Edison (The Henchmen MC 10)

It was time to start.

But not just yet.

There was just one thing I needed to do first.

I hopped off the desk, moving toward the nameless woman, shifting to walk behind the heavy, grabbing it at the last second, right before she was going to strike, surprised when she managed to pull her momentum back at the last possible second so she didn't hurt her hand.

Focused.

Determined.

And observant.

The perfect weapon.

"Are you trying to break my fucking hand?" she snapped, swiping sweaty hair out of her eyes so she could see, giving me an eyeful of her hands. She had chosen not to wrap them, to toughen the skin up, a choice I respected, maybe doubly so because even the most dedicated of my students chose to avoid callouses and bloody knuckles.

She wasn't afraid to harden up.

"I was checking to see if you're good enough."

I hadn't been wrong to go the challenge route. This woman was not one to back down from one. And that, well, it was sexy as fuck. Her dark eyes got smaller; her chin raised slightly.

"Good enough for what?"

"My class," I clarified.

"You don't have a class here. I've had lessons with all the instructors."

"Three lessons with each of them," I agreed. "LINE, Jiu Jitsu, Krav Maga, and boxing. For an observant woman, you somehow overlooked me."

Her perfectly arched brows drew low, obviously not the kind to let the pride of being proven wrong get in the way of learning the truth.

"What do you teach then?"

"Systema."

Her brows furrowed all the more. "Russian?" she asked, sounding confused. "You don't look - or sound - Russian."

"Romanian, love," I agreed. "But spent a good chunk of time withstanding the cold. Learned a lot. Momentum training." That didn't get much of a response. She had likely learned a bit of that in several of her studies. "Pressure point application," I tried.

There it was.

Interest.

It made her stand up straighter.

It made her eyes, guarded as they were, work.

"When is the soonest that I can set up an appointment?"

"Tomorrow," I offered, pulling it right out of my ass, but figuring that at least one of the rooms would be empty, and knowing it was probably best to make the most out of her interest as soon as possible. "Ten," I tried, figuring if she was free on a Monday at ten, she was likely free on a Tuesday at ten as well.

"The regular rate?"

I didn't know what that was, but rolled with it. "Yes."

"I'll be here," she agreed.

"Name, love?" I asked, watching as her eyes went almost confused, like something about me didn't make sense.

"Lenny," she offered, making me wonder what a name like that could have been short for.

"Edison," I gave her before releasing her bag and walking away, all the while wondering why the hell I was offering her a class when, so far, I had never been interested in offering them to anyone.

Was it simply attraction?

I wasn't usually a man governed by shit like that.

Curiosity?

What was she planning? Why was she planning it?

Why the fuck did I care?

Burning questions, all.

Maybe ones I would have answers to the next day.THREELennyI had no idea how I had missed a class.

Or, for that matter, how I had missed an instructor such as him.

I might not have been interested in inviting a man into my life, but I was human. I was a woman who knew a fucking earth-shatteringly good-looking man when she saw one.

This man, yeah, he was too attractive not to notice.

He was tall. I was a sucker for tall, being about five-eight even in flat feet. He towered over me, six-three if he was an inch.

Then he had that dark and deadly vibe about him. Yes, deadly. That was, oddly, what came to mind first. It was right there in those improbably deep eyes. Was it possible for eyes to be black? If it was, his were. Deep. Endlessly so. If you dove in, you would never surface.

That was a bit flowery for me, but true nonetheless.

His long, dark hair was pulled up into a bun at the top of his head, allowing his perfectly European features to be the focal point. His somewhat pointed chin, great cheekbones, masculine brow ridge, and what seemed to be a strong jaw under his beard.

As for his body, he wasn't like one of those muscle-bound morons who spent half the day over by the weights. Not picking them up, mind you, making me wonder how many steroids one must take to be able to bulk up so much with so little effort.

Congrats on being fit, dudes, but there's nothing sexy about standing near weights like you are afraid to get your nice Under Armor shirts a little sweaty.

This guy was a lean kind of strong, with muscles perfectly toned for purpose. Giant muscles might look good (to some), but they were relatively useless. They made your range of motion smaller. Hell, I doubt the guys could wipe their own asses without one of those fucking pole things.