by Abby Niles
Ella leaned into the shattered passenger-side window. The guy sitting there was holding a bloodied hand to a wound on his head. Her guess was his head had been what had shattered the window. She quickly assessed the rest of the car. A man sat in the back but seemed fine as he repeated, “What the fuck?” over and over again. The man behind the wheel, where the impact had happened, was unconscious with blood running down his face.
Her gaze lingered on the driver. Why did he look familiar? She pushed the thought aside and focused on the passenger. “What’s your name?”
“B-Ben.”
Seeing he was coherent, she hurried around to the opposite side of the car, then climbed up onto the crushed hood of the other vehicle so she could lean through the driver’s demolished door. Placing two fingers on the inside of his wrist, she checked his pulse. Strong. Thank God. She took a quick inspection of his body. Blood saturated his left side. She tore open his buttoned shirt to find a gaping wound low on his abdomen. Ella yanked off her cotton jacket, wadded it up, then pressed it against the wound to stem the bleeding.
“Has somebody called 911?” she yelled.
“They’re coming,” someone behind her said.
They needed to come fast.
“Ralph. Jesus. Ralph.” The passenger stared at his friend, horror rounding his eyes. “Is he…fuck!”
She blocked out the guy, keeping her attention on her patient. “Sir, can you hear me?”
A low groan was her answer.
“Sir, can you tell me your name?” she asked.
The man groaned again.
“Sir, your name.”
Just as she reached to check his pupils, his eyes opened. They stared ahead for a second before they focused on her. He slowly blinked, as if trying to clear his vision, then a pained smile came to his face.
“You love saving men, don’t you,” he said in a shaky, agony-filled whisper.
What the hell was he talking about? She narrowed her eyes on him. Yes, he seemed…she inhaled sharply, her gaze flying to the other two men in the vehicle. Holy. Shit. These were the assholes who’d ganged up on Lance yesterday.
“Wished you’d minded you own business, huh?”
“I don’t work like that,” she said.
He coughed then groaned. “I guess we’re even.”
Sirens sounded in the background. Now that instinct was wearing off, she realized the public situation she’d put herself in. She had to get the hell out of here before people started asking questions. “You,” she said to the passenger. “Keep this in place.”
“What?”
“Hand. Here. Now.”
He immediately leaned over and placed his palm on the balled up material, barely touching it. Frustrated, she pressed on the top off his hand, forcing it hard against the wound until she was satisfied with the compression. “Like that. Don’t move.” She looked at the driver. “The ambulance is almost here. You’ll be fine.”
Without waiting for a response, she climbed off the top of the hood and hurried into the crowd, intent on disappearing into the chaos of people trying to console the injured. Just as she made it through the horde, she heard someone calling her name.
Damn it. She’d forgotten about Amber. She continued walking, pretending she hadn’t heard her, only to have Amber call her name even louder.
Ella spun around. “What?”
“We’re witnesses. We have to stay.”
“I didn’t witness the accident, did you?”
“No,” she said slowly.
“Then we have nothing to offer other than hearing the accident happen. I don’t have time for this.”
Ella turned back around, heading up the street as an ambulance sped by her. Thank God. It went against every ounce of her medical training to leave an injured person like she just had, and it had been a selfish move. But she couldn’t be questioned by the police. She couldn’t give her name. She sure as hell didn’t want her name associated with the three men in that car—for any reason.
However, she wasn’t completely out of the woods. Her hasty retreat would cause Amber to start asking questions. Who the hell bolted from an accident like that?
She couldn’t think about it. She just had to get out of here.
When she reached her car, she yanked open the door.
“Hold the hell up,” Amber yelled.
Frustration exploded inside her and she spun around. “What?”
“What was that back there?”
Now she had a clearer understanding of why Lance had told her to mind her own damn business. Amber needed to be minding hers. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
The woman gave her an incredulous look. “People don’t run like that when they haven’t done anything wrong.”
“I didn’t want to get caught up in it. I have stuff to do.”
“Are you in some kind of trouble?”
“Of course not,” she said quickly. Too quickly.
Amber continued to stare at her as if she didn’t believe her. Not that Ella blamed her. Finally, the woman sighed. “I get it. You haven’t known me long enough to share secrets. I don’t know what happened to you that caused you to run like the devil himself was after you, and you don’t have to tell me. Just know that if you need someone to talk to, I’m willing to listen.” She got into her car, gave a quick wave, and pulled out.
Unnerved by Amber’s insight, Ella climbed into her own car then stared straight ahead.
Like the devil himself was after you.
How accurate. Her devil was about to be released from hell, and he would, indeed, come after her.
Chapter Three
Lance’s gaze kept straying to the entrance of the gym. An eagerness he wasn’t comfortable with bubbled up inside him as he waited for Kelsey to arrive for her second training session.
The bell over the entrance jingled. Blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail, Kelsey stepped inside with her gym bag hanging from her shoulder. His chest immediately tightened, which caused him to scowl. Damn it.
She dropped her bag on a bench, tugged out two pairs of gloves, one boxing, one fingerless, then walked toward him. Pink workout pants clung to the curve of her hips and slender legs. The white sleeveless top cupped her breasts in a way he wouldn’t mind doing himself. He pushed aside the thoughts. She was a paying client. Anything that happened in here had to be strictly business.
“My, my,” she said. “Someone’s on time.”
This woman could make him grin like a fucking fool with just a snarky comment. “Thought you could use an entire hour of getting your ass handed to you.”
“You keeping telling yourself that, big boy. It won’t be long before I throw you over my shoulder.”
Big boy? An exciting current came alive inside him. Damn, he liked the way that sounded coming out of her mouth—more than he should. He shook himself.
Focus. She’s here to train, not flirt.
This was a new feeling for him. The women he’d worked with since he started this job had tried the flirting thing, but he’d never had any interest in encouraging them. He wanted to encourage Kelsey, wanted to toss more words back and forth with her.
“I thought we’d warm up today on the heavy bag. Mac said Billy started you off there yesterday and was impressed. I want to see what you have.”
“Prepare to be awed.” She whipped the boxing gloves over her shoulder and let them hang from the hook of her finger. As she passed by him, she said, “I love bag work.”
“Show me what you’ve got, hot stuff.”
The words just slipped out and he could’ve punched himself in the face for it. If the arching of her brow was any indication, she was as surprised by the comment as he was.
“Hot stuff?” She pursed her lips in consideration. “Been a while since someone said something like that to me.”
He highly doubted that. There was no way this woman didn’t have men panting at her heels as she passed by.
“Just get to it,”
he said.
After she wrapped her hands—which was the hottest thing he’d seen in a long time—and strapped on her boxing gloves, she positioned herself in front of one of the black, sand-filled bags. “What am I doing here? Just arms, or do you want me to throw in some kicks as well?”
Oh, he would love to see that. “You do what feels right. I want to see how you handle it.”
Nodding, she brought her gloves to her chin then exploded on the bag with powerful punches that sent the thing spinning high into the air. Unlike most heavy bag novices, she didn’t wait for the bag to stop moving before hitting it again. She aggressively attacked the bag without stopping, adding in high and low kicks here and there.
Daaaaaaaamn.
That word kept repeating in Lance’s head with every landed hit. His gaze trailed over her, soaking in the erotic picture she made. There was something extremely sexy about a woman going apeshit on a bag. The small muscles of her arms and back flexed, just starting to glisten with sweat. Her delicate jawline was clenched in fierce concentration, and her expression said she knew she was making that bag her bitch. That excited current exploded into an all-out inferno. So. Fucking. Hot.
He couldn’t handle anymore. “Time.”
Breathing heavily, she lowered her arms and faced him. “How was that?”
As she tried to catch her breath, he had the hardest time looking away from her heaving breasts. “You’re one badass bitch.”
Pleasure brightened her face, and that look was sexier than the fierce one. Fuck, he was in trouble. “Well, hell, I like that comment better than ‘hot stuff.’”
A laugh shot out of his throat.
“How about we take this to the ring and do some focus pad work? I’d like to see how much power you really have behind those punches.”
She didn’t say anything as she ripped the gloves off her hands and strolled past him. The vanilla scent of her perfume teased him, and he clenched his fist against his heightened awareness of this woman. Everything about her, he was aware of.
Maybe a great pad session was what he needed to refocus. It would be hard to notice anything sexy about her while having to concentrate on her punches.
Kelsey tossed her gloves down, picked up the fingerless pair, then slid under the bottom rope into the ring. Lance grabbed the focus mitts and did the same thing.
“What kind of focus training have you had?” he asked.
“After watching me whup that bag’s ass, you’re really asking that question?”
“Hold up, Wonder Woman,” he said, chuckling. “I have no doubt you’ve had extensive training. My question is have your holders simply allowed you to work on your punches or do they also work on your defensive response?”
As she eyed him, her lips pursed in approval. His gaze dropped and held there. Jesus Christ. Swallowing, he forced his attention back to her.
“Mostly the former. Holders have swiped at my head after combinations, but they’ve always been slow, gave me too much time to react instead of making it instinct. I want to make it instinct.”
Her knowledge of MMA training and her desire to learn were a huge turn-on.
Lance slipped the mitts onto his hands. “We’re going to make it instinct. Let’s see how well you do with cues.”
He held up one mitt. Immediately, a strong jab knocked his hand back. Now they were talking. As he held up both mitts, she landed a jab-straight combination instantly. Lance grinned. “Excellent. Let’s just warm up and get a feel for each other first, okay?”
She nodded.
As he shouted a number sequence and moved his hands in different positions, she always connected with the correct combination. Double jab, straight, uppercut, rear hook, lead hook. She didn’t miss a damn beat, and his admiration for her grew. He watched her movements, waiting for her to relax and let her guard down. The second she did, he quickly lunged and popped her on the shoulder. Blinking, Kelsey froze. So he sprang forward and lightly tapped her on the side of the head. The pink, lively color on her skin from the workout bleached out, and still she didn’t move.
“You okay?”
She shook her head and backed up a space, her gaze darting to his. “Yeah. Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. Just block my advances.”
She inhaled then exhaled slowly while she worked her shoulders as if trying to loosen the muscles. Lance tried his damnedest to hide his confusion. He’d barely tapped her. She was acting as if she’d been rocked hard.
Finally, she brought her gloves back up to her chin, signaling that she was ready. He called a line of numbers. After she landed the last one, he made a lightning fast swipe at her, which met its mark on her side. Again, her entire body froze, and she dropped her guard.
Seeing she’d completely shut down, he lowered his hands to his side. “If you’re not ready for this, just let me know. We can work on something else.”
Ripping at the Velcro on the gloves, she paced to the other side of the ring and threw the gloves down, then stood staring at the wall. Man, she really couldn’t take someone getting the best of her.
“Hey,” he said, coming up behind her. “You’re not the first person to freeze, you know? It happens all the time to beginners.”
She spun on that. “I’m not a beginner. I’ve had years of training. I shouldn’t be freezing up.”
This was true, but she had, and there was really only one explanation he could think of. “Kelsey, you’ve had phenomenal training, but some people just can’t go that extra step. They’re too afraid of being hit. I see it happen all the time. Guys come in here, think they’re just going to jump in the ring and go at it, but the moment they receive their first tap by an opponent, they fall apart. That’s what you just did.”
A concerned, anxious expression he couldn’t understand crossed her face. “What’re you saying?”
A part of him wanted to soothe away her worries with false encouragement, but he wouldn’t do her that disservice. She wanted to be treated like an equal. He’d give her the same advice he would any of the guys. “I’m not saying anything. This is your call. But you have to be okay with taking a hit if you want to get the training you’re asking for. If you freeze every time, there’s no point.”
She chewed on her bottom lip for a moment then asked, “Is it something I can get past?”
That same vulnerability he’d heard the day before was laced in her question. He had to clench his fist against the urge to touch her.
“Of course,” he said, stepping away so he wasn’t so damn close to her. “But you’re going to have to work through it. Stopping and throwing your gloves isn’t helping anything. If we train properly, eventually those taps and knocks I land on you are going to piss you off and you’re going to respond to them in that instinctive way you want to.”
Kelsey studied him for a long moment, her bottom lip caught between her teeth. He forced his eyes to stay glued to hers and not dip down like they wanted. A sweet, plump lip caught between teeth equaled trouble for him.
“You’re a damn fine trainer, Lance. Thank you. I believe with you I’m going to knock down some really important walls, which will take me to the next level.”
She wasn’t training to fight professionally. He realized that wasn’t what the next level was for her. As much as he wanted to ask, he kept the question to himself.
…
Ella hurried down the sidewalk to meet Lance at the gym. The crisp mid-October air smelled of autumn, and she breathed in deep, trying to calm the frenzy of excited energy whizzing around inside her stomach. Seeing Lance had that effect on her, which was shocking. Even though her first impression of him had involved something shady, her suspicions had faded fast. It’d been almost a week since she’d stepped into that alley, and the Lance who now dominated her thoughts was the one she trained with every day.
A patient and enticing man. A man who was more dangerous to her than the one she’d met in that alley. If she wasn’t careful, she was going to lower her gu
ard and let him in, and it scared the hell out of her. That would make her vulnerable on a whole different level. She hadn’t allowed a man close to her since Randy put her in the hospital.
Ella opened the door to Coolier and stepped inside. She immediately glanced around to check if Lance was there. Yesterday, he’d been thirty minutes late. She was tempted to ask him where he was when he ran late, but a part of her didn’t want to know. If he skirted around the question, then she’d know for certain he was involved in something bad. They had no association outside this gym, and she didn’t want to ruin her training time in here with worries about what he was into.
Thankfully, today he was on time, standing with Amber. The excited energy she’d dealt with all morning intensified to all-out zaps. She took a small calming breath, hoping beyond hope she didn’t look like a googly-eyed teenager. It was a new feeling, something she hadn’t dealt with in years, and she’d be lying if she said she didn’t find it thrilling, if not completely terrifying.
As she walked up to them, Lance gave her one of his charming smiles, and those zaps went nuts again, low in her belly. Dressed in bright blue and black fight shorts and a sleeveless white logo shirt that displayed his tattooed arm proudly, the man was simply yummy to look at.
“Kelsey.”
“Hey,” she said, stopping beside him.
“I had an idea. Wanted to run it by you.”
“What’s up?”
“I’ve been talking to Amber. She has a lot of experience with focus pad drills. It’s what got her started in wanting to pursue a career in MMA. I thought maybe you two could do a drill session together. I’d like to see if your reaction is the same.”
Her shoulders slumped, but she quickly covered her disappointment with a forced smile. She didn’t want to train with Amber. She wanted to train with Lance, but considering he was trying to help, she couldn’t come across as unappreciative. “I’m willing to give it a try.”
“Excellent. Go on and gear up.”
After she grabbed a pair of fingerless gloves and entered the ring, she faced Amber. Immediately, Ella noticed the difference in how she felt. Lance himself didn’t actually intimidate her, but when she squared off with him there was always a feeling of hesitation, of tension. Then, the minute he exhibited any dominance that challenged hers, the past came roaring back as if it had happened yesterday instead of four years ago.
