“No,” she says, breathless. “Life did.” Every word is a scar. A song lyric carved into bone.
We collide again, fists, elbows, and that flicker of tension that isn’t about the fight at all. Our bodies find each other with the pull of magnets: repelling, snapping back, too close to break free.
Every time we touch, every time I block her or pin her arm or twist her around, it feels the way striking a match barehanded would. Raw, hot, inevitable.
She feels it too. I see it. In the way her breath catches when I catch her waist. The way her body arches into mine when I slam her lightly into the ropes. How her eyes burn when she shoves me back, chest heaving, face flushed, lips parted. Her nipples strain against the sports bra. I look away. Too late.
“You keep looking at me like that,” I murmur, “and I’m gonna forget this is a sparring match.”
“Maybe I want you to.”
That stops me cold. Just for a second. My grip slackens. Her words ripple through me, a shot of whiskey—burning, welcome, unexpected. Long enough for her to land a hard palm strike to my chest and knock me off balance. She doesn’t hesitate. Doesn’t hold back. Good.
I stumble, more surprised than hurt, and she takes the opening to slam into me, knocking me onto the mat. Air punches out of my lungs, and heat floods in its place. She straddles me before I can recover, both knees pinning my arms, hands on my chest.
She’s breathing hard. So am I. We don’t move. Don’t speak. The silence between us is louder than fists. It’s the prelude to a song neither of us dares to write.
The sound of our breathing fills the room, thick and intimate. I can taste the fight on her. Salty. Electric.
Her hair has fallen loose, framing her face in a crooked halo. There’s violence in her stillness, desire in her stare, all of it lit by sunlight. And she’s on top of me. Sweat makes her skin glow, and her thighs press against my ribs with the pressure of a vise. I could take her down. Easily. But I don’t. I never will. Not that way.
Not when she looks at me with that expression. Eyes caught between the urge to slap me or kiss me. Torn open in the same way I am.
“What are we doing?” she whispers.
My hands slide to her thighs. Tight grip. Not letting go.
“Burning,” I say. “Together.”
Neither of us moves. Because we both know if she leans down even an inch, I’ll taste her again. This time I won’t stop if I do.
She’s still on top of me. Thighs locked around my ribs, crushing the air from my lungs, but it isn’t the pressure making it hard to breathe. It’s her. The feel of her weight. The heatrolling off her skin. That fire in her eyes, wild and uncertain, straddling more than just my body. She’s straddling a choice.
Her hands slide from my chest, moving as if untethered, fingers curling into the fabric of my shirt. Not pulling away. Not letting go. Something in me caves. My control doesn’t snap, it crumbles slowly and inevitably, the way rock gives way to water.
“Say it again,” she whispers.
My voice is raw. “Burning.”
She leans down, just enough for her breath to brush my lips. Her mouth is so close I can taste the ghost of it. Sweat and peppermint gum. A clean, defiant sweetness. All her. My breath catches.
That little hitch in her breathing. Her heartbeat stuttering in sync with mine.
The moment stretches taut between us—sweat, breath, longing. A fuse waiting for flame.
I can feel her thighs trembling. Just a little. Torn between running and grinding herself against me until she breaks. I want her to break. Right here. With me.
“You want this?” I ask, low, dangerous, reverent. “Or are you gonna hate me for it after?”
Her jaw clenches. “Don’t ask me that.” The words are armor. Worn thin.
“I need to.”
Her eyes flare, but she doesn’t pull back. “I don’t know how to want you without hating myself for it.” There’s a note in her voice. It’s shaky, shame-laced, and gut-wrenching. As if she’s used to flinching from what she wants.
Fuck. I close my eyes for half a second. Because that? That was the cruelest kind of truth. I feel it in my chest, deep and raw, a wound echoing in places I thought were already scarred over.
But when I open them again, she’s still there. Still on top of me. Still looking at me with that expression, the kind that saysI’m the last man on earth she should want and the only one she does.
