Scorch (Virtues & Lies 2)

I circle her, coming closer with every step.

“Pick. It. Up.” I sweep the blade through the air, a whistle cutting around us before it whips the back of her thighs.

“Ah!” Turning on the spot, she grits her teeth.

“Now.”

“No.”

“Do it!” I flick the tip of the épée on the side of her leg, catching her calf.

“No!”

“If you can’t defend yourself, how do you expect to win?” I flick higher at the tender flesh above her knee. “That’s three to one. First to get to fifteen remember?”

“I’m not playing.” Arabella steps back, away from the sword at her feet.

“This is life, not a game—you don’t just walk away. You don’t drop shit and run; you fight to the end!” Not breaking eye contact with her, I pick up her weapon and put it in her hand. “Defend yourself or so help me God, I will lock you up and throw away the key until this shit’s over. Fucking fight!”

She swallows, her gaze narrowed, stance straightening.

“You want a fight?”

Yeah, baby, I fucking do.

Squaring up to me, fire blazing in her eyes, defiance oozing from her every pore. She throws back my mask with a hiss. “Fine.”

Her fierce competitive streak finally rears its head. I love her in all her facets and ways, but this feisty fiend in front of me…fuck, she makes me so damn hard.

My free hand ghosts down her side to her hip as I press my front to hers.

Even though my body is begging for rest, the cocktail of lust and adrenaline running through my veins has me ready to run a fucking marathon. My aches numb into the background. My stiffness from my injured shoulder loosens. The sting in my roughed-up knuckles fizzes into nothingness.

“Ready.” Pushing off my chest, she spins with so much grace that it makes her all the more lethal.

“En garde.” I step back into stance. I can’t help but grin at the grit in her eyes.

“Fuera!”

I love it when she goes off into Spanish. It’s sexy as fuck, and it’s also an inclination of the severity of her feelings. The way her fat lips swell around the words…

“Que?” Her bottom lip dips in a sultry sulk.

My pulse quickens, and blood rushes down my body. Liquid need shoots to my dick.

Now’s not the time. Head in the fucking game, bellend!

“Fuck!” The curse roars from the pit of my stomach as the sharp whip of Arabella’s sword gets me right on my injured shoulder.

“Atención, cariño.” Smiling sweetly, she slots the épée between her thighs, slipping it all the way up to her crotch with a breathy sigh. Her teeth drag her lip into her mouth as she pulls the hem of the hoodie up her slender body.

The tight leggings show the supple curve of her lower body. The sinuous contour of her hips down to her thighs and knees is mouth-wateringly perfect.

Discarding the thick jersey top on the floor, she’s left in a thin Henley not too different from mine. The top few buttons of the low scooping neckline are undone, the other straining to keep her breasts hidden. Like her leggings, it hides nothing.

Arabella’s all big tits and tiny waist. But the longer I look, the more I notice how her waist isn’t as defined as it used to be, and there’s the slightest curve to the bottom of her stomach.

It’s such a fucking stupid thought, but it springs to my mind like an unbidden flick of a switch.