Micha shovels his food into his mouth, hunched over the bowl as if protecting it from someone trying to steal it.
“It’ll take time,” he continues to say, “you’re fit enough, but we just need to strengthen your defenses”
“So everyone keeps saying.” I mutter.
Ace strolls back into the kitchen, winks at me with a grin and pours the rest of the food in the wok into a bowl. King glares at him but retakes his seat across from me.
And that’s how the next week goes, back and forth between my apartment, work and Kingston’s penthouse. Whatever Kingston said to Ace must have worked because nothing like what happened that first day happens again. In fact, we’ve done barely any defense, it’s been more stances and positions, correcting my form and the way to hold my fist when hitting someone. Where to hit someone for maximum damage and how to cover yourself when you need to rebuild strength. It was a lot of information and a lot of work.
I was active, I went to the gym but this much was too much. My muscles scream and ache and I am exhausted. Between work and this I’m using all my energy and crashing before ten pm every night only to redo it all the next day.
Ace stands on the other side of the mat, feet bare, a pair of gray sweats hanging from his narrow hips, and today he’s shirtless. Muscles, so many fucking muscles. Hard, defined, and he has his left nipple pierced.
“We’re going to do something different today,” he says, crossing his arms, “I’m going to come at you, and you’re going to use what I’ve taught you to either evade me or, if I catch you, down me and escape.”
“Ace,” I hold my hands up, I’m too tired for this shit. “Can we do something else?”
My hand wasn’t broken, just bruised and while it still hurts a little, it’s much better.
“No.”
He doesn’t give me another chance to try and change the plan. He charges me, full speed and strength, and it takes all of me to jump out of the way with a little yelp. He catches me though, wrapping those beefy arms around my middle and hauling me off the ground before proceeding to pin me against the wall.
“Escape, Eleanor.” He orders. He’s holding me tight but not painfully, not at all like the first time. I try to remember all the things he’s taught me, how to get out of various holds and bindings.
When I try to enact the training, my muscles scream in pain, overused and stressed. It’s been a long week.
I push on him, but he doesn’t move, and I give up, slumping onto the wall with a huff, “Just kidnap me at this point, I’m tired.”
He chuckles and then let’s go, catching me before I can fall from the sudden lack of support. I hadn’t realized how much I was leaning on him, or just how tired I was.
“Go eat and rest,” Ace says, “We’ll pick it back up Monday.”
I groan in pleasure. I have the whole weekend off from all of this shit. No Tobias. No training with Ace. I wouldn’t say no Kingston because it didn’t matter where we were, or what we were doing, he always turned up.
I was serious and I had had the locks changed, but he still got in and truthfully, I wasn’t really trying to keep him out.
It was dangerous and it was stupid, and it was going to wreck me, but I kept doing it anyway, telling myself I’ll stop it tomorrow, and yet tomorrow never comes, but Kingston does.
I tell myself it’s just because the sex is amazing, it’s because he knows how to work my body like it’s an instrument but it’s more than that. It’s something else entirely, and I wasn’t ready to even acknowledge it.
He’s woken parts of me I didn’t know existed, parts of me that feel sexy and needed and wanted. Parts of me that he has fed and fueled until they are the only things that I can think about.
We haven’t gone back to the club, but I think about it. About that first time, what he did in front of that glass wall, and what the others were doing inside. What would that feel like? To be worshipped and pleasured by not just one, but two men? How would that feel? How would you cope with the sensory overload I’m sure it would bring?
I don’t mind the heat that runs through me at the thought. Would I do it? If you had asked me a few weeks ago I would have said no, I would have been embarrassed to even think about it but now, now I was sure I would do it. But it would be with Kingston. Only him. I’m stiff walking, but the desire warms me through and when I reach the kitchen, Kingston is cooking again, like he has done every night. Some pasta dish by the looks of it.
It seems so at odds with who he is. That this, cooking, hanging out with his friends, training with them is such normal behavior when he is the opposite of all of that.
He looks over his shoulder at me, gives me a crooked smile and goes about finishing up the food.
I take a bottle of water from the fridge and plop myself at the table, downing half of it.
“You look tired,” Micha comments as he strolls in. Kingston places a plate of food in front of me and then curls his finger under my chin, forcing me to look up at him. Something like concern swims in his eyes, but I had to ignore that, ignore the warm feeling running through me and the way my heart speeds up in my chest.
“I’m fine,” I mumble, forcing myself to remove my face from his hand just so I can put a stop to all this nonsense.
I didn’t have a death wish. I had only one goal. Get Tate. That wasn’t going to change, and I wasn’t to become another casualty to Kingston. I’m sure there’s a whole line of broken hearts, and broken bodies, spanning behind him. He doesn’t say anything, and thankfully lets me get on with eating. I eat quickly, not because I’m in any rush, but because I am starving. All this training and spying on Tobias leaves me so hungry at the end of the night that I’ve had to restock my fridge twice this week after devouring it all.
If tonight was like any other night this week, I’ll eat this, go home and eat some more before promptly passing out.
It wasn’t a bad way to spend one’s time, I guess.
It was usually later that Kingston showed up, finding me passed out on the couch or on top of the blankets in my bedroom. There’s been the odd day where he followed me home and spent the entire night with me, witnessing the state of me after I’ve binged on food and then felt guilty for doing so but still going back for ice-cream.
I finish before the guys, rinse my plate and put it in the dishwasher before heading through, leaving them behind to shove on my coat and shoes. I wouldn’t stay any longer than this. Maybe my prompt departure will be enough to deter Kingston from joining me later. If I could put some space between us, when all this is over, it’ll be easier to just resume a normal life.
The elevator doors open, and I quickly step inside, smashing the button to take me down. The doors start to close and are almost completely there, when a hand shoves through the gap, automatically stopping the doors and forcing them to reopen.
“Just where do you think you’re going, love?” Kingston cocks his head.
“Home,” I press against the wall.
He smiles, not a kind smile but one full of mischief and deviance, and then he steps into the elevator and the doors slide closed with a quiet hiss.
“Without a goodbye?”
“I’m sure you wouldn’t have missed me,” I swallow.
“Oh, you’re wrong love, I would have missed you a great deal.”
My brows pull low, “What?”
In three steps he’s directly in front of me, staring down, icy eyes on fire and that devilish smirk on his face, “You think I don’t know why you’re running?”
“I’m not running,” I lie, “I’m tired.”
“I believe that you’re tired,” his eyes soften, “but you’re running.”
I don’t say anything, don’t even dare to breathe as he leans in and buries his face in the crook of my neck, inhaling. I try, I really do try, to not tilt my head letting him in, but I do it, and he takes the invitation.
I try not to let my eyes close as the sensation of him overpowers my logic, but it happens anyway. Like the high of a drug, I’m caught in the web of euphoria, of warmth and pleasure and longing.
Longing for a man that will never be good for me.
His tongue licks up the column of my throat before he murmurs, “You’re still scared.”
“No,” lie. All these lies.
He chuckles, a rasp that shoots a bolt of pleasure straight down my spine, “You’re not scared of what I’ll do to you anymore, but you’re scared of me. You’re scared because you’re falling for me, and you’re sure I’ll damn you.”
“You will damn me.”
“You’re right,” he kisses my neck, “I will, but baby, damnation isn’t so bad, not when it comes with so much pleasure.”
To prove his point, he presses his cock into me, rubbing against my pussy. My hands suddenly grip his biceps.
“Are you sure you want to be good?” His hand slides down the front of my leggings, into the band of my underwear. He rubs small circles against my clit, a torturous build-up of pleasure that never truly strikes.
“Why fear damnation, love, when damnation can feel so good.”
He suddenly thrusts his fingers inside and I’m done. Gone.