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“You think you’re going to earn it like this?” She raised an eyebrow. “By fighting it out of me.”
“Hell yes.” I held her gaze, and her eyes went wide at my honesty. “This is probably the only place you feel like you can be yourself, be honest about what you feel. I’d bet the whole fucking gym on that, and if you and I are going to move forward, we work your reservations out here.”
Isabel’s rib cage expanded, the light from overhead catching on the sheen of sweat coating the curves of her cleavage.
“I’ll do this under one condition,” she said, bouncing lightly on her toes, arms up to guard her face. “You don’t get to ask me what I’m angry about.”
Judging by the look in her eyes, like the slightest thing could set her off, it was an easy thing to agree to. I nodded. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
We started simple. I kept just far enough away that she had to throw her weight behind each strike, and I called out what I wanted her to do, counting down until she could take a deep breath or a drink of water.
Isabel and I found a rhythm easily, and once we did, her movements became more precise, less wild. Her chest shone under the lights, sweat dotting her forehead until a few stray strands of her almost-black hair clung to the line of her neck.
After about fifteen minutes, I stepped back, and extended my arm out, tapping by my elbow with the focus mitt. “Watch your form right there, when you go in for the left cross. If I went to block, it would be really easy for you to adjust and hit me with a right elbow off your front leg.”
She nodded, breath sawing in and out of her mouth.
I jerked my chin up. “Show me.”
We started slow, almost like a dance. She came in with the left. I pushed her arm down, and when I barked the command, she pitched her right elbow up, stopping just shy of hitting me in the cheek.
“Excellent,” I told her. “Try again. Let’s move a bit faster.”
She got that down almost immediately, and I stepped back, swiping my arm over my forehead. I caught a quick flash of a grin on her face.
“I didn’t anticipate a workout tonight,” I told her.
“Then maybe you shouldn’t have interrupted mine.”
I exhaled a laugh, gauging her facial expression as she said it. “You sorry I did?”
Instead of answering, Isabel tugged off one of her gloves to pull a long drink of water from her bottle. When she set it back down, she did a heavy exhale of her own.
“No,” she said. Then she put her glove back on.
I held up the mitts. “Let’s go again. After the elbow, use your right arm to push my blocking arm down, come up with a knee to my midsection while my momentum is in your favor.”
She nodded.
We practiced once. Twice. Then faster. And again. Her hair smelled like something citrus when her braid whipped past my face. The fourth time, she had her full strength behind pushing me down, and I grunted when her knee had a bit more oomph behind it than I was expecting.
“Easy,” I warned, as I stepped back.
But Isabel didn’t smile. She was watching me set up again.
“What?” I asked, dropping my mitts to take a drink of my own.
Her gaze was heavy on me while I swallowed.
“I got a job offer from Punch Fitness.”
The water stuck in my throat, and I coughed into my hand. She didn’t look very sorry about her timing as I tried to compose myself. After another sip, I was able to breathe normally.
“You taking it?” I asked. My voice was so calm and steady, but inside of my body, something roared and snarled. Another dangerous sign. Another impossible reaction to this woman. I wasn’t ready for something like this. Like her. Something big, something wild.
“I haven’t decided yet.”
“That guy’s a hack,” I heard myself say. Because he was. She’d be wasted at a place like that.
