Night In A Waste Land (Hell Theory #2) - Lauren Gilley Page 0,78
she said, “but we can spar if you’re up for it.”
He’d been in the process of sitting down on one of the benches against the wall, and paused, hovering – she would have laughed at the picture he made at another time.
“I’ll go easy on you,” she teased, and even managed a smile. Despite the pall that had fallen over the base – all bases – in the past few days, she found it easier and easier to smile these days. To laugh at a joke Gavin told, to give Gallo an encouraging grin. To offer a bit of softness to Lance, who trusted her judgement, and didn’t shy away from her fierceness, and who could make her feel good in a way she hadn’t thought would be possible again, after Beck.
He lowered the last bit, and sat, and offered her a sad attempt at a smile in return. “Not sure how much fun I’d be, in this state.”
“It’s always fun to kick your ass.”
He snorted, and reached for the roll of tape.
Rose worked through her stretches and light warmup while he taped his hands: jumping jacks, squats, planking. Just enough to get her loose and hyped, but not overtaxed. A routine as familiar as breathing by this point. She jogged in place while Lance went through a halfhearted sequence of stretches. He truly was in a state, if the heaviness of his movements were any indication.
When he finally settled into a ready stance across from her on the mat, she felt a stab of doubt. “We really don’t have to if you aren’t up for it. I can–”
He sent a jab at her face. That was that, then.
They fell into a familiar dance, and she watched the heaviness lift off him like steam as their skin began to glow with sweat, and they circled one another with increasing energy. They traded jabs, easily dodged. Traded feints.
Then Rose hit a glancing blow off his ribs, and they closed in: time for the real tangle.
He never pummeled her like he would a true opponent, but he didn’t go easy on her, either; forced her to dodge, and duck, grunting, falling back and catching herself on the mats with a hand before she sprung back up. She met him strike for strike, hitting his shoulders, his ribs, his stomach.
She leaped, launched off with a foot on top of his thigh as he lunged toward her, braced a hand on his shoulder, and ended up on his back, a strangling arm hooked around his throat.
He didn’t try to pry her loose: dropped, tucked, and rolled, flattening her beneath his back in one quick, panic-inducing moment. When her elbow collided with the floor, it jarred her grip loose, numbed her arm, and she lost her chokehold on him. By the time he rolled upright again, he had the upper hand; pinned her down by both wrists, braced above her.
“Yield,” he suggested. There was something almost like his usual mischievous glint winking in his eyes.
She kneed him in the balls – tried to. Wound up catching him on the inner thigh, hard enough to have him grunting, his grip loosening just enough that she could wriggle loose.
She was grinning, heart pounding, thrilled, as she flipped onto her stomach and scrambled to her feet again. They faced off once more, hands at the ready.
“Getting tired, old man?” she asked.
His answer was a fast flash of teeth, and a lunge.
A feint, she realized, too late, shocked at her own lapse in judgment.
He got an arm around her waist, and dragged her in close; crushed her against his chest. She swung at his face, but he turned his head, and her blow skimmed past his ear. His free hand caught her wrist, after, pinching in just the right place, twisting – and she was forced to twist with it, or risk a dislocation or break. Had she been fighting a conduit, she would have let it break her wrist while she stabbed it with her other hand. But in Lance’s grip, she whirled around, put her back to him – and let him crowd up against her, the arm around her waist shifting so his hand was spread flat over her stomach.
His hips tucked forward, and she could feel his erection brushing at the small of her back. His face dropped, so he nosed at her ear, his breath rushing quick and warm across it.
She shivered.
“You are the most infuriating person I have ever met,” he whispered, “and