Yeah, I don’t have a horse either, so I’d be walking either way.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Gunnar wentthrough some of the warmup shit he needed to do. Hopefully, by the time he was done, one of the boys would be here to spar. There was no way he was getting back to full strength if he didn’t get ring time. He rotated his neck, shoulders, hips, and winced when he twisted the knee in his still recovering leg. Thankfully, there was nobody there to see it.
“We don’t get warmup time in combat.”
Ah, Colt drew the short straw today, did he?
He’d been pushing himself hard the last few weeks. This being the CEO shit, while awesome in theory, sucked in reality. Who wanted to spend their day pushing papers around a desk? If the downtime had reenforced anything, it was paperwork and being polite to people on the phone was so not his jam. He dropped into a fighting stance and beckoned to his brother with his fingers. “Bring it, asshole.”
Colt stepped onto the training mat and immediately threw a right punch. Gunnar stepped in with his left foot. At the same time, he blocked the punch with his left forearm and delivered a reverse punch to Colt’s solar plexus. Hewanted to wind him, not damage him… too much. In the field, he’d go after his opponent’s face, throat, or another vulnerable area, to put him on the ground as fast as possible.
“Not bad for an old man who rides a desk,” Colt teased. He backed off and circled around like a boxer.
“Fuck you.”
“Nope.” Colt ducked and dived in a couple of times, trying to wear him down. “I’m not the one you want to fuck, now am I?”
“Shut up.” Gunnar knew what Colt was doing; he was attempting to distract him. He clamped down on the rage which swept through him—hard.
Losing your shit means you lose the battle.
He spun one eighty degrees on the ball of his left foot, wrapped his right arm around his brother's waist, and grasped the pistol belt attached to Colt’s pants. Thrusting his hips against Colt, he managed to snag his right elbow and widened his knees to shoulder-width. If his leg held up, he could do this. Bending slightly, he ignored the ache in his thigh as he locked his knees, pulled Colt well over his right hip, and slammed him to the ground. “Don’t talk about her like that,” he snarled into his brother’s face.
Colt shoved against him hard. “Fuck, you’ve already got it bad for her, don’t you?” He scrambled to his feet, but Gunnar managed to snag his ankle and pulled, ensuring he fell flat on his face.
While Colt was still spluttering in outrage, Gunnar knew he had seconds to take control by any means possible, because sparring was turning to war and he relished it. His brothers had been babying him for way longer than was necessary.
He dropped his full weight onto Colt’s back. Using his elbows and knees, he tried to keep Colt down and prevent him from getting his arms under him. Without endangeringhimself, he knew he had to maintain the advantage and disable Colt as fast as possible. But his brother was an asshole and managed to land a backward kick on his bad thigh, sending jolts of fire through his whole leg. The second it took for Gunnar to recover was enough for Colt to scramble out from under him.
“Sensitive, are we?” Colt goaded him.
He knew what he was doing, and he knew why. But it still pissed him off. “I should have stomped you when you were down.” The satisfying crunch of Colt’s ribs would sound awesome right about now.
“Maybe I should go back to the pool…”
She’s at the pool?
Visions of Jorja in a bathing suit filled his mind, distracting him.
“…and see what’s…” Colt lunged at him with a straight punch, which Gunnar barely managed to block with his left forearm. He barely managed to pivot on his feet and get inside Colt’s right armpit with his right shoulder and reach back. Normally when they were sparring, he’d go for the collar of anything his opponent was wearing. This time, for this asshole brother of his, he went straight for his hair, using it to maintain enough back-to-chest, buttock-to-groin contact, keeping his knees slightly bent and shoulder-width apart. He struggled to keep control of Colt’s right arm, his fingers barely hanging onto his wrist as he bent forward at the waist and held his opponent tightly against his body. He locked his knees and pushed Colt over his shoulder, slamming him to the ground. “Fucker.”
“You’re the one being a dick to her.” Colt punched at him. “Even I can see it, and I’m not as enthralled by her as Remi is.”
He was an idiot.
He knew it.
He didn’t need Colt to point this shit out, thank you.
“If Rem?—”
“Jeez, you have it bad,” Colt grunted. “Remi has zero interest in your girl.” He set himself up again and they circled each other. “Except for offering her a job.”
“He did what?”
This time Colt slammed him to the ground, but Gunnar was fast enough to roll away before he got squished. The fucker was distracting him on purpose.
