Page 11 of Craving the Edge

My feet stumbled forward on the worn canvas. One step. Two. The unexpected momentum carried me out of our corner, across the invisible line and into the open space between the training mats and her desk.

For a second, I just stood there, marooned in the no-man’s-land a few metres from her desk. Tomas was laughing his head off behind me. Prick.

There was no turning back now. I ran a hand over my jaw, rough stubble rasping against my palm, and closed the distance. She didn’t look up. Her fingers kept tapping on the keyboard. Up close, I could see the fine, dark hairs at her nape where her ponytail started. The line of her jaw was sharp, uncompromising. Everything about her was controlled. Neat. Orderly.

I wanted to wreck it.

The thought hit me with the force of a KO. A sudden need to see all that control unravel under my hands…my cock plunging into her. I pictured pushing the laptop aside, lifting her onto the desk. My hand sliding between her thighs, underneath the worn denim of her jeans. My thumb finding her wet, sliding a finger into her, and then a second, until her hips bucked and that cool focus in her eyes shattered. Until she shattered…for me.

Her fingers stopped.

She looked up.

Her eyes were a cool grey-green, unblinking. Fuck. I felt the heat rise up my neck all over again.

“Are you open on the weekend?” I blurted. It was a genuine question, but it sounded clumsy as shit.

“Mornings only,” she said. She gave me nothing. No smile, no flicker of interest. “Weekends are reserved for our regulars.” Her lips twitched like she wanted to add more.

I should’ve just nodded and walked away, but I was stuck to the spot by that vanilla scent I’d caught before. It was stronger here, and it made me want to lean in closer.

“What about the arvos?” I asked, searching for another reason to stay.

Her gaze dropped back to her screen. “We close at two.”

And that was it. Dismissed. Her focus was entirely back on the screen, as if I’d already left. As if I wasn’t there at all.

The silence stretched, each second I stood there making me feel small and idiotic. A feeling I hadn’t had since I was a broke nineteen-year-old, fighting for fifty bucks a round in some shitty western suburbs gym, getting my arse kicked and my nose broken. Tomas’s muffled laughter from across the gym floor did nothing to help.

I was done playing games. Done with the clumsy questions and the half-arsed attempts to get her attention.

My voice dropped. “Do you really think I’m the same wanker you see on pay-per-view?”

I needed her to look at me. To see the man standing in her gym, not the billboard image Rhys sold to the world. Even if the answer was one I didn’t want to hear.

Her hands stilled on the laptop. She slowly lifted her head, and her eyes, those cutting grey-green eyes finally meeting mine. They sliced through the performance, the fame, the whole fucking costume, and for a second I felt completely exposed. Stripped bare on the worn concrete floor of a gym I didn’t belong in.

Fuck, I wanted her so badly.

She held my gaze, her expression unreadable. “I’m not sure what you’re actually after.” Her lips parted, just slightly. “But I have a break at eleven. You’re welcome to try to convince me you’re not a wanker then.”

A sharp jolt went through me. A challenge.

I felt the corner of my own mouth lift, not the smile I used for the cameras, but something real.

Challenge accepted.

“Eleven,” I said, my gaze moving to her mouth. “I’ll be here.”

“It’s not like you can be late.” She glanced over my shoulder and her eyes narrowed. Tomas was probably gawking. “How much did you bet?”

“We don’t do that.”

“Good to know.” She turned back to the laptop. Dismissed.

I turned from the desk. I could feel Tomas’ smugness from across the room. I ignored him, my thoughts on her challenge.

What the hell was I going to say? All this hinged on showing her the real Declan Walsh. I wasn’t even sure I remembered who that guy was.