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Chapter Fourteen
The next morning I unintentionally have a lie-in. When I wake up, I’m surprised that it’s 9 o’clock. I’m even more surprised that the house is so quiet. Ace must be out. He’s a perpetual early riser. Although I guess thanks to him, I am now too. I quickly wash and dress in my workout leggings and sports bra, thinking I can go for a run and maybe catch up with Ace.
In a few minutes, I’ve laced my trainers, run downstairs and headed out the door. I’m still half asleep, missing my morning hot chocolate that I’ve come to rely on. Luckily, the air that hits my lungs is bracing, but it almost instantly clears the last of the sleepiness from my foggy head. I quickly stretch to warm up and take off through the woods, opting for our usual route. It feels good to stretch my legs and run again after having yesterday off. I know I’m probably going to take a few more days off over Christmas so I work extra hard today. By the time my circuit laps back round to the house and there’s still no sign of Ace, I decide to do another lap and take off again.
After the second lap though I definitely need a break, and a drink, so I head inside through the unlocked door, slip off my shoes and socks, and make my way into the kitchen to grab a glass and run the cold tap. It’s only after I’ve downed a pint of cold water that I stop and notice my surroundings. The first thing I notice is that the kitchen’s spotless; there’s not a trace of all the baking that was done yesterday, and all of the cookies have disappeared. The second thing I notice is that it looks like Christmas in here too when it definitely didn’t last night.
Red and gold garlands run all along the top of the kitchen cupboards, and two tiny real potted Christmas trees sit at either end of the island covered in miniature baubles. The windows are decked with three beautiful round wreaths, and red felted snowflakes dot the front of the cabinets. The pièce de résistance though is the wooden sled that’s been rigged up to hang from the potholder over the island, which is loaded with wrapped gifts in a variety of red and gold papers and looks like Santa’s actual sleigh.
Oh my god. It’s amazing. I can’t stop staring. When the hell did Ace do all this? He can’t have slept last night at all. I wonder from the kitchen through to the lounge and stop dead in the hallway. I don’t know how I missed this before. Beautifully decorated garlands are twisted all along the balustrade up the stairs, and another loaded sleigh sits in welcome by the front door, which also has a welcome wreath on the outside. Was I dead this morning when I walked past all of this, twice, without noticing?
I hear movement on the stairs and turn around to see a sleepy Ace coming towards me dressed in only loose pyjama bottoms. His hair’s sticking up at crazy mad angles, and he’s yawning and rubbing his eyes like a small boy. The contrast of unbelievably cute and indescribably sexy does exciting things to me.
“Hey, Ace, this is...” I hold my arms out, indicating that I’m sort of at a loss for words.
“You like?” he asks me sleepily between yawns.
“I love! When did you do this? Why did you do this? You should’ve said something, I could’ve helped!”
“Yesterday night.” He shrugs. “Wanted surprise for you.”
“Thank you!” I launch myself at him, throwing my arms around his neck and wrapping my legs around his waist as I give him a massive hug and a noisy kiss. “It must have taken you all night. Thank you so much, you have no idea what this means to me. I love it!“
Suddenly I’m very aware that I’m wrapped around a half-naked Ace, who’s very hard and only wearing thin cotton pyjama pants. My cheeks colour a little, and I drop my legs to slide to the floor. All that does though is mean that I end up sliding my entire body down the length of his. Kill me now. I have no idea what to say or where to look.
“Spar?” he asks me. It feels like a lifeline. If he’s not going to mention my embarrassing faux pas or last night, then I won’t either.
“Please,” I nod gratefully.
“Come.” He turns and heads back up the stairs, which I find a little odd because we always go to the martial arts centre to train, but I follow him nonetheless. He leads me up the stairs and past the guest room where I’m staying, past Jax’s room and the bathroom. We pass another two doors - which must be Rebel’s and Thorn’s rooms - and he stops at the final door along the corridor, which I’m guessing is his. I’ve never been in his room before, so I’m not sure what to expect.
When he opens the door, I step inside and am taken aback to find we’re actually standing in a gym room. There’s rubber matting covering the floor, weights in one corner, a punching bag and speedball set up to one side and even a grappling dummy over by the far wall.
“Is this your...gym?” I ask him, confused. I didn’t see any more doors up here, so where does he sleep?
“Bedroom, gym, yeah.” He shrugs.
“You sleep here?” I look around the open space that’s devoid of any furniture or personal belongings. “Where?”
I watch in amazement as Ace walks over to a sizeable unobstructed segment of the wall and presses a button that I assumed was a light switch. A panel that I didn’t see opens and hydraulics lower a substantial double bed down from the wall. Wow. I want one. He waits until the bed’s completely lowered, then presses the button again to make it rise and go back into hiding. If I didn’t know it was there now, I wouldn’t be able to tell at all. It’s seriously cool and frees up so much space in the room for us to work out.
“Hand to hand combat?” I ask him, smiling. After my run, I’m nicely warmed up, my muscles loose, and I’m ready to grapple.
“Bring on,” Ace replies, dropping to a defensive crouch. He never attacks first when we train together, preferring to work on his defensive techniques, but when I come at him, he usually gives back as good as he gets. I appreciate that. When I found out that he would be in my classes with me I was disappointed; most guys usually take it easy on girls, but aside from the not attacking first thing, Ace has always treated me like an equal.
My aim today is to stay on the offensive to take him down for some groundwork. I begin with a flurry of boxing jabs and strikes to his face that has him stepping backwards and raising his guard. I come at him fast so that he doesn’t have time to drop his guard to watch me, which leaves his midsection vulnerable to attack. I shift my weight back onto my left leg and plant it firmly so that I can level a front kick to his exposed stomach. Ace grunts and immediately drops his hands and attempts to grab my ankle, but it’s already planted on the floor, and I’m back to jabbing him. I catch him with a cross-body punch followed by an uppercut, then step in close for an elbow strike. I spin so that my back’s close to his chest and stomp on his instep. I throw my head back to head butt him and am rewarded with him swearing in Slovenian. I always know that I’m getting to him when he reverts to his mother tongue. I spin back around and execute a simple double leg sweep, and he’s down.
I wonder if it’s an all-time record for me to get him on his back that quickly as I stand over him, panting hard, hands on my half-exposed hips. He grins up at me admiringly, and I know he’s impressed with the execution of moves I’ve just put on him. He holds out his hand for me to help him up, which I take, but he yanks me down on top of him. I fall inelegantly to his chest and end up in much the same position as we were in last night on the kitchen floor. Only this time I’m breathing hard from exertion, not arousal.
In the blink of an eye, Ace rolls me to my back and straddles me, my arms pinned by the side of my head in each of his big hands. He leans in to me, his bare chest pressing against my exposed stomach, and my skin alights. It feels like tiny flames are dancing across my abdomen whenever our breaths push our flesh to meet. His skin brushing against mine lights the blue touch paper, and in an instant I’m blazing for him, squirming with need. I stare up into his burning violet gaze, and I swear, even if he didn’t have me pinned, I wouldn’t be able to move from his piercing stare. It has me speared to the ground wondering what he’s going to do next. It’s like déjà vu, but a heightened more extreme version compared to last night.
He leans forward, pushing his weight onto my entrapped wrists to the point of almost being painful so that he can lower his face to my ear.
“Today, buzzer not save you,” he whispers in my ear, then nips my ear lobe. His tongue trails downward from my ear, along my neck, to the hollow at my clavicle. I’m done. I don’t even try to break free from his hold; why would I want to? He switches his tongue for his lips and kisses his way across my collarbone to my other shoulder, then works his way up my neck. When he gets to the small dip just behind my ear and kisses me, my hips buck of their own accord, and I groan. “Ace please...” I don’t even know what I’m asking for.
“Shhh,” he tells me, planting a light kiss on my temple. He removes his hands from my wrists, massaging them briefly to help the circulation return then taps me on the nose “Arms stay. No move,” he instructs me. I nod in compliance, and he kisses my lips lightly. “Pridna puncka.” I have no idea what he’s just said, but his smile makes me think I’ve done something correctly. Right now, he wants me to stay still and not move, and for another one of those smiles or kisses, I think I’d just about do anything.
Now that his hands are free, they begin to roam my body almost lazily like he had all the time in the world. Doesn’t he know I’m burning here? I feel like I’m about to combust and I need him to hurry and save me. But he just takes his time as if he knows exactly the effect he’s having on me and he’s actually enjoying torturing me in this slow seductive manner.
