tood before her and enjoyed her closeness a moment longer before I turned from her. I went to my bag, which was on the side of the cage. I pulled out some gloves and brought them to her.
“These might be a tad big on you, but they will do for now,” I helped her slip them on, and I tied them up. I thought she looked hot as hell wearing them, but I kept it to myself for now.
She caught my look and said, “What?”
I smirked. “Nothing; do they feel alright to you?”
She nodded, looking down at her gloves.
I put on some focus mitts and faced her again. “Okay, just like I showed you before. Your left hand is your jab, and your right hand is your straight or cross. When I hold up a focus mitt, you will hit it with the appropriate punch. Just like I showed you last time. Jab, jab, jab. Or jab, jab, cross.”
She looked slightly confused, so I slowed things down for her. “Just take it easy and we will go slowly for now.”
She nodded, but she had a hint of a smile on her face, and I thought for a moment that she might actually be enjoying herself.
We spent the training session going through various combinations with the focus mitt. She actually had a pretty solid right hand as we continued working on it. We threw in some hooks as well, but those had been a little confusing for her to put together right away. So we focused for the most part on the first two for now.
“Go grab a drink of water, beautiful, and then I'll show you how to defend the same punches.” I helped her take off the gloves, and she turned from me to leave the cage. She looked over her shoulder before leaving the cage with a quizzical look on her face. “Do you really think I'm beautiful?” Her question caught me off guard. I smiled. “I've never seen anything like you, and that's the honest truth.”
She met my eyes and held my gaze for a moment, before turning back to the door and walking out. She hadn't responded to me, and I watched as she walked to the water cooler and took a drink. She was only gone for a minute before she started walking back toward me. She didn't speak to me again for the entire training session. I wasn't sure if it was the comment that rendered her silent or something else.
“I'm going to show you how to slip your shoulder slightly to avoid an oncoming punch, okay, sweetheart?”
She faltered, and then regained herself, and just nodded. We spent the rest of the time we had together with me teaching Natalie how to slip and jab, and then how to slip a jab and a cross together. She started moving fluidly, and I held back the urge to tell her she looked so sexy. I wasn't sure if my last comment had scared her off a bit.
Sweat marked her brow, and I told her we were finished for the day.
“Thanks for that, Jet. It actually was pretty fun today. I always thought MMA was a joke, to be honest, but there are pretty solid techniques and skills involved. There's a reason you do what you do; it's not just men swinging at each other.”
I nodded. “Well, I'm glad you feel that way now.”
She waved as she walked away from me, heading to the front door.
I jogged to the locker room and changed out of my sweaty shirt and into a new one. I grabbed my gear for my own training session; and headed back out to the training area. Some of my teammates were still there, and a guy named Brian approached me.
“Hey, what's up with you and the redhead? She's a fox.”
I held myself back from cutting into him. “Just teaching the girl some basic techniques of self- defense.”
“Does she want to fight?”
I looked up at him as I started wrapping my hands on the bench. “No, the opposite actually. She was mugged a while ago, and I thought it was a good idea that she learns how to defend herself.”
“Oh, that's shitty. Poor girl. Well, hey, if you're not getting in with her, do you mind if I do?”
My stare became hard, and the look caught Brian off guard. “Yeah, actually I do mind.”
Brian put his hands up in defense. “Sorry, I didn't know. No problem, man.”
“What are you two pussies doing over here? We have a training session to do.”
We both laughed as our coach walked up to us. He was grinning ear to ear, so we knew he had pain in store for us that day. I finished wrapping my hands, and tried to cool my temper from the conversation I had with Brian.
“Hey, Coach, what are we doing today?”
“Well, I'm going to have you do your normal heavy bag rounds, but Brian is going to join us today, so I'm going to switch off with the both of you, and do pads with one, while the other remains on the bag. But we will start the first three rounds on the bag.”
We got into position as Coach went to set the timer for the rounds. We usually did two-minute rounds to get the heart pumping. They weren't long rounds, but after doing 10 of them you could get really gassed.