Page 36 of Seductive Desires

My cheeks burned at the reminder and I dropped my chin. “What happened to waiting until all this was over?”

His eyes flashed for a second before he leaned closer, his lips brushing my ear as he spoke. “You broke the rules. All bets are off.”

My heart pounded in my ears as he pulled away, smirking at me. He leaned in for what I thought was another quick kiss. Instead, he spun me and walked me backwards until I bumped into the wall. I gasped in surprise and he took the opportunity to shove his tongue in my mouth, pressing me against the wall.

My whole body responded at once, heat pooling low in my belly, tingles working their way up my spine. I wrapped my arms around his neck, trying to pull him closer. His hands fisted in my hair, keeping me from breaking away from him. Not that I wanted to. I wanted to climb him like a damn tree.

Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, whistles and clapping snagged our attention. Everyone in the gym crowded together, watching us through the door. Jo and Gabi looked smug, giving each other high fives. I immediately dropped my hands but I couldn’t step away from him. He still had me pressed against the wall.

He used his knuckle to guide my face to look at him. Gone was the charming knight in shining armor. In his place was a devilish rogue with a mischievous grin. His low chuckle vibrated against me.

“I will be back soon. Be good, mariposa.”

I rolled my eyes and he nipped my ear in response, making me jump. He walked away without a word, smirking. I rubbed my ear to ease the small sting. That man was an enigma.

When I walked back into the gym, lifting my chin and doing my best not to look as embarrassed as I felt, Jo bumped my hip. “See? Welcome to the club, Mari.”

I am not in love with Mateo! …right?

ChapterEighteen

James sentJo and Gabi to do a circuit he had shown them previously. They both whined about it, dragging their feet until Jaime promised to pick up pizza for dinner. Why they would want to do that when they had a personal chef was beyond me. Andre’s food last night was amazing. Even something as simple as spaghetti and meatballs was made gourmet with homemade spaghetti sauce and fresh grated cheese. I’m betting he could make a pizza way better than anything you’d pick up.

“Alright, first I want to see where you are at. You said you’ve had training before. I just want to see your comfort level before we get to the surprise aspect. Jaime is going to be your partner.”

I turned when Jo snorted. “What’s so funny?”

“James won’t go anywhere near us ever since Liam punched him in the head for touching me. He makes Jaime do all the hands-on stuff,” she snickered.

He narrowed his eyes at her but you could tell he wasn’t actually mad. Everyone so far has been really kind and treated Jo like family. I was a little jealous of the dynamic. The only person who I had that kind of relationship with was Carlos. It must be nice to have such a large family.

“For that little story, you can add two more to each of your sets,” he told her. Her mouth dropped open and she looked to Jaime for back up. He just shrugged.

“James is in charge right now. You should never bite the hand that feeds you.”

Jo pouted until James relented. “Fine. Just one more. You can pull that off.”

I smirked at him. “You guys are a bunch of softies aren’t you?”

I had this image of the mafia stuck in my head. Al Capone and his group of guys with guns, threatening people and generally being terrifying. Instead these guys were almost always smiling and laughing. They treated Jo like a princess, letting her get away with almost anything. They were all still giant muscle heads, but they weren’t terrifying. They were just people.

James mostly ignored my question, but he did grin before instructing Jaime and me to start. It was all stuff I practiced before so I had no reason to freeze and panic, especially when I saw it coming. He would try and grab me, I would do what I could to evade or escape. After a couple run throughs I was warmed up and starting to enjoy myself. I always liked taking self defense classes. They had the practical aspect but it was also fun knocking around guys twice my size. My last self defense teacher looked like Terry Crews, a handsome black man with muscles for days and over a foot taller than me. He taught me to use people’s weight against them. It didn’t work all the time, I was a lot smaller than him, but it gave me some confidence.

Jaime actually looked disappointed when James told us to stop.

“Okay, your form looks good. It’s just the panic that’s your problem. You told me you freeze when the action starts but you also have a tendency to freeze if things don’t work out like they should. You need to work on improvising. Every fight is going to be different.”

I hadn’t noticed that before. I may have been more lucky than I thought that the last two fights I was in went well.

“So for now, I want you to do a circuit with the ladies. However, I’m going to send in some guys who are going to be doing their own workout. Any one of them could grab you at any time. You need to focus on your workout and just react. If you panic and freeze, you lose. If you get out of their hold, you win. Deal?”

No. No deal. That sounds terrifying. I’ll be on edge the entire workout. I whimpered, nodding. He patted my shoulder. “Don’t worry, they aren’t going to hurt you. We just want to desensitize you a little.”

* * *

Jamesapparently never did anything halfway. He filled the workout room. There were people in every area. He would follow me around, barking at me if I was too focused on the room and not on my workout. Before the first guy grabbed me, I was so tense that I panicked and fell on my ass trying to get loose. It took like six tries before I was able to push past the panic and get away. After that, I got better. Not perfect, but at least it felt like I was improving.

I was taking a drink by the mat in the middle of the room when strong arms wrapped around my shoulders. I abandoned the bottle, grabbing one of the guy’s upper arms as I dropped low, throwing him over my shoulder. It was then that I realized this wasn’t part of the exercise.

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