Burned (Miller Sisters 2)

‘He is not smoking hot.’

‘Yeah, that’s right, he’s the scrawniest, most pathetic specimen of manhood that ever stepped over our threshold. It’s amazing a gust of wind hasn’t blown him over. Are you seriously trying to pretend you don’t still want to rip his clothes off?’

‘If I’d met him for the first time this evening, maybe. But we have history. It’s all too complicated.’

‘Only if you let it be. What did he mean when he said “We’ll do this another time”?’

I pressed the ice pack against my head. ‘Don’t know, because I am never going to see him again.’

‘But if you do?’

‘I’ll ignore him.’

She stuck her feet up on the arm of the sofa. ‘He’s even hotter than he used to be and that’s saying something.’

‘I don’t need to hear that.’

‘And you look great in that dress. He didn’t take his eyes off you. The two of you have insane chemistry.’

‘I don’t need to hear that either.’ Every time I thought about my embarrassing behaviour, I wanted to slide under the sofa—except you never quite knew what you were going to find under our sofa. ‘I feel hot all over.’

My sister stood up. ‘I’ll get you that fire blanket.’

CHAPTER FOUR

Despite my throbbing head, I showed up to work early. I wasn’t going to let an unexpected encounter with Hunter derail my life. He was my past, not my future. We had new management. We were now officially owned by the Black Belt Corporation. There was no way I’d risk giving them any reason to get rid of me. Hopefully, they’d see my bruised head and take it as a sign I was dedicated to my job.

My first class was waiting. As well as karate, I taught self-defence and I’d had the same group of women for the past year. We talked about threat awareness—I felt as if I ought to sit in on my own class after what had happened the night before—and I went through the areas of the body most susceptible to attack, in my case my heart, and demonstrated basic self-defence techniques. Sometimes I thought these women turned up only for the companionship, but I enjoyed the class and I liked to think if they ever needed to defend themselves, they might remember what I’d taught them.

Today as I got them into position for the warm-up, all they could talk about was some hot guy they’d seen on the way into the gym. This wasn’t unusual, because the place was teeming with hot guys. As day jobs went, it was a good one, which was another reason I was wary about the change of management.

‘Have you seen him, Rosie?’

‘Who?’ I tried to get them to focus but it was hopeless. The whole hour passed like that, with them exchanging giggles and asides. At the end of the class I sent them all off for a cold shower.

I had an hour before I taught my under-sixteen karate class, and as the new manager still hadn’t asked to see me, I decided to use the time to train. After the night before, I needed to let off steam.

I started with cardio. All martial arts place a heavy focus on body conditioning. It’s not enough to practice competitive fighting techniques. You have to be fit. Sometimes I run in the morning before work. More often I just find time in my day to use one of the gym or fitness suites. I skip a lot. And although it makes people like Brian shudder, the truth is the Muay Thai is a very effective workout.

Huge glass walls looked over the river in our main gym, so at least you had a decent view while you were punishing your body.

The place was half-empty and I warmed up and then focused on bag work. Because we used hands, feet, knees and elbows to attack, the bags were longer and heavier than normal punch bags. Muay Thai was called the art of eight limbs for a reason. Kicking, kneeing and elbowing a kick bag increased your stamina and power. After the fiasco of the night before, I worked on driving the leg in repeat kicks. If I hadn’t messed up, I wouldn’t have needed to be rescued. I was going to make sure it didn’t happen again. But as I smacked my shin into the bag, I didn’t pretend it was one of those four guys; I pretended it was Hunter. I was almost enjoying myself until I heard his voice behind me.

‘You’re straightening your leg and losing power.’

For a moment I thought I’d imagined it because I was pretending to kick him.

No such luck.

Hunter was standing there, black T-shirt and track pants skimming a body hard with muscle. There was just a hint of the dangerous about him and a self-confidence that had always drawn me as much as his looks. Sexy didn’t begin to describe him. My gaze locked on to his, blue on to black. I was out of breath from smacking my shin into the heavy bag and staring at him didn’t do anything to calm my heart rate. ‘What are you doing here? Are you stalking me?’

‘How are you feeling?’ He was looking at my head. ‘Any after-effects? Dizziness? Nausea?’

I had both those things but neither had anything to do with the blow to the head. Being in the same room as him turned my brain and my knees to pulp. ‘I’m fine.’

He lifted his hand and pushed my hair aside so that he could take a better look. The warmth of his fingers brushed my skin and I felt as if I’d been electrocuted.

‘What are you doing here?’