The Return (Titan 1)

She looked up, surprise flickering over her expression, but then she smiled, and yeah, that smile was worth it.

Things were…a wee bit awkward.

Both of us were trying to pretend that a few hours ago we hadn’t been lying in bed together. Well, I was trying to pretend that I hadn’t been completely naked and I was doing everything in my ability not to let myself think about where those fingers and that mouth had been. I was seriously attempting to not think about any of that, leaving it to a more appropriate moment to obsess over.

I was failing.

Although doing training today had been completely my idea, it wasn’t my brightest. My thoughts were scattered and hung up on everything that had happened last night.

Seth circled me. His chin was dipped down and his lips curled in a half smile that was totally at odds with what we were doing. So were those amber eyes. They were full of wicked secrets that made it hard to concentrate. I kept thinking about what would happen when we were behind closed doors.

He snapped forward, swinging out an arm. Unprepared, I darted to the side instead of blocking. “Pay attention,” he murmured.

Lifting my arms into position, I narrowed my eyes. “I’m totally paying attention.”

“No, you’re not.”

He whirled around, his arm flying. Instead of running, I stepped into the attack, using my forearm to block the hit. The impact was jarring, straight up to my shoulder, but I was getting used to it. The first time I’d successfully blocked a blow, I’d hopped around the mat like a demented bunny whimpering.

“Good.” Seth dipped, and I knew he was about to kick. I hated those. Stepping back, I swung my arm down in an arc like he had taught me, blocking the kick before it connected with my stomach.

“You could be a little quicker.” He straightened as I rolled my arms. Strutting past me, I jumped and let out a little squeak when his hand connected with my behind. I spun toward him, my mouth hanging open. He winked. “See. You should’ve anticipated that.”

My eyes narrowed, but before I could do something really stupid, like try to kick him, the doors to the room opened and Luke strolled in.

“Yo,” Seth called out to him, swiping a bottle of water off the mat. He took a drink. “You’re early.”

He nodded as he dropped a backpack by the door. “Yeah, well some shit went down in class. It ended a little ahead of schedule.” “What happened?”

Luke stripped off his sweater, revealing impressive biceps as Seth handed the water over to me. “Some shit, just not as bad as what went down in the cafeteria.”

“Oh no.” I took a sip, stomach unsettled.

Stopping in front of us, he ran a hand through his messy hair. “A pure and a half got into it. Chairs and desks ended up broken.” He looked at Seth, expression distant. “I don’t see this getting any better.”

“Me neither.” He turned to me, flicking his finger off the bottle. “You need to drink more.” Turning back to Luke, he didn’t see the face I made at him. “What do you think Marcus is going to do about it?”

He shrugged. “What can he do? Separating us isn’t going to help anything. I told Deacon I didn’t want him running around. I know he can take care of himself, but he…he tends to be a bit too optimistic about things.”

“True,” Seth murmured.

The comment about Deacon struck me as odd, but the guys were obviously ready to get back to training. I screwed the lid on the water and set it aside. With Luke here, we practiced more blocking techniques until I felt like I couldn’t lift my arms. Then we moved onto breaking holds.

Something else I wasn’t particularly great at.

I started with Luke, who did a front hold with his arms around my mine, capturing them against my sides. There were a couple of ways to get out of the hold. I could throw my weight back by lifting my legs, hoping to throw the attacker off balance. Or I could throw my weight forward, bringing the attacker with me, but that required getting my legs positioned right, and it wasn’t like Luke was going to stand there and let me do it.

“You’ve got to stop treating Luke like he’s Luke.” Seth stood on the sidelines, arms crossed over his chest. “You’re holding back.”

“I am not.”

Behind me, Luke chuckled. “Yeah, you are.” I shot him a look over my shoulder.

He raised his brows. “There are a lot of things you could’ve done at this point. Stomped on my foot. Or slammed the back of your head into mine.”

Well, he had a point there, but…

Seth cocked his head to the side and waited.

“Shit,” I muttered crossly. They were right. I didn’t want to hurt Luke.

“You’ve got to let go of that, Joe.” Seth moved forward, unfolding his arms. “If you can’t, this is pointless.”

Our eyes met, and Seth didn’t have to say it. I saw it in his gaze. There was a huge part of him that didn’t think I was capable of doing any of this. I looked over his shoulder at the wall of weapons and there was a mental recoil that hadn’t faded from the first time I’d seen all the knives. If I was being honest with myself, there was also a part of me that was unsure.

Christ.

I could do this. I had to do this.

Luke’s arms were still around me, and I… Hell with it. Squeezing my eyes shut, I kicked my head back. The top of my skull connected with Luke’s chin. Pain flared, rippling across my scalp, but Luke’s arms immediately dropped.

“Dammit.” He staggered back at step. “You’ve got a hard fucking head.”

Rubbing the back of said head, I turned to him, grinning. He was moving his jaw in circles. “I’ll take that as a compliment I—”

Seth’s arm circled my neck from behind, cutting off my words. “Now how are you going to get out of this?” His voice was a whisper in my ear.

For a moment, I was frozen. His body pressed against mine and that was the closest we’d been since this morning, when he’d been on me, literally on top of me, and I had been totally nude.

Oh dear.

Images flooded me. Immediately, I felt my cheeks heat. Once my brain went there, it really went there.

“Are you just going to stand here?” Seth asked, his voice sounding rougher.

I snapped out of it. Across from us, Luke stopped messing with his jaw and was watching. I shifted my hips as I gripped his arms, spreading my legs so one of them was between Seth’s. The position would enable me to steady myself in preparation to flip him, but the position also put me in direct contact with Seth’s… um, his lower parts.