Strong and Steady

My eyes widened, and I dropped my arms. “Are you serious? I can't punch you,” I said, looking at the other men who were over by the locker rooms, taking off their gloves and squirting water in their mouths from their water bottles. “Besides, we aren't even wearing gloves.”

“Think of something that makes you mad. Got it?”

The first thing that came to mind was Jack. My eyes narrowed. “Yeah, I got it. My ex.”

He offered a quick smile. “Good. Now pretend I'm him. Punch him. Left, right. Like you mean it.”

I lifted my arms back to the position he'd shown me, then thrust out with my left hand. Gray's arm came up to block my strike. When I shifted my stance and punched with my right, I felt my feet come out from underneath me, and the next thing I knew, his hands were on me and I was on my back on the ring’s mat with Gray sideways on top of me. In the blink of an eye—and with a care I doubted he gave to his usual opponents—he'd swept me to the ring floor. Gray's chest was pressed into mine, and his face loomed over me. I was breathing hard, perhaps from the surprise move, but most likely because I had him on top of me, his mouth only inches from mine. There was no question he could hurt me, no way I could defend myself from him. Sure, I hadn't really tried to punch him all that hard or quickly, but still. A champion fighter, he was so far out of my league. I knew, though, if I pushed against him, he'd let me up. I wasn't afraid of him. I was in awe. And in lust. If I was this turned on with all our clothes on and in front of other people, what would it be like with him naked? And alone?

I licked my lips. My heart raced, and surely he could feel it. I could feel every inch of him, see the whiskers on his jaw, the darkness of his eyes. “Now what do you do?” I whispered.

Gray's gaze lowered to my mouth. “If you were my competition, I'd try to either choke you out or do an arm bar.”

I felt every hard muscle of his torso, even though he held himself off of me with his forearms. Regardless, I felt pinned and at his mercy. I did not mind in the slightest.

“Choking doesn't sound like fun, and I have no idea what an arm bar is,” I replied, licking my lips.

“Neither are fun,” he said, his gaze dropping once again to my mouth. “As for you—” His eyes lifted to mine, and I blushed. “—I take you to lunch.”

He levered off me, stood and held out his hand. I just laid there for a few seconds and looked up at him. I had been ready for him to kiss me, and I'd loved how he felt pressing me down. My body felt taunted and now neglected. Was he torturing me on purpose, or did he really not want to kiss me? Realizing he was staring down at me waiting, I took his hand, and he helped me up, but didn't let go.

“Wow. Um, okay, I know what you’re talking about now.” I had to get my bearings. The feel of a man above me—specifically Gray—had me hot all over. “Chris used to go to a friend’s house because they watched the fights on Pay-Per-View. Were any of those fights you?”

He nodded. “Sure, that was it, but I also fought back in the old days before satellite and cable.”

A long career then. “All you did was take me to the mat. The choking and the arm bars, isn’t it really violent?”

He grinned. “Very.” He pointed to his ear, then his nose. “I got these along with my trophies.”

I took in the whole package, and the scars and marks on his body from his career didn’t detract. Instead, it showed he had a past, a history, and he survived. “As a nurse, I have a pretty good idea of how those injuries must have felt.”

His smile slipped a bit. “I’m sure you can.” He led me out of the ring with a gentle hand at the small of my back. We put on our shoes.

I walked over to one of the long punching bags, ran my hand over the black leather. “How did you get your start though? I mean, did you do karate as a kid or something?”

This time his smile dropped away completely. He shook his head. “No. Nothing like that. Let’s just say I learned early on how to defend myself, and when I got big enough, I gave as good as I got.”

“Did you grow up here?”

“On a ranch in Wyoming, up by Casper.”

That explained some of the photos.

“After high school,” he continued, “I went into the Marines, and they honed that fighting skill.”

My eyebrows went up. Earlier, he'd glossed over his childhood and downplayed how b

ad it must have been. While he hadn’t outright said it, it was easy to infer someone had hit him as a child. I ached for the boy he’d been, of how far he’d come. The Marines, perhaps, had been his escape, especially from rural Wyoming, and it would have made him really experienced.

“You left the Marines and became a professional fighter then.”

He nodded. “I did what I was good at.”

I looked around the space. It was really impressive. It wasn't a cookie cutter gym. It wasn't a meat market, but a place for serious fighters. “Looks like you were really good at it.”

He offered a small shrug. “I’m not as interesting as the Internet says.”

I smiled. “Now that I know your full name, I’ll have to look you up.”