Page 53 of Legacy Found

Suddenly Luke is above me. One hand braced on the mat beside my head. The other closed around my wrapped wrist, pinning it gently to the floor. His body is a warm weight over mine, close, so close, and we're both breathing hard, and my brain goes completely, utterly blank.

Luke looks down at me.

I look up at him.

Neither of us says a word.

And I become aware of everything, all at once — his breath, uneven; his weight, careful and solid; his hand wrapped around my wrist; the green of his eyes this close; the line of his mouth; my own pulse slamming so hard I'm sure he can feel it where he's holding me.

His gaze drops.

Oh.

Oh.

"Are we still training?"

Torres's voice, from a few feet away, easy and pointed all at once.

I jerk my eyes away. Luke releases my wrist immediately and is on his feet in one clean motion, offering me his hand, face shuttered. I take it. He pulls me up like I weigh nothing.

Neither of us says one single word about what just happened. I am certainly not going to be the one to bring it up.

Torres gives me a look.

I refuse, on principle, to meet it. It's only then that I notice we have an audience.

Soren and Ander are back in the bleachers. Of course they are. Sitting there like this is dinner theater, and they saw all of it — the tumble with Torres, the mat with Luke, everything.

Fantastic.

I grab my towel and wipe my face. "Do you two just come here to judge me?"

"Mostly," Soren says.

I laugh, surprised — that's practically a full comedy set from him.

Then Ander, unexpectedly, says, "You're dropping your right shoulder."

I turn. "What?"

"When you get tired. You drop your right shoulder."

He rises and comes down from the bleachers, and I watch him approach — and because apparently today is the day I'm noticing every single one of them, my brain helpfully supplies: damn it, that one too.

Ander's gorgeous in a completely different way than Luke. Colder. Sharper. All clean lines and blue eyes and a stillness that reads as a warning.

It is, I decide, deeply unfair that all of the guys look like that.

He stops in front of me and demonstrates the drop — shows me how my guard sags on the right when I'm winded.

I try to fix it.

His mouth tightens.

"What?"

"You're still doing it."