I stare up at him as anger courses through me, setting my muscles on fire.
“Fuck you!” I snarl, yanking his hair again. I shove at his face with my other hand and manage to get my fingers inside his mouth. I curl them around his lower jaw and pull. The air leaves my lungs and I fight to keep up the pressure as my body screams at me to take a break.
The weight of his body leaves mine as he extracts himself from my grip easily. I stare up at him, my chest heaving as he stands.
“That’s good. You’ve got fight, Sinclair. Now we need to channel it to where it’ll benefit you the most. You don’t need to be the strongest in a fight. You need to be the smartest.”
I roll over and leap to my feet.
“You let me go!” I snap.
“You needed a rest.” Denver’s eyes hold mine as I struggle to control my panting, hating that he’s right. I’m nowhere near as fit as him.
“Don’t do that again. I don’t want you handing me passes. You need to act like it’s real. I wouldn’t get a rest if it was real. The guy wouldn’t stop until he got what he wanted, would he?”
Denver’s jaw tightens.
“Exactly,” I huff. “He wouldn’t. So you’re not helping me by going easy on me. Besides, they wanted Monty, not me. They’re not going to be trying to assault me.”
“We can’t assume anything about these guys and the lengths they’ll go to. Attacks can escalate in their objective following a failed one. And it triggered you. You fought harder when you thought my MO was sexually motivated.”
“Because…” I search for the reason, but I can’t come up with anything. “It was just instinct. Once you started talking like that, I wanted to knock your lights out even more.”
“Good. Hold on to that feeling. Imagine that’s my goal.”
“Fine,” I snap.
Denver waits another minute while I walk around the edge of the mat, catching my breath. Then I nod at him that I’m ready to start again.
This time he spins me so my back is to his chest, one arm holding my arms down by my sides, the other clasping his hand over my mouth.
“Now think,” he says in my ear. “What can you do?”
I wriggle in his hold, making frustrated sounds that do nothing to help me.
He lets me go and I spin to glare at him.
“You can do better than that. You were trying to tear my hair out a few minutes ago.”
“Because you were being a bigger asshole before.”
He runs his tongue over his teeth as he studies me with his hands on his hips.
“What? Why are you looking at me like that?” I snap.
He shakes his head, looking at the floor like he’s contemplating something.
“You respond to roleplay,” he says.
“What?”
“You fight harder when acting out a scene. Some people do. It’s because it feels more real. It helps them.”
“So let’s roleplay.” I rub my hands together, grounding my feet and setting my stance wider as I wait for him to advance toward me again.
His face is serious as he remains still.
“What? Come on,” I urge. “I’m ready.”
