Page 46 of Brazen Mistakes

“How are breakdowns in the shower treating you?”

“Like shit.”

“Able to fuck those nightmares away yet?”

“Fuck you, Archibald.”

His laugh is mirthless. “Not an option, Crash. It’s time to try something different. And despite everyone’s offer to listen, you don’t seem inclined to talk. So on to the next best thing. Fighting.”

“If I do this, will you let me go to bed?”

“If you push yourself, you’ll sleep like a fucking baby, at least for a while.”

I roll my eyes, then glance at the punching bag in the room’s corner. “Fine. Teach me how to get mad, Trips. We both know you’re the master here.”

He ignores my volley, pushing me away from the bag and setting me up in front of his desk, his laptop open and idling. He nudges my feet into position with his slippered toes, careful not to touch me more than necessary. Grabbing some pads from behind his punching bag, he sets them next to us on the bed. Finally, he looks me over, hair soaking through Jansen’s sweatshirt, wearing nothing else but the tape he put on my hands.

“You should probably tie your hair back.”

Snatching a pen from his desk, I weave it into a hasty but tight bun, and hope that it’ll hold for whatever Trips is going to make me do.

“Okay, tonight the goal is to gain a basic understanding of how to throw hands. Then you’re going to try to land a punch on me.”

“You sound infuriatingly confident that I won’t be able to touch you.”

“I am.”

As much as I hate it, having seen him in Chicago, he’s earned that confidence.

He walks me through my stance, the proper way to fold my fists, how to set my feet, how to use my intention to initiate my punch, and how to use my mass to add force. Every third punch he reminds me I’ll only hit what I’m looking at, and as I’m looking at nothing, only punching empty air in front of me, I don’t quite get why that’s the important bit right now.

Once he’s decided my form is “adequate for a beginner,” he scoops up the pads and we do the whole thing again, only this time with something to aim at.

After ten punches that land with solid popping noises, Trips passes me a glass of water from his nightstand. “It’s fresh,” he says, like the thought of our lips sharing the rim of a glass is offensive.

How is he becoming both friendlier and less intimate with me at the same time? The man has had his tongue down my throat, his broad fingers pressed deep inside me. Why can’t he touch me? Or share a glass of water?

I down the whole glass, thirstier than I’d realized, handing it back to him, our fingers brushing with a sizzle we both ignore as he takes it back.

“Now what?” I ask.

“Now you show me just how furious you can get.”

The laugh that escapes me is caustic at best. “I’m not sure I know how to do that.”

“One good slap would tell me otherwise.”

Heat coats my cheeks. “I lost my temper.”

“Good. Do it again.”

“It doesn’t work like that, Trips.”

“Doesn’t it? Are you telling me there isn’t something inside you waiting for a chance to snap, to hurt Bryce the way he’s hurting you?”

“I wouldn’t do this to him.”

“No, you wouldn’t. But that doesn’t mean the urge to hurt him isn’t there. You’re just really good at chaining up the beast inside you, Clara. That doesn’t mean the beast isn’t there. It just means you’ll need a lot of work cutting through the links to set it free. Let her out. I wanna see her claws.”

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