We fell into an easy routine, and despite the few months since she’d been in a training session with me, she hadn’t fallen behind.
“Have you been training with someone else?”
“No,” she panted, hitting the glove in an upper strike. “I had to take barre, but I practiced my punches at home. It helped to picture some of your faces and take out my aggression that way.” She hit the gloves three more times before I called it. She bent over at the waist, catching her breath. When she peered up, her smile radiated through her whole body.
“Gah, I’ve missed this. Kicks now?”
“Sure, Kitten.”
I agreed, despite wanting to go over some other moves. If she was excited about doing some kicks, then I’d let the woman do some damn kicks. Better than have her kick me in the balls, anyhow. Once she had her breath again, I lowered the gloves and had her start in on her kicks. Her legs moved as gracefully as before, and after a few practice ones, she fell back into the rhythm of the kicks just like no time had passed.
When she reached twenty for each leg, I stopped it, dropping the gloves.
“Good job, Kitten. You’re showing improvement even without training over the past few months. I’m impressed.”
“Wow, I can’t believe you just gave me a compliment without hurting my feelings first.”
“Ha! And you thought you weren’t funny.”
Kitten pushed my shoulder, her giggle sending a bolt right to my dick. I turned my side to adjust myself out of view. Sax noticed, smirking at me, the cocky fucker. Moving into self-defense, I started with the basic hand and hair holds, and we practiced getting out of them for the next thirty minutes.
“Like this?” She asked, moving down to make my arm go slack, allowing her to maneuver out from under it.
“Exactly, Kitten.”
She beamed at me, and I got lost for a minute. Locking it down, I lifted a brow. “You ready for more? Or are you good for the day?”
Kitten bit her lip, assessing me. Unfortunately, before she could answer, the door opened and Fort raced in, a guard behind him, and I knew our time was up. The scoundrel ran straight for Kitten, almost toppling her in his exuberance.
“Sorry, he got away,” the guard wheezed. I waved him off, running my hand on the back of my head, blowing out a breath. When I looked back at Loren, she was on the ground, playing with the mischievous dog.
“Oh my goodness, Fort. You’ve gotten so big in a week.” He barked, sitting up on his hind legs, preening at her words. “You’re the most handsome doggo.” She rubbed his head, petting him all over, and he took it, knowing where the good stuff was. He flopped down, opting for a belly rub.
“Well, I guess that settles it. Let’s move this outside where we have more room.”
“Oh, yay! I’m so excited.”
“Hopefully, you’ll be saying that in the next hour.”
“I should have Jude come out too. He’d get a kick out of it.”
“Yeah, sure.”
I started to pick up all the training material, wiping down the items that needed it as she fawned over the mutt more than she’d ever had with me. When I slammed a cone down, I realized I was jealous of a dog. Shaking my head, I finished the rest, remembering who the alpha in this relationship was.
Sax had come over and looked at the dog with suspicion, and I felt moderately better that Fort didn’t like him either. Guess it was just a Kitten thing.
I grabbed my stuff and motioned for her to follow. She stood, clapping her hands to get Fort’s attention, and he agreeably walked with her, happy to be in her presence. Sighing, I accepted the fact that perhaps not every dog liked everybody, and if he were going to like someone, he’d picked a good one with Loren. She was hard not to like, after all. I’d tried for months, and I still ended up here, not able to get enough time with her, now having to share it with a dog.
For the next thirty minutes, we spent time outside going over some basic commands. Regrettably, he did listen to her more than he had me, but he still wasn’t consistent. When he ran after the ball but refused to give it back, I couldn’t help but laugh out loud at Kitten’s frustration.
“Fort! Come back. Here!” When she heard me laughing, she turned to me, placing her hands on her hips, her chin sticking out. “What?”
“Not so fun when he does whatever he wants, huh?”
“I’m sure he’s just tired. It’s fine.”
“Uh-huh.”