He picked up a set of boxing gloves and tossed them at her. Oh God, he did mean. He wanted to get in the ring with her.
“Put them on.”
Ivy stood mute, clutching the gloves to her chest. Earlier she’d thought she could use a good physical fight to release the tension built during her confrontation in the alley, but now, face to face with Sean, she was second-guessing herself.
Under the spotlight, a thin sheen of sweat made his darker skin glisten while his nostrils flared as he inhaled and exhaled. And suddenly she saw it, the livid anger burning in him.
Seeing his anger, immediately triggered her own, and like a dam breaking it flooded her. Not only anger over what happened at the restaurant and in the alley, but anger that was years old. In a tsunami of emotion, all of the rage, pain, and hate she’d been carrying crashed over her, and her knees nearly buckled under the weight.
For years she’d crammed it away. Set it apart from everything else in her life, but in that moment, standing in the ring, hugging boxing gloves to her chest, she was forced to confront all of it. And it stole her breath.
“I can’t,” she choked out, her throat tightening painfully, trapping her breath inside her.
Sean stepped closer, his face growing harder and more serious the nearer he drew. “Put. Them. On.” He enunciated each word, biting them out through gritted teeth.
“You’re angry,” she whispered, unsure if his anger was a response to hers or the other way around.
She thought she might have seen a familiar softness flickered in his eyes, but it was gone in an instant. He pulled the gloves out of her hands, dark eyes never leaving hers, and though they were covered in a shroud of anger—his, hers—the eye contact was comforting. Centering.
In that strong, steady gaze, realization dawned. An understanding that this was the moment she’d been running from for the last three years. Her past had caught up with her. The monster was in that ring, and Sean was going to help her fight it.
“You’re right, Ivy. I am angry,” he said, tightening the first glove around her wrist. “I’m so fucking angry, you have no idea.” He reached for her other hand and shoved the other glove into place. “But not as angry as you are. You’ve been angry since you arrived in Portland. It’s been bubbling under the surface, just waiting for an opportunity to rage. Tonight, you wanted to lash out. You wanted to fight. You looked for it. Chased it.” The words spit out of him as he lifted her through the ropes and into the ring. “And I’m here to tell you that if it’s a fight you want, you do it in this ring, with me, and not with some crazy motherfucker who needs a shitload of anger management and could have killed you without a second thought.”
Sean lithely hopped up into the ring and strapped on training pads. Then he circled her, his long legs eating up the distance around the ring once. Twice.
“You do not put yourself in danger like that. Do you understand me? You want to fight someone, you want to hit something, you want to let it all out? You do it in here. With me. The end.”
His gaze was watchful, his body moving constantly, muscles rippling with practiced control, but his eyes never left hers. “Come at me, sweetheart. I know you want to.”
She shook her head, and tears prick the back of her eyes, the emotion from the night boiling up from her toes and surging through her body. He was right. She’s full of anger. She’s lived with it so long it felt like a body part. Always there, right under the surface, choking her.
So. Much. Fucking. Anger.
“I see it, Ivy. The rage. I’ve always seen it. It’s time to let it out.” He came within striking distance. “Here. Now. This is a safe place to let it out.”
“I can’t,” she croaked. Oh God, what would it look like if she did what he asked? If she did what she really wanted to do? If she opened the tap on her anger and let it pour all over Sean, her safe space.
“You want to fight? Then you fight here. You want to get angry? You get angry here. Leave everything on this mat.” Sean’s voice was rising to a yell as he goaded her. The tendons in his neck straining with the force.
“I know what you’re doing,” she managed to get out through the lump in her throat.
“Do you want me to stop?” he growled, leveling her with a gaze that was dead serious.
He would. She knew he would stop with one word from her. But the edges of her anger were already lifting, peeling back like an old Band-Aid. And part of her wanted that bandage to come off, to reveal the wound beneath, expose it to the air.
Blinking back tears, she imagined what life would be like if she could do what he was asking. If she let go and purged all of her anger, how would she feel? What would be left if she released all the hurt, fury, and shame? Her anger had been her purpose for so long. It drove her to be stronger, to work harder, to get out of bed every morning. What would she be without it?
Could she let it go? Here, with him? In this space they’d created together, where he’d never let her fall?
“Ivy, do you want me to stop?” His voice was clear, deliberate, punctuating each syllable in his question.
Trust fall.It had never been about sex. Or intimacy. Or relationship. The thing she feared was the truth. The truth of what happened that night. How it made her feel like she was worthless, deserving of nothing. No joy, no passion, no happy ending. Like it had set her fate to one channel, where she was doomed to live half a life because everything she might have had for her future had been stripped of her in one fucking horrible hour.
But that wasn’t the truth anymore. Maybe it never had been. It was time to confront the monster of her past.
Through blurry eyes, she shook her head.No, don’t stop. I want to fall into you.
With a rough nod, Sean paced around her, eyes never leaving hers.
