Page 5 of At Her Pleasure

She shrugged. He took the lead, heading down the slope, carrying his shirt, belt and weapon. He kept her in his peripheral vision, so he knew when she started following.

Broken wine bottles marked their trail. She’d scared away any winos using this as a nighttime drinking spot. He suspected she scared the hell out of most men.

He liked that about her.

Reaching the pit, he put the belt out of easy reach and turned to face her. He expected some sharp-tongued trash talk, more verbal foreplay, before they got into it. Instead, when she stepped inside the perimeter, she looked like she’d been waiting for a violent free-for-all the way other people dreamed of a winning lottery ticket. Or true love.

“Don’t forget—”

He was going to remind her of the safety points she’d flat out told him she wouldn’t observe. Instead, she charged, her eyes lit with the only mandate she planned to follow.

To hurt him as much as possible.

He liked that about her, too.

CHAPTER TWO

She hit him full body, no holding back, a cat leaping on the head of a pit bull, all claws extended.

She probably still believed he was bullshitting her and had a perverted motive. Her world had no room for trust, let alone for a stranger and a cop. But though he’d given her ample opportunity to cut and run, she hadn’t.

She wanted the fight.

She did have some training. With the added mix of street instincts and fury, she proved within the first few seconds she could hold her own. He blocked a right hook, but couldn’t stop the redirect that landed in his ribs. She was agile, fast and brutal, not letting up, the flurry of moves as hard to stop as a defense line blitz.

Unless he fought harder, dirtier, and didn’t hold back as much. He didn’t want to fight her. Or rather, he did. He wanted to fight her until he won. But then he’d back off and do what he really wanted to do in the face of her overwhelming personality, the chaotic energy that cried out to his own.

He'd kneel to her. Submit.

She wasn’t mature enough yet for that move, not ready for it. Maybe neither of them were, but the idea called to him anyway.

She was getting madder, that glorious rage fueled by and into what they were doing. He could feel it as he countered, pinned and let himself be shook off.

“Don’t you fuck with me,” she snarled. “Fight me. Goddamn you, really fight me.”

He had no time to tell her he was giving it his all, in the most acceptable way possible. Which meant working to stay ahead of her while restraining himself, because he wouldn’t risk truly harming her.

He'd offered her a fair fight, and she’d told him she didn’t want that. She wanted blood. He’d seen that, but thought this would help her turn from it.

That kind of thinking was undeniable proof of how fucked his head was, how much he’d ignored his trained instincts about violence and a person’s capability for it. Those instincts returned in full force when, at the height of her wrath, her hand landed on a shard of thick glass the size of a slice of cheesecake.

In a blink, their sparring area turned into a battleground.

Driven by whatever had brought her here, the anguish that had her violating one tombstone and holding onto another like the person buried beneath it, she whipped her hand forward. The point sliced open a path up his chest, hot and burning, and passed so close to his throat it scraped his pounding jugular.

He shoved her back and struck the pressure point at her shoulder that would force her fingers to loosen and drop the glass. But her eyes had gone wide, and her fingers had already opened. She leaped even farther away from him.

“Fuck. Oh fucking hell.”

She looked like she was considering whether she should bolt, and then she did, scrambling up the short hill. Served him right. He didn’t want her arrested because he was a dumbass.

He dropped to one knee, hand over the wound, which was sopping wet. It was all right. He didn’t think she’d damaged anything below the skin layers. As he tried to calm down, get his heart rate under control, he probed the injury. The deepest part was over his pectoral. She’d started there and swiped upward. His collar bone had jarred her strike hand, so the weapon had only grazed his throat.

“Here, sit down.” He lifted his head, startled to find she’d returned, clutching a backpack.

“Shit, shit, shit. Let me see.” She tore the already cut neckline of his tank. He winced as she cracked open a bottle of water from her pack and poured it on the cut. After studying it, she reached into her backpack and pulled out a paramedic go bag. Saline solution came next. Now it was time for him to curse.

“I reached the muscle layer. You need stitches,” she told him dispassionately. “You should call for some help.”

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