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He is too close.

He leans in just enough for his voice to brush the shell of my ear. “Too angry,” he murmurs. “You’ll lose like that.”

My pulse slams. I wrench hard, trying to tear my arm free. “Get off me.”

He does, and I spin around to face him, chest rising faster than I want it to. I reset my stance, circling now, keeping my eyes on his shoulders. “Are you going to fight,” I snap, “or just stand there?”

“I’m fighting.”

“Bullshit.”

“You haven’t noticed yet?” His gaze drifts over my face. He has this infuriating habit of looking at me like my thoughts are running across my forehead in subtitles.

I go low this time, feint left, drive right, aiming for his ribs. He blocks with his forearm, turns, and crowds me before I can recover. Too close. Too fast. I try to shove him back, but he takes my space like he’s entitled to it, one hand catching my bicep, the other braced briefly at my side.

Every brush of his skin feels like a sin, and I have an impressive résumé in that department, but somehow this one still feels uniquely capable of getting me struck by lightning.

Yet some wrecked part of me is already anticipating the next touch before it’s even happened.

I slam my elbow back, but he avoids it easily. “You’re so irritating,” I spit.

“And you’re distracted.”

I try to hook my foot behind his ankle. He shifts, and suddenly my wrist is caught again, then the other one. He walks me backward two steps without seeming to use any force at all.

I bare my teeth. “Kento.”

“Yes, prince?”

That tone is a problem. Why does it have to sound like that? Couldn’t he have been given an annoying voice to balance out the rest of him?

I yank one hand free and swing. He ducks, close enough that his shoulder brushes my chest, and the contact sends a stupid flash of heat down my spine. He uses the opening to catch me around the waist again and lifts just enough to wreck my footing.

“You fight beautifully, baby. So fucking beautifully,” he says, and my heart jostles.

Does he want me to die? Is that his fucking strategy? Because congratulations, it’s working. My face is hot enough to cook an entire three-course meal, and I have never wanted the floor to swallow me more in my life.

I shove at him hard. “Stop talking.”

I drive forward again, and with every missed hit my temper climbs and my thinking gets thinner.

Kento, meanwhile, remains horrifyingly calm.

That’s the real problem with him.

It’s the control.

I swing wide, and I realize it’s a mistake. He steps inside my guard, one palm flattening briefly against my sternum as he redirects me. It shouldn’t feel intimate, but it does. I try to twist out, and he catches the back of my neck.

My knees nearly buckle.

“Eyes on me,” he says.

I glare at him, which is technically compliance, but emotionally very different. “Go to hell.”

His thumb shifts once at the nape of my neck. “Only if you are there.”

Then he moves. A sweep of his leg, and my balance disappears. I hit the mat, and the air punches out of me in one burst, and before I can recover, he is over me.