It was so easy to get her riled up.
He shrugged, playing up his nonchalance. “I’m not saying it hasn’t been a good workout. It’s just not the challenge you made it out to be.”
“That’s because I was taking it easy on you, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
“I didn’t hire you to take it easy on me. Isn’t that what you said?”
Her eyebrows hiked. “Hmm . . . I guess it is.”
She strolled around him in a slow circle, her gaze traveling from the top of his head to his feet, sizing him up. It was on the tip of his tongue to ask her if she liked what she saw, but flinging around sexual innuendo wouldn’t help when it came to sticking to the rules they’d just laid out for each other. It was a pity, because flirting with her was so damn much fun.
“Are we done for the day?” Jamar asked.
She snorted. “You wish.” She snapped her fingers. “Pay attention.” She placed two front kicks to the middle of the bag and followed them with a roundhouse. “Your turn.”
He mimicked her actions, hitting the bag in the same spots she had. It progressed in that fashion for ten minutes, with her executing increasingly difficult moves and ordering him to repeat the sequence. Jamar found himself having to hide his huffing. Taylor wasn’t even winded. She was a beast when it came to this shit.
“Okay, so that was a good warm-up,” she said.
“Warm-up?”
“Oh, you thought this was the workout? Nah, boo. That was playtime.”
She continued with another series of strikes to the punching bag followed by power kicks. As Jamar performed a straight kick to the bag, a sharp pain shot through his knee.
“Fuck!”
“What’s wrong?” Taylor asked. “Is it your knee?”
“No, no.” He bounced lightly on the balls of his feet, trying not to grimace when another twinge resonated from the joint. If he told Taylor about the little tweaks he’d started experiencing in his knee, she would blow things out of proportion. She’d probably insist he call Dr. Hoffman. And she would definitely pause their workouts.
He couldn’t afford a break in his training, not without the risk of falling behind. His knee would be fine. It was nothing he couldn’t handle.
“I think I have a blister forming on my foot,” Jamar said. “It stung when I made contact with the bag.”
“Do you want to call it a day?” she asked.
“No way. I’m not letting you off that easy,” he said with a teasing grin.
“Oh yeah? Here’s one for you.” She struck the bag with a jab, then an uppercut, but when she followed it with a twirling back kick, she let out a howl like an injured animal before crumpling to the floor.
“Taylor!” Jamar rushed to her side.
She rolled around on the rubber flooring, clutching her ankle and writhing in pain.
“Shit! Where does it hurt? Do you think it’s broken?”
“I don’t know.” She grimaced. “I don’t think so.” She stretched out her hand to him, signaling for him to take it. “Here, help me up.”
He walked behind her and hooked his arms underneath hers. “Can you stand on your own?” he asked as he lifted her from the floor.
“I think so—” she said, but she cried out the moment she tried to do so. She would have slumped to the floor again if he hadn’t been there to catch her fall. “I guess that’s a no,” she gritted through clenched teeth.
“We need to get you to a hospital.”
“No!”
“Hey, is everything okay here?” It was the guy who’d checked them in at the start of their session. “I saw that fall you took. It looked pretty bad.”
