Page 85 of Swerve (Boosted Hearts 1)

A grunt came from the workout room and I stopped mid-step, hand on my office door. A feminine groan followed, a familiar one. I changed direction, shoving the workout room door open, my mind conjuring up all kind of crazy shit—and froze.

Ruby and Zeke were facing off. She was red cheeked and sweaty, determination tensing her features. I couldn’t move, couldn’t fucking speak as several different emotions hammered me, relief the strongest in that moment.

Zeke came at her and she blocked him and spun away.

I knew she’d done some classes, but I’d never seen her in action.

And she was . . . good.

Fuck. Really good.

Zeke wasn’t holding back either, barking the occasional order at her. He tried to swipe her leg out from under her, but she countered quickly, and with a fucking roar, managed to unbalance Zeke, almost knocking him on his ass. He didn’t go down, but even managing that was extremely impressive.

I was so fucking mesmerized, I forgot to be angry, until she looked up and saw me standing there. Until the guilt rearranged her features.

My anger, the fear I’d felt, it rushed back, hard and fast. “You’ve been here since you finished work?”

She nodded.

I dragged a rough breath in through my nose to calm my shit down. It didn’t work. “You didn’t think to check your goddamn phone?” I barked.

Zeke frowned, twisting to look at Ruby. She was already flushed from excursion, but somehow managed to get even redder.

“You didn’t tell him?” Zeke asked.

Ruby winced. “I, ah . . . I meant to?”

My gaze slid back to Zeke. “Call the others, will you? Tell them I found her.”

Zeke cursed, and headed to the small locker room behind him.

I’d been hanging on by a fucking thread since I did that job for Tomas, was still fucked up from it. I didn’t know why it affected me so much. I’d beaten and tortured information out of assholes for this job and hadn’t lost sleep over it. But those guys were bad guys, the scum of the earth. The guy I’d beaten two nights ago . . . he was just some poor, stupid fuck that’d gotten mixed up with the wrong people to try and bail his family out of debt. That’s it. He hadn’t deserved it, and that’s what I couldn’t get past now, or when I’d worked for Tomas all those years ago.

Now all of it, every bit of anger, guilt, fear slammed into me, shaking the last of my control right out of me. And I snapped.

Striding to Ruby, I grabbed her biceps and dragged her out of the workout room, up the stairs and out through reception, looking for somewhere private. I shoved open the stairwell door and dragged her in after me. After seeing her fight, I knew she was allowing me to manhandle her. If she wanted to get free, she probably could, or at least put up a good fight.

I knew why she was doing this, why she was training with Zeke. I was proud of her; it was the right thing to do. She had to know how to protect herself. But it also highlighted the fact that she was doing a job that put her in danger every motherfucking day. Something I already knew, of course, but after spending the last hour freaking the fuck out thinking something had happened to her, it wasn’t something I wanted to be faced with. Reality wasn’t something I could deal with right then.

I felt helpless. Like I felt when I was a kid, and too weak to protect my mom. When I was unable to save her from herself. Ruby wasn’t my mom, I knew that. My woman was strong, competent, and God knew she wasn’t doing this to hurt me. But Ruby doing this job made me feel that way all over again. I felt fucking powerless.

Instead of verbalizing this, I spun her around and shoved her against the wall. “Do you have any fucking idea how worried I was?”

She stared up at me, completely unruffled. “Look, I’m sorry, okay. I know I should have told you I was training with Zeke, but I didn’t think . . .”

“I’m not pissed about that, I’m glad you’ve been training.” I sucked in a rough breath. “You didn’t bother to let me know where you were. I thought something had fucking happened to you.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Am I going to have to report my whereabouts to you every day for the rest of my life?” she said.

I growled, words an impossibility.

“I can’t live like that. Jesus. You’re totally overreacting. Scott is dead. And you saw me fight. I know you did. Can you deny I’m good?”

I couldn’t, so I just started down at her.

“I can fight for myself, Neco.” She was breathing heavily. “God, would you just let me fight for myself?!”

Darkness coiled inside me, flicking a switch, and I let it, didn’t try to pull it back. “You want to spar with me, baby girl, we’ll spar.” I shoved her legs apart, and hand to her stomach, pushed her against the wall. Closing in, I ground my hips into hers, my hard cock against her softness.