The Secret Beneath the Veil

“Right. Whatever you need me to be, wherever.” She fought not to let her smarting show, but from her throat to her navel she burned.

“Do you like feeling helpless?” he demanded.

“No,” she choked. This feeling of being at his mercy was excruciating.

“Then be here at six prepared to work.”

* * *

What had he been thinking? Mikolas asked himself the next morning. This was hell.

Viveka showed up in a pair of clinging purple pants that ended below her knees. The spandex was shiny enough to accent every dip and curve of her trim thighs. Her pink T-shirt came off after they’d warmed up with cardio, revealing the unique landscape of her abdomen. Now she wore only a snug blue sports bra that flattened her modest breasts and showed off her creamy shoulders and chest and flat midriff.

He was so distracted by lust, he would get his lights blacked out for sure.

He would deserve it. And he couldn’t even make a pass to slake it. He’d told two of his guards who had come in to use the gym that they could stay. They were spotting each other, grunting over the weights, while Mikolas put his hands on Viveka to adjust her stance and coached her through stepping into a punch. She smelled like shampoo and woman sweat. Like they’d been petting each other into acute arousal.

“You’re holding back because you’re afraid you’ll hurt yourself,” he told her when she struck his palm. He stopped her to correct her wrist position and traced up the soft skin of her forearm. “Humans have evolved the bone structure in here to withstand the impact of a punch.”

“My bones aren’t as big as yours,” she protested. “I will hurt myself in a real fight. Especially if I don’t have this.” She held up her arm to indicate where he’d wrapped her hands to protect them.

“You might even break your hand,” he told her frankly. “But that’s better than losing your life, isn’t it? I want you on the heavy bag twice a day for half an hour. Get used to how it feels to connect so you won’t hesitate when it counts. Learn to use your left with as much power as the right.”

Her brow wrinkled with concentration as she went back to jabbing into his palms. She was taking this seriously, at least.

That earnestness worried him, though. It would be just like her to take it to heart that she should protect him. He’d blurted out that remark about liability last night because he hadn’t wanted to admit that her inability to protect herself had been eating at him from the moment he’d seen Grigor throw her around on the deck of a stranger’s yacht.

He’d hurt her feelings, of course. She’d made enough mentions of Grigor’s disparagement and her aunt’s indifference that he understood Viveka had been made to feel like a burden and was very sensitive to it. That heart of hers was so easily bruised!

The more time he spent with her, the more he could see how utterly wrong they were for each other. He could wind up hurting her quite deeply.

I do want sex. I just don’t want it to hurt.

Her jab was off-center, glancing off his palm so she stumbled into him.

“Sorry. I’m getting tired,” she said breathlessly.

“I wasn’t paying attention,” he allowed, helping her find her feet.

Damn it, if he didn’t keep his guard up, they were both going to get hurt.

* * *

Viveka was still shaking from the most intense workout of her life. Her arms felt like rubber and she needed the seamstress’s help to dress as they worked through the gowns in her closet. She would have consigned Mikolas firmly to hell for this morning’s punishment, but then his grandfather’s physiotherapist arrived on Mikolas’s instruction to offer her a massage.

“He said you would need one every day for at least a week.”

Viveka had collapsed on the table, groaned with bliss and went without prompting back to the gym that afternoon to spend another half hour on the wretched heavy bag.

“You’ll get used to it,” Mikolas said without pity at dinner, when she could barely lift her fork.

“Surely that’s not necessary, is it?” Erebus admonished Mikolas, once his grandson had explained why Viveka was so done in.

“She wants to learn. Don’t you?” Mikolas’s tone dared her to contradict him, but he wasn’t demanding she agree with him in front of his grandfather. He was insisting on honesty.