The endearment throws me off momentarily, causing that same familiar but unexpected pang to rip through me. As if he’s struck me without having done so.
I channel the irritation and hurt into a lightning-fast roundhouse, aiming at his ribs. He blocks it, but he knows he’s struck a nerve. Too bad for him, struck nerves don’t count for actual points.
“Don’t call me that,” I snap as we circle each other again.
That ever-present grin is back in his voice. “What should I call you then? Mrs. Pierce?”
My anger flares, and I strike him using an illusion step he doesn’t see coming.
“Point!” Micah calls.
“You lost Mrs. Pierce seven years ago,” I grit, blinking back the sting in my stupid eyes.
He takes advantage, trying a kick combination that scores him a light touch to my chest guard. The lightest controlled touch as compared to the uncontrolled thwack mine had made.
“Point!” Micah calls out again.
“No, Little Borealis, that’s where you’re wrong,” he says, not even a little out of breath. “You see, I never lost you . . .”—he watches me reset my stance, coming closer and dropping his voice—“you ran.”
I lunge, launching at him with a spinning hook kick to his head that he only barely avoids.
“I see you’ve missed me,” he teases.
“Keep talking, and I’ll aim where it really hurts.”
He laughs, the deep throaty timbre of his chuckle threatening to send familiar shockwaves through me. But I shirk them off, hyper-focused on my task.
Shifting into a back stance, I fire off a double roundhouse—one that he blocks and another he barely evades by millimeters. But I hear the hard exhale of his breath, knowing he’s getting worked up.
Good.
He tries to sweep my leg, but I jump over it and land with my elbow to his chest guard, making him stumble.
“Point! Thirty seconds left on the clock!” Micah warns.
We reset to center, and this time, my ex-husband comes at me with a tornado kick and a combination that would have impressed me a long time ago when we used to train together in adojangsimilar to this one. But I’m not a teen anymore.
And I’m certainly not the twenty-something woman who waited around while he chased his dreams.
I slip under him. Using his momentum against him, I sweep his leg just as he lands. He goes down hard, rolling just in time to avoid my follow-up kick and making the crowd gasp.
I shake my head. “Give up, Hollywood.”
He springs back up, eyes determined. “With you? Never.”
This time I come in hot with a triple kick combo—low, high, and spinning axe kick—and the bastard manages to block all three. Clearly, he’s kept up with his training.
But when he charges at me, I meet him halfway, catching him off guard when I feign left, then come around with a spinning back kick that lands precisely at the center of his back.
He hits the mat with a satisfying grunt.
“Final point forSabumnimArora!” Micah calls.
The crowd takes a relieved inhale before erupting into applause.
Patton blinks at me from the mat, and I can see the curve of his maddening smile stretched beneath his balaclava. Assholewantedthis outcome, not even giving me the satisfaction of a fair win.
I extend my hand down, though all I really want is to punch him in his stupid, smug face.
