Heart of a Fighter (Rocky River Fighters 1)

Shifting her legs around, she clenched her thighs together. Okay, she could admit it to herself. It was fucking hot. He was hot. Seeing him like this turned her on, and her dragon was sitting up in her chest, taking note of him as well.

Frowning, she shook off those thoughts and walked forward a few more steps. “The change in you in just a few days is remarkable. What’s the difference?”

Cursing, Alex spun to face her with surprise in his eyes. Before she had the chance to warn him, the bag swung back toward him, hitting him in the back and sending him stumbling forward a few steps.

“Dammit. I’m really looking forward to the day when the bag doesn’t attack me and win,” he grumbled, turning around to stop the bag from beginning round two. He wiped his forehead as he turned back to look at her. “I’m starting to think you do that shit on purpose. Sneaking up so you can try to get the best of me.”

“Try?” she asked with an arched eyebrow. “No try about it, Alex. I do it every time. You really need to work on that. If you’re serious about training, you can’t get so far into your head when you start sparring with an actual partner. It’ll get you hurt every time.”

“I’ll work on it,” he assured her as he grabbed his bottle of water. “What other helpful tips can you give me?”

Frowning at his hands as she watched him raise the bottle, she replied, “I’m not going to hand out tips to someone who can’t follow them when they’re given. I’m not into talking to myself. You didn’t wrap your hands.”

She moved closer to him as he took a drink, her eyes catching on his strong throat gulping the water down. He glanced at her, catching her in the act, and she tore her eyes away, fighting back a blush.

“I tried,” he said with a nod to the strips of fabric next to where he sat his bottle back down. “I couldn’t manage it with one hand.”

“You need more practice,” she replied, somewhat mollified as she moved forward to take his hand in hers, wanting to check for bruising. Her breath caught at the zing that raced through her when she touched his hand, and it was all she could do not to drop his hand like she’d been burned. Glancing up, her eyes locked with his. They were heated and intense as he stared back at her, making her think he felt the same spark. Her eyebrows twitched as it looked like they momentarily lightened to a sliver color, but it happened so fast, she couldn’t be sure. “Until you have someone who can help you, or you can manage it yourself, don’t train that hard. I wasn’t exaggerating the harm you can do to your hands,” she said quickly.

Studying his hand, she tried to control her breathing. She didn’t see any bruising yet, which was good, and she should have dropped his hand then. But her fingers had a mind of their own, and they trailed over his knuckles. She tried to make it seem like she was feeling for damage, but it felt like a caress. He had big hands, not very calloused like a man who worked in manual labor, but not soft and pampered either. She swallowed hard as she gazed at it, so much bigger next to her small one. She had a thing for hands, and she’d never admit it to anyone, but Alex’s were doing it for her.

Unable to help herself, she slid her fingers over his hand again. Alex sucked in a breath and she smiled to herself, keeping her head down. She didn’t like the feelings she was developing for him, not one bit. But his reactions made her think he felt the same overwhelming attraction as she did. That was dangerous, but she couldn’t help feeling a little better, knowing she wasn’t in this alone.

Her dragon was practically purring, and she jumped when she finally became aware of the vibrations rattling through her chest. Clearing her throat quickly to mask any sound that might be escaping, she dropped his hand and turned away to get the wraps, chiding herself for getting so caught up in the moment. She had no business staring at any part of Alex like a love-struck teenager, even his hands.

“Here, I’ll get your hands wrapped up for you,” she said, praying the tiny bit of breathiness she heard in her voice wasn’t as apparent to him as it was to her.

“That’s okay,” he answered, waving her off. “I’ve been out here for a while now, and you look like you were coming in to train. You go ahead.”

Running the wraps across her fingers, she turned to watch him as he sat down on a bench. “You never did tell me what’s different today. Why you were so controlled and focused.”

He looked reluctant to answer, exhaling heavily and rubbing his hands on his jaw, his palms rasping on his morning stubble. He glanced at her with an inscrutable expression.

“Look, it’s obvious something happened at the fights last night that set you all on edge. I just wanted to, I don’t know, be able to m

ake myself useful if something goes down. That’s all.”

Cammie’s eyes shot to his in surprise. She hadn’t realized he noticed anything was up, and it was dawning on her that he was more observant than she thought. Maybe he didn’t notice the physical, which he really needed to work on, because it was dangerous for him. But he noticed all the little details about people. He paid attention, close enough to know when things were off. And that was dangerous for the shifters.

Even more dangerous for her specifically, and him by extension. He couldn’t know how drawn to him she was. This attraction they felt between them, it couldn’t go anywhere. She wouldn’t bring an innocent man, and a human at that, into the mess that was her life. It wouldn’t be fair.

He stood from the bench, snapping her out of her mental freak out. Stepping in close to her, he slowly brought a hand up and brushed the backs of his fingers down her face.

“What’s going on in that gorgeous head of yours?” he asked, voice husky.

If anyone was gorgeous, it was him. That strong jaw covered in morning stubble, the cleft in his chin she wanted to touch, the chestnut hair she wanted to run her fingers through. Swallowing hard, she forced her suddenly uncooperative feet back a step, breaking the connection she longed to keep.

“Alex, that’s sweet. It really is. But it takes years of training to get where we are. Besides, we’re fine. There’s nothing going on. Everything’s normal.”

He snorted. “That’s bullshit, and you know it. Something happened last night.” She squirmed under his narrowed gaze, resisting the urge to back up another step when he moved forward again. “Something to do with those two fighters who went on before Seth and Ian.”

She felt her eyes widen as she fought to keep an impassive expression on her face. “I was wrong. You are observant.” A smile started to curl his lips up, but she held up a hand. “But you’re observant about the wrong things. You let us sneak up on you all the time. Even if there were something bad going on, which there isn’t, you wouldn’t be able to help. You’d just get in the way and turn into someone we’d have to protect, instead of an asset. You’d just be a liability.”

Dammit, she was saying too much, but she had to stress the importance of him staying out of this. The thought of two shifters, with immense strength, going after Alex, ripping her fragile human to shreds, was an image she would never rid herself of. And it gutted her. Plain and simple.

She glanced up and met his eyes, struggling to keep what she was feeling locked up tight inside until she could get alone and analyze it. Alex wasn’t fragile, not in human terms. He was strong for his kind, but he was no match for hers.

Then the thought sunk in. She called him her human, and possessiveness was stamped all over the thought. Shit. This was so bad.