But I couldn’t. I still needed him. There was no one else who could help me.
I couldn’t bribe him—I didn’t have any money.
There was only one thing I could offer him instead.
13
AEDAN
“You can have me.”
Her voice was sullen and desperate, close to tears. It took me a few seconds to really process what she’d said.
When I spun around, she was lifting the hem of her tank top. A sleek, tan stomach came into view, then the purple cups of her bra. The tank top pulled tight across her breasts and she hooked it over them. Soft, sweet perfection, the flesh bouncing lightly as it was freed. Everything I’d dreamed of….
“You can have me,” she said again. “I’ll sleep with you.” She was staring right at me, her eyes brimming with tears. “Just—please—teach me how to fight.”
I broke out of the spell she’d cast on me and stepped quickly over to her. Grabbing her tank top, I rammed it down again, covering her. Trying not to think about how smooth her skin was, how good it felt as it grazed my fingers.
I stood there panting with the shock of it. I glanced around. No one else was nearby, thank God. “Jesus!” I snapped. “What are youdoing?”
She looked up at me and blinked a couple of times. I could see the tears start to spill.Oh feck!Now she thought I didn’t want her.
She folded her arms protectively over her stomach, hugging the tank top to her. “I’m sorry,” she sobbed. “It’s all I have left. What do you want? What will it take?”
Oh Jesus! What have I done?!I felt as if Dwight had dropped the damn cargo container right on me, crushing me down into the dirt. I’d reduced her to this. I’d made this angel want to trade her body like a whore because I was too ashamed to go back to—
I can’t. I really can’t. She’s a girl!And I was a fighter, not a trainer. Even if I could train her, how much good could I do, in a month?
I stared at her hopelessly. Her face was upraised to me, the tears coursing down her cheeks. I’d never seen anyone look so vulnerable. A single word from me, now, and she’d crumble completely.
She has no one else to go to. If she did, she wouldn’t be here.
And what was the alternative? Turn her away and know that she was going into that fight without any preparation at all? I knew that I’d never be able to persuade her to run. She felt the same way about her brother as I did about—
I felt the tattoo on my back itch.
“Okay,” I said at last. “But you don’t need to...do that.”
She didn’t say anything. She was too busy trying to hold back the tears. She closed her eyes and nodded twice, sniffing.
I felt my stomach clench. She was going to feel grateful. She’d want to reward me. Even if she didn’t really like me, she’d offer up the temptation. That face. That body. Every feckin’ day. And I’d have to keep pushing her away because the best way to hurt her would be to let her get involved with me. She wasn’t like one of the women I’d picked up in bars. She deserved better than me.
It had to be all business. Just training.
I took a deep breath. “We start tomorrow.”
14
SYLVIE
I agonizedabout what to wear. It wasn't like I had a massive collection of gym wear to choose from—when I did exercise, it was a clumsy attempt to follow an aerobics video I'd found on YouTube, in the privacy of my bedroom with the blinds closed. So all I had was sweatpants and Lycra tops.
The problem, as I was hotly and painfully aware, was that Aedan would be there. And however much I was focused on the fight, however scared I was for Alec and myself and what awaited us in a month's time, I couldn't stop thinking about him. I knew his reputation. I knew I should be running in the opposite direction. But instead, I kept thinking about the feel of his hand on mine, when he’d briefly held it. Those blue eyes that seemed to see everything. The jagged, ugly scars on his neck that only made the rest of him seem more beautiful.I should be scared of him.Iwasscared of him. But at the same time, I was drawn to him. And so I agonized about what to wear.
Eventually, I screamed at my own reflection in the mirror. And I stood there, listening to the silence and, after a few seconds, I realized I'd been waiting for Alec's answering shout from his room, telling me to shut up. That nearly started me crying again.
It had been a long night. I'd slept alone in the apartment plenty of times, of course—Alec had had plenty of one-night stands, usually with curvy blondes, and he preferred to go back to their place because no one wants to have to introduce their sister over breakfast. But I'd always known, those times, that he'd be coming back eventually.
