hold her hip. Maybe she wants me to hold her ass. Maybe she wants me to lift her off the ground and kiss her until we die from no air.
But then she slides my hand into her pants, and I swear – I swear! – without my permission, my fingers, still wet from her mouth, find her folds and dive in when I find her soaked all the way through.
“Fuck.” My breath comes out on an actual whimper. “Dammit, Cam.”
She folds in front of me. Then throws her head back on a cry, and forces me to hold her up or let her fall to the floor.
Despite what I know I should do, my hand pumps hard. My fingers dig deep inside her succulent body, and my cock leaks in my pants until I literally feel the moisture on my skin.
“Lay down with me.” She tries to pull me down with her hands on my shoulders. “Jamie, lay down with me.”
“Cam,” I croak out. “If I lay down with you…” I study her eyes. Shake my head. “I can’t… I don’t… I’m not strong enough to not want more.”
“Exactly.”
She pulls me forward until our lips slam together, and with her tongue dancing with mine, she lowers us down. First my neck bends. Then my back. She keeps lowering until I’m forced to go to my knees, and then she’s on the floor of the octagon, her legs splayed open, my fingers still somehow working her at a steady rhythm, and my battle all but lost. She pulls me over her, so my legs nestle between hers, and our chests touch so our hearts beat together. Mine wants to explode free and splatter all over the ground.
“The doors are all locked and stuff, right?”
I’m breathless. Speechless. So I only manage to nod.
“Are there cameras inside?” She shoots her gaze around the room. “Can anyone see this?”
I shake my head. “Not in here. They can’t see inside the cage. Just the halls and stuff.”
“Good.”
She reaches down and slides my shirt up to bunch at the base of my neck. Opening her legs wider, she runs her nails along my bare skin, digs in when my fingers change pace and her orgasm races for release, and throws her head back when I touch her somewhere exactly right.
“Jamie,” she whimpers. “Jesus. That’s so good.”
“Lemme help you.” I give up on trying to save her innocence, and instead go to work lowering her pants. In the forest, I could only work with how far her jeans would allow her to open up. But this time, I tear the stretchy fabric all the way to her ankles and swallow her cries when all she wants to do is scream. “Let me bring you over the edge, Cam. But maybe I can try with my mouth too. I always wanted to do that. Let me show you how it could be if you give me forever.”
I will not ask for more.
I will not ask for more.
I will not. Ask for more.
“Oh god!” Cam’s spine arches in the same breath that fluid fills my hand. She’s responsive to every tweak I make. Hungry for more, she angles her hips to get closer. Closer.
Using one hand, I push her t-shirt up to her chin, and smile when I see her bra. It’s not a sports bra, just like she said, but a push-up. It’s dark blue, almost bordering on black, with a single white stripe cutting through the middle and stopping at the thin straps that go up over her shoulders. Her breasts are on the smaller side, but a perfect handful as I bring her to her peak and cup from beneath.
“You’re exactly what I dreamed you would be.” I pull her bra down and am met with a perfect little heart-shaped birthmark that sears itself on my brain. I let her breast pop free, then I break my rules when I slide up and take her pebbled nipple between my lips.
I will not ask for more!
This is so much more.
“I’m sorry.” I elongate her nipple with gentle swipes of my tongue. “I’m sorry, Cam.” I pull the nipple between my teeth, and bite down just enough to make her clamp around my fingers.
I wasn’t supposed to ask for more!
“Tell me when it’s too much.” It’s not an offer, but a plea. “Tell me to stop.”
“Don’t stop.” Cam brings her feet higher so they rest on my hips, but she distracts me with her breasts and flicks a hidden latch in the front of her bra. She releases the thick fabric without a care, and lets the cups fall away so I’m left with her perfection laid out in front of me. “Jamie, don’t stop.”
“Don’t let this go too far,” I beg her. “Please. Not here. Not in a gym.”
“Keep going.”
“You deserve more.”
“I know what I deserve.” Her feet move at my hips, and with each movement, her breasts bounce and draw me in like a starving animal pouncing forward. “That feels so good,” she whimpers. She threads her fingers into my hair and holds me close like she thinks I’m going to run away, then when I switch breasts and taste the other, her feet shove my sweatpants down and my heart comes to a complete stop.
I release her breast with a pop and pull back so the only sound, the only movement between us is our racing breaths.
Cam’s feet remain on my now bare thighs. Her lips, parted. Her eyes, wide and terrified.
“Don’t say no,” she whimpers. “Don’t tell me no.”
“Cam,” I groan. “I can’t… we can’t…” My heart shatters when a tear forms in the corner of her eye. “Dammit, Cam. Don’t do that.”
“Don’t reject me,” she whispers. “Don’t tell me no.”
“We’re not even in a bed.” My words may be saying one thing – no, no, no, and hell no – but my dick wants her. It swells and searches. It throbs so much that it becomes a physical ache. “Cam, you’re worth more than a quickie in a gym.”
“I’m worth whatever it is we can have together.” She rests her feet on the back of my ass and starts nudging me forward. “Please, Jamie.”
“Cam, stop. Oh god!” I drop my forehead to her chest when the tip of my dick finds fiery heat between her legs. “I’m begging you for mercy.”
“I’m begging you for you.” Her voice cracks, but the strength in her legs doesn’t falter. She drags me forward, slowly, carefully until it’s not just radiating heat I feel. But skin on skin. Fire on fire. “Show me how it can be if we got to have forever,” she whispers.
“Fuck.” I’m powerless to her every wish. Incapable of telling her no, especially when the thing she wants is the thing I would kill for. “Cam…”
“Yes.”
She brings me forward a little more until her breasts go forgotten. A wonderland a moment ago, the most amazing thing I had ever seen. But now they’re superseded by this impossible thing. This impossibly wrong, but amazingly right thing that I wish so desperately I could say yes to.
“I don’t have a condom.” I rest my elbows on each side of her head, lean forward, and press a kiss to her lips in apology for my rejection. “Cam.” Another kiss. Another. “I don’
t have any protection.”
“I’m due for my period the day after Christmas.” She nudges me a little closer. “It’s okay.”
“Your pe—” I shake my head. “What?”
“It’s okay, Jamie. The timing is all wrong.”
“Cam!” Kill me now. Smite me down. “I don’t want to do anything that would hurt you.”
“I won’t get pregnant or anything.” She shakes her head and swipes a stray tear on my shoulder. “I give you my word. The timing is all wrong, I promise.”
“I don’t…” I stare into her eyes, but I don’t stop my gradual slide inside her vise-like heat as she pulls me in. “I don’t understand what you mean with timing and stuff.” Stall. Stall. Fucking stall! “I don’t get it.”
“You didn’t pay attention in sex ed,” she gives a watery snicker. “You’re gonna have to take my word for it.” And then she throws her head back and moans, because her slickness makes my journey inside much too easy. “Jesus, Jamie.”
“Does that hurt?” I press a kiss to her cheek. Her jawbone. Her throat. “Cam, does it hurt?”
She nods. But she continues to drag me in. “It stings. It’s like you’re pushing against a brick wall, but it stings too.”
“I’ll stop.” I use my strength and halt my slow slide in. “I don’t wanna hurt you.”
“No, don’t stop.” She puts more strength into her legs. “Keep going. I need you to finish this.”
“Cam—”
I stop when her eyes snap to mine with a potent fury. No longer scared. No longer sad. There’s not insecurity or worry or pain. Just a deep, venomous demand.
“Do this with me, Jamie Kincaid. Show me what forever could look like.”
“Fuck.” I drop my brow to her chest and breathe through the orgasm I’m already toeing the line of. “Cam. Fuck, you’re so tight.” I slow when the brick wall she speaks of grows stronger. “It’s so hot and tight.”
