ChapterEighteen
TATI
“Is thereanything sexier than watching two men just beat the shit out of each other?” Jenn asked, her gaze planted firmly on where, across the gym, Onyx and Brandon were sparring.
Shirtless.
In answer, I cringed, not because she was wrong, but because Onyx was still bandaged because he’dfucking got shot last week.
Brandon promised me he wouldn’t hit him there and apparentlythatwas “taking it easy”.
Niggas.
Still, in the spurts where I managed to push that out of my mind for my sanity, I got exactly what she was saying. Was it kinda toxic? Sure, maybe, but therewassomething mesmerizing about the display of raw power between the two.
I wasn’t really looking at Brandon like that. I’d pretty much tuned him out in favor of hyper-focusing on the way Onyx moved around the ring.
He was holding back.
Probably a strange conclusion to arrive at when – again – he was dealing with a fresh gunshot wound, but from a distance, I could tell. Brandon was probably too close to it, to in the moment to pick up on it, but Onyx had clearly clockedhiscaution, and had brought down his aggression to match.
Or maybe he would have done that anyway, since they were having fun, not in a real cage match, with an audience.
And really… knowing they werebothholding back released me to have fun watching, instead of worrying about it. Not that I was supposed to be watching anyway.
“You ready to get back to it?”
I blinked, tearing my eyes away from Onyx’s sweaty body long enough to look to Jenn. Her hands were propped on her hips, a little smirk on her face as she waited for my response, a reluctant nod.
I didn’twantto “get back to it”, but “it” was important.
Brandon, Alicia, Onyx, and Keira had banded together to insist on some “close combat” training for me. At first, I’d been a little offended – and offered to kick all their asses – but common sense had prevailed.
I wouldn’t always be in a situation where my guard was up,expectinga fight.
Which was a large reason for why Kev had been able to get the best of me.
And honestly… Onyx too, when he’d broken in.
I wasn’t great incaught off guardsituations.
Generally speaking, I could throw hands just fine; it was literally in my blood and I had grown up doing plenty of it—in defense of my little sister and otherwise. As an adult, my father and Jesse – Blue’s father – had started the task of teaching me how toreallyfight.
Maybe I wouldn’t have this weakness now if their deaths hadn’t interrupted that education.
In any case, I had Jenn here now; she was from Alicia’s firm, but not aRose. She was the same instructor Keira had gone to years ago when she was doing self-defense classes. Now she’d made the switch to private security but was doing us this favor.
Did Iwantto spend my time doing this?
Not really.
But I’d be damned if anybody got the jump on me again without me being able to give them a run for their moneyright then, not once I found an opening later, like with Kev.
Besides… Jenn was badass.
“It’s so much less work to just shoot motherfuckers,” I groaned, moving into the stance we’d been working on for the last thirty minutes. “Most people just shut up when they see you’ve got a gun.”
Jenn laughed. “True, but you won’t always have a gun,” she said, moving behind me to “attack” from outside my sight line. “You need to be able to handle yourself in any circumstance.”