“And sparring with me gets you wet. I understand.”
Her eyes flash pure anger. “But we can’t do it. All right? Can we agree?”
I stand and brush my hands on my legs. “No.”
“Excuse me?”
“Remember the deal.All of you.”
“Peter—”
“I won’t force anything on you, little killer. But maybe knowing I could do that to you anytime I chose will keep that fire burning bright inside of you. Maybe you’ll train just a little bit harder, fight with just a little more desperation, knowing that I can pin you down and fuck you senseless whenever I want.” I step closer to her, heart racing. “And you know what the worst part is? There’s a voice in your head right now begging for you to give in and let me do it.”
“Fuck you,” she whispers. “Are you always this manipulative?”
“Only when I need to be.” I turn my back on her. I don’t want her to see my face right now. If she could, she might realize how badly I wished I didn’t need to push her into anything. If I had my way, we wouldn’t train, we wouldn’t fight—we’d lie by the ocean, drink martinis, and fuck until our bodies couldn’t handle more.
Though I’ll admit, the fighting makes the fucking that much better.
“We’ve been training for days now. When are we going to meet with Reina again?”
“We can’t, not until we have something to bring her.”
“Then when are we going to dosomething?”
I take a deep breath and let it out. She has a point—we can’t sit here and fuck around forever. “Rastus isn’t going to help. That’s pretty obvious. But he doesn’t control all of the captains on Crete. There are other people we can approach. It’ll be dangerous, but it might work.”
“How dangerous are we talking?”
“The men that work for the Filos are used to taking on morally gray jobs. But there’s another union we can try.”
“I take it they don’t normally go for these morally gray business transactions.”
“No, not typically. They have an honest reputation. But sometimes reputations are there to hide the truth. I think we should go see what they’re really like.” I start toward the house, the decision made, the plans forming.
“What about my training?”
“Take a break,” I say and glance at my watch. “We’ve got another couple hours of daylight left. Take twenty then we’ll start up again until it gets too dark.”
“Fighting only,” she calls out. “None of that other stuff!”
I smile and push open the door. “We’ll see, but I won’t go easy on you either way,” I say and head inside.
Chapter12
Adrienne
I’m exhausted. My muscles ache. My jaw hurts from getting punched and I’ve got a dozen bruises all over my body—bruises Peter put there. Bruises like I was left with after the Russians tortured me.
Except I’m proud of these marks.
Iearnedthem.
They’re proof of my hard work etched into my flesh. I cherish each and every cut, every swollen knee, every split lip, every mark on my skin, because each and every one of them means I’m getting better. Peter even admits I’ve picked things up faster than he expected and now we spend most of our time sparring instead of doing training drills.
It hurts, but it’s exciting. I know he holds back—he has to, he’s twice my size and I’m pretty sure he could literally break my skull in half with his bare hands if he didn’t—but I still get in a few good punches and kicks each time we clash. He might be stronger, but I’m quick and I fight dirty and I get up after I get knocked down and I never stay down for long.
He hasn’t pinned me to the grass and licked me since that one time, and I wish he would do it again every time we spar.