I try it, and he nods. “Now use your other arm to guard.”
I keep one arm folded to cover my face, and then attack again, and again, noticing he’s just covering, but not counter-attacking.
Already the adrenaline rushes heady in my body, and I don’t know if it’s the mock fighting, or having those blue eyes so fixed on me, but I feel electrically charged suddenly. “Show me a move I don’t know,” I say breathlessly, liking this more than I anticipated.
He reaches out for both my arms and folds them up to guard my face with my fists. “All right, let’s do a one-two punch. Always cover your face with your hands, and your torso with your arms, even when you’re punching. Swing first with your left—” he pulls my arm toward his jaw “—then you shift your balance on your legs so you can follow with a power-punch with your right. You need good footwork here. Rip the strength from the punch from down here—” he pushes a finger into my core, then drags his hand all the way up my bare arm to my fist “—and send that power all the way to your knuckles.”
He makes a mock double blow that is fluid and perfect and makes little beads of sweat pop along my cle**age, and then I try it. Hitting left, squatting, shifting, and hitting harder with the right.
His eyes spark delightedly. “Try it again. Hit me at a different spot on your second punch.” He gets in position, his hands open to catch my blows.
Following orders, I use the first arm to deliver a quick punch to his left hand, which easily catches my blow, then I power punch the other hand with my right. My punches are delightfully accurate, but I think I need to put more strength into them.
“Double punch on your left,” he says, and moves his hand up to catch my blows.
“On your right,” he says, and on my first hit, I strike his open hand with my fist—poof. Then I decide to surprise him and land my right power-punch into his abs, which contract automatically as I hit and send surprising pain shooting up my knuckles. But even he looks surprised I got that last one in.
“I’m so good,” I taunt him as I ease back, bouncing on my calves like he does, and playfully sticking out my tongue.
He totally misses that, for he’s watching my breast bounce. “Real good,” he says, getting back in position. His eyes have darkened in a way that makes my insides roil with heat, and I decide this moment he’s distracted with my girls is better than any.
I swing out like I learned in self-defense. Legs are the strongest part of a woman’s body, and certainly an ex-sprinter’s. My aim is to strike his Achilles’ tendon with the ball of my foot, and knock both his big body and his ego to the ground.
But he moves the instant I swing, and I hit his tennis shoe instead. Pain screams up my ankle. He quickly catches me by the arm and straightens me up, his eyebrows jerking into a frown. “What was that about?”
I scowl. “You were supposed to fall.”
He just looks at me, his face blank for a moment. “You’re kidding me, right?”
“I’ve toppled men much heavier than you!”
“A f**king tree topples sooner than Remy, Brooke,” Riley shouts.
“Well, I can see that,” I grumble, and cup my mouth to yell, “Thanks for the heads up, Riley.”
Cursing under his breath, Remy holds my arm as he leads me, hopping, to the corner, where he drops down on a chair and, since there’s only one, hauls me down on top of him so he can test my ankle. “You f**ked your ankle, didn’t you?” he asks, and it’s the first time I ever actually hear him sound so … annoyed at me.
“I just seemed to wrongly send all my weight to my ankle,” I grudgingly admit.
“Why’d you hit me? Are you pissed at me?”
I scowl. “Why would I be?”
His eyes peer intrusively into mine, and he looks frighteningly solemn and definitely annoyed. “You tell me.”
Ducking my head, I stare down at my ankle and refuse to spill my guts out to anyone but Melanie.
“Hey, can we get some water over here?” he calls out, a sharp note of frustration in his words. Riley brings over a Gatorade and a plain bottle of water and sets them both on the ring floor at my feet.
“We’re wrapping up,” he tells us, and then, sounding concerned, asks me, “You all right, B?”
“Dandy. Call me tomorrow please. I can’t wait to get back in the ring with this dude.”
Riley laughs, but Remington doesn’t spare him a glance.
His chest is soaked with sweat and his dark head is ducked low as he inspects my ankle, his thumbs pressing around the bone. “That hurt, Brooke?”
I think he’s worried. The sudden gentleness with which he speaks to me makes my throat ache, and I don’t know why. Like when you fall, and it doesn’t hurt, but you cry because you feel humiliated. But I’ve already fallen worse in front of the world, and I wish I hadn’t cried back then just as fiercely as I wish not to break down in front of the strongest man in the world.
Scowling instead, I reach to try to inspect my ankle, but he doesn’t move his hand away, and suddenly several of our fingers surround my ankle, and all I can feel are his thumbs on my skin.
“You weigh a ton,” I complain, like it’s his fault I’m an idiot. “If you weighed a little less I’d have toppled you. I even toppled my instructor.”
He glances up, scowling. “What can I say?”
“You’re sorry? For my pride’s sake?”
He shakes his head, clearly still annoyed, and I smile sardonically and reach down for the Gatorade, unscrewing the top.