When he doesn’t reply—shocker—I shrug. But then I blink when he moves backward a step, reaching behind him. Reflex has me reaching behind me, too, for my Glock, but when he just removes his and sets it on the small desk behind him, I relax my grip but not my stare. Only when he continues to strip himself of the rest of his weapons—a deadlock dagger, a full-tang knife, another Glock 26, and a garrote—do I get his intention.
Excitement that’s almost lust races through me.
I mimic him, and it’s like stripping out of my clothes for sex.
I pull my Glock free as well, stepping close to the wall and placing it on the shelf. My SIG P320 follows, then come my karambit, Combat Troodon, and Colonial throwing knives. I stand before him naked, in a sense, and the vulnerability is startling, unfamiliar.
The last time I was this bare, I was strapped to a chair in a freezing room, my blood staining the cement floor beneath me, my severed finger a gruesome party favor several inches in front of me.
I blink, and the image dissipates like the morning mist burned away by a steadily rising sun. Only, it’s Malachi’s gleaming, hooded eyes causing the memory to fade away.
I resent the relief that trickles through me.
Hate more the phantom ache of my pinkie finger that has been gone for years.
Rolling my shoulders back, I bounce on my feet, then bring each one up to peel off my socks and toss them over my shoulder. “All right, let’s get to it. I mean, fighting is my second favorite thing that starts with ‘f.’” His eyes flash like dry lightning, and I still, tilt my head. I frown at him, practically frostbitten by the blast of ice emanating from his body. “Funnel cake, Huntsman. What did you think I meant?”
He stares at me, a wrinkle appearing between his eyebrows. Besides the lust that stamped his face when I swallowed his dick, this is the most I’ve seen him emote. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
Shaking my head, I tsk-tsk. “Glass houses and throwing stones and all that. All of us are fucked up in some way. Isn’t that true… Malachi?”
Yes, I’m deliberately goading him by using his name. And it gives me such a rush glimpsing the flex along his jaw. Tiny enough that most people wouldn’t have noticed. But most people aren’t Ph.D.-level students in everythinghim.
“Enough talk.” I grip the bottom of my shirt and drag it up and over my head before dropping it to the floor, leaving me in my racer-back sports bra. Kicking the top to the side and out of my way, I deliberately loosen every muscle in my body. But I can’t do a damn thing about the anticipation running rampant through me like I’m an overhyped kid in a candy store.
Anticipation and excitement. My body count as far as fightsis too high to remember, but one thing for certain, two things for sure… I’ve never gone up against anyone as skilled or deadly as this man. This beast.
Because I’m a self-admitted asshole and a lover of old Bruce Lee movies, I curl my fingers in alet’s get itgesture.
He suddenly straightens, his shoulders rolling back. His eyebrows arrow down, and his stare is downright frightening. And sexy AF.
“What?” I drop my arms, slapping my thighs. “We fightin’ or what?”
“Is that my shit?” he growls, and it’s so delicious as it rolls over my bare skin that I almost forget what he’s talking about. “Is that my chain around your neck?”
“Oh.” I grin, brushing my fingers across the thick rope chain with the axe-shaped pendant that I happened to pilfer from his apartment the last time I visited. When he wasn’t home. “Yeah. It’s so nice. And I feel so much closer to you when I wear it.”
Fury darkens his face, and I read my painful death in those eyes. If he only knew how that makes my pussy weep, he’d probably go around smiling like Pennywise the Clown when near me.
Flashing one last smile, I don’t wait for him to make the first move. For two years, I’ve watched and waited. Finally touching and tasting him earlier was like breaking the seal on a dam already plagued with cracks and fissures. Now there’s no shutting off this thirst, this unquenchable hunger for more. There’s no locking it away again now that I’ve had his hard, disfigured flesh under my fingers and his blood on my tongue. While I have a reputation for being cold and interminably patient, with him, not so much.
With a flurry of jabs, cross punches, and side kicks, I attack, not holding back. He blocks me with a blur of motion, using my momentum against me by grabbing my wrist and flinging me against the wall. Wind whistles past my ear as his fist crashes into the space where my face was, crushing the drywall.
Oh goodie. He’s not holding back.
That’s so fucking hot.
Slipping to his side, I deliver a backfist to his temple, slightly turning his head away from me long enough to knee him in the gut twice. I’m not fast enough to dodge the elbow he sends flying back toward me, and it slams into my mouth, gouging my teeth into the soft flesh of my inner lip. Blood floods my tongue, and I grin at him, catching the narrowing of his eyes seconds before he whirls around and we face off against each other. With not a little bit of satisfaction, I notice the line of crimson trickle down from his cheekbone where my ring must’ve cut him.
This time we charge at each other, and when we clash, it’s like a clap of thunder in the room. I rain down blows center mass and at his throat. Again, he blocks them, returning punch for punch. Bobbing and dodging each one, I latch on to his arm and, sharply twisting, flip him over my shoulder. His huge body slams onto the floor, and I swear the whole damn house shudders.
Before I can drop on top of him, my arm crossed over my chest to crash into his windpipe, he pulls his hips up, flattening his hands by his ears, then uncoils that big body and lands on his toes.
Well. Damn.
My momentary distraction costs me.
His boot lands in the center of my chest, piledriving the air from my lungs and flipping me over my couch. Pain radiates through me as my back and tailbone slam into the floor. For a second, I’m stunned. But just for a second. Because he’s leaping over the couch, and at the last moment, I roll, just missing his feet landing on top of me.
