Page 38 of Shielded in the Shadows

I raced to the clothing synth and started punching buttons.

CHAPTER 10

KEELA

Making Jarrix do pull-ups was supposed to be a punishment for arriving at the cargo bay after me—among other things—but it was me who was getting punished.

When I’d made the wager, I’d neglected to take into account what he might choose as his attire for sparring.

He’d arrived at the cargo bay bare-chested and barefoot, wearing only a pair of black pants that rested low on his hips and clung to his ass and thighs. I couldn’t tell if he’d chosen the design based on pure sex appeal or its functionality for hand-to-hand sparring, but either way, he’d chosen well.

And he was doing the pull-ups one-handed, doing five slow, deliberate reps per arm before switching sides. While smiling.

All the gods above and below, I was in deep, deep trouble.

I retreated to the opposite side of the cargo bay from the exercise equipment, faced away from him, and began a series of stretches. My shoulder remained sore, but I had full range of motion. A few movements caused twinges, but overall I was pleased by how well the injury was healing.

“You aren’t going to watch and make sure I do all fifty?” Jarrix’s voice from behind me wasn’t even breathless, the bastard.

“You claim to be honest,” I said without turning. “So I’ll trust you to keep your word.”

His low chuckle made me squirm. Damn the male.

I raised my arms above my head, bent over, and placed my palms flat on the mat with a little groan of satisfaction at the stretch.

The rhythmic creaks of the pull-up bar paused for several seconds before resuming. I smirked.

A few moments later, as I began my lower-body stretch and warm-up routine, a surprisingly light thump behind me signaled Jarrix had completed his reps and dropped from the bar.

Since keeping my back to him was starting to feel less like I was making a point and more like cowardice, I rose from a deep squat and turned.

He was warming up in the center of the sparring mat, looking surprisingly relaxed. The only sign of strain from the pull-ups was the faint sheen of perspiration that glimmered under the cargo bay’s lights in a way that had no business looking that enticing.

If I’d thought when we met the first time that his body looked like it had been sculpted by an artisan, that was nothing compared to how it looked now as he moved seamlessly from one stance to the next. The ripples of his muscles moving under his gray skin could be classified as a weapon in themselves.

I’d called him a lot of things, but menace was the most accurate of all.

When he turned away for a series of stretches that looked more like a dancer’s movements than warm-up for sparring, I was suddenly very keenly aware of how long it had been since I’d sunk my nails into anyone’s back.

I crossed the mat to where I’d left my bottle of water and took a long drink.

“How does your shoulder feel?” he asked from what sounded like right behind me.

“Good.” I sealed the bottle and turned around to find him only a meter away.

Exertion had made his smoke-and-spice scent even richer, and his eyes were glowing softly again. His tail swept slowly back and forth in a lazy arc that was almost as mesmerizing as his gaze.

I swayed toward him like gravity had shifted for a moment. The movement was tiny, but it didn’t go unnoticed. His hands were on my shoulders, steadying me, before I registered that he’d moved. The warmth I’d felt when he’d touched me in shadow form was nothing compared to the heat of his skin on mine.

Since we’d planned to spar, I’d braided my hair into a tight coil around my head so it couldn’t be grabbed. I’d briefly considered wearing a long-sleeved bodysuit that covered all my scars except the one along my hairline on the left side of my face, but decided against it because hiding wasn’t my style.

So instead, I’d donned my usual training attire: a skintight, sleeveless top cropped to just below my ribs, matching calf-length pants, and soft-soled shoes designed to grip the mat better than my bare feet. It wasn’t a seductive outfit by any stretch of the imagination, but the way Jarrix was drinking me in with his eyes made me feel like I was wearing either a sexy evening gown—which I’d worn exactly once in my life—or skimpy lingerie, which I’d never worn because who the hells would I have worn it for?

But on the other hand as I watched him watching me, I got the impression it was my utilitarian outfit and my scars that were affecting him this way and he wasn’t envisioning me in anything else, except maybe my bare skin.

“Keela.” His voice was so low that it was almost subsonic.

The naked want in his expression and that growl ignited heat in my core and jolted me into action.