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“You going to tell me why you’re doing this yet?”
Lily didn’t even pause, her fists continuing to move in a rhythmic, persistent whack on the bag in front of her. If anything, she hit harder, again and again.
“You’ve been coming here for weeks, practically every day. Shit, you’re almost here more than me.”
Her teeth gritted, shoulders tensed. She focused on breathing, out with the punch, in with the release. Allowed her hips to follow the movement, her feet to lift and twist. The bag began to sway.
“I didn’t really care at first. Pretty girl, working out harder than most blokes. Can’t lie, Evans, it’s been good for business.”
Sweat beaded across her forehead, sliding down her temple, dripping off her chin. Lily could feel it collecting between her breasts. Proof of her efforts, just like the burn in her muscles, the shake in her limbs.
“But now, watching you push yourself, kill yourself, there has to be more to it.”
His voice, his challenging, arrogant, knowing voice filled her ears, echoing, taunting. It fueled her, challenged her, helped her focus. He might not be the cause, but he sure as hell could be the answer. But that didn’t mean she didn’t wish he’d just leave her alone.
“What is it, Evans? Revenge on a cheating lover? Bested by a colleague you can’t stand? Fight with your best friend? A broken nail?”
He needed to shut up. She needed to stay quiet. He needed to walk away. She needed to keep her routine. He needed to leave her alone. She needed to make him.
“Come on, Evans, give me a hint at least. Promise I won’t laugh.”
He'd been pushing, closer and closer, trying to figure her out. Trying to get her to open up. Trying to get under her skin.
The fact that it was working made it all the more enraging
“Fuck off, Potter.” The growl escaped before she could pull it back. Spinning away from the bag, Lily swung a right hook in the vicinity of his smirking face.
She was unsurprised, but disappointed all the same, when her glove only met his boxing pad.
“Well, that’s not very nice.” James' eyebrow was raised, his tone condescending.
“I’m not nice.” She thrust, a three punch combo, two jabs and an uppercut. He met each hit with his pads, barely needing to shift his weight to counter her.
“See now, Evans, I just don’t really believe you. You reek of nice.” He motioned with one pad for her to continue, stepping backwards onto the mat that filled the centre of the room.
Lily followed, double stepping to bring herself back within range, arms moving of their own accord. Jab, jab, hook, jab. Two left hooks, a right, left again. Three uppercuts, a duck of his returning swipe, a swift jab to the resulting gap he’d left near his face. He stepped back, she pushed forward, twisted, swung wide, set in again.
Round and round they went, moving across the padded floor of the otherwise quiet gym. It had been busy when she’d arrived, others sparring on the mats, most of the bags and speed balls occupied. Clearly, she’d lost herself to her drills, as she often did, for now it was just the two of them, attacking and defending in turn, breathing hard, not giving an inch.
“What is it, Evans? Huh?” James challenged her, regaining ground when she stumbled through a particularly vicious blow. “Was I close?”
“Not by a long shot,” she panted, following four jabs with a high knee, grabbing at his shoulders to pull his stomach closer in range.
It didn’t land, and he pushed her off easily. “Tell me, then. What has you here, every day, busting your gut? Can’t just be your gigantic crush on me.”
“Dream on.” Her next hook was harder, faster. James barely got his pad up to cover his face in time. “Not everything is about you.” Lily spun, adding a roundhouse kick, straight for the cleft of his chin.
Moving so quickly she completely missed it, he dropped one pad from his hand, before deftly catching her around the ankle, holding it up near his shoulder. She teetered on her standing leg, trying to pull herself free without falling over.
“Evans,” he was much quieter this time, but there was something else there. Concern. Maybe even care. It unsettled her to no end. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. No one,” Lily fought uselessly against him, but his fingers only tightened in response. His other hand, now also free of its mitt, came to her knee, stabilising while further preventing her escape.
“Evans.” His eyes were steel and determination. He wasn’t going to let it go. Let her go.
“Just a creep. Won’t leave me alone.”
His grip was so hard now, she thought he’d cut off the blood supply to her foot. “A stalker? An ex?”
“Yes to the stalker, he wishes to the ex. Childhood friend who didn’t think I should get to say no to more.”
“He ever hurt you?”
“Tried. Cornered me outside my house. That’s when I started coming here.” This time, when she tugged, he released her. It took several hops to find her balance, and when she finally looked back up, it was to find a tower of primal, blistering rage where James had stood. Lily had never seen him look so angry, his normally mischievous grin replaced with a hard line and pursed lips.
“Did you report him? Get a restraining order?”
“Two,” she shrugged. “Didn’t help.”
They were standing too far apart for sparring, and James hadn’t moved to replace the pads on his hands. He was staring at the mat, the rise and fall of his heaving chest the only visible movement in his body. He was so rarely still, she couldn’t help but stare. Caught in her blinding white hot anger, Lily hadn’t noticed his shirtless state before.
She certainly did now.
Just like her, James was slick with sweat. It ran in rivulets down his chest, following the lines and planes of smooth, hard muscle, evidence of all the workouts he did, the upsides of owning a mixed martial arts gym. She followed the moisture as it worked its way down his body, disappearing into the waistband of his black shorts, leading her eyes to focus even lower.
“Drop the gloves, Evans.”
Panicked that she’d been caught being the exact type of creeper she’d been complaining about, Lily’s eyes flew back up. But James wasn’t looking at her face. His eyes were narrowed, brow furrowed, jaw held so tight she could see a spasm run across her cheek. His attention was focused, instead, on her hands.
“What?”
“Drop your gloves.” He moved toward her when she continued to look blankly back. His touch was gentle, a complete contrast to the tension he held in his face, when he reached for her arm. With practised, careful movements, he unlaced and removed one of her boxing gloves, repeating the process for the other when Lily made no move to do it herself.
“What are you doing?” She couldn’t fathom what he was doing, or why, following the movement of her gloves as he tossed them away, off to the side of the large floor mat.
James’ knuckles brushed under her chin, turning her head back toward him, pulling her gaze up to his. “We’ve been teaching you to box since you got here.”
“Yeah, and? I’m good at it.”
“You are,” he conceded. “But we should have been teaching you self-defense. Martial arts, at least. No wonder you haven’t been able to relax. I’m sorry. I should have asked sooner.”
Lily blinked, her eyes pricking unexpectedly at his soft tone. “I wouldn’t have told you. Can’t believe I did now.”
His smile was brief, a fleeting whisper of its usual self. She found she missed it, more than she thought she would. “I’m glad you did. We can get to work.”
“What, now?”
“No time like the present, Evans.”
She could have sworn he hadn’t moved, hadn’t even seen him flinch, but she found herself on her back all the same, winded by the smack with which she’d fallen. The groan that escaped her caused her no end of disappointment, and she blinked hard as she looked up to where he loomed over her.
“What the fuck, Potter?”
James’ hand reached toward her, and she took it gingerly, wondering if it was a trap. But he only pulled her just hard enough to lift her quite effortlessly to her feet. Lily found herself with only a breath of air between them, her hand still in his, the other bracing lightly on his bicep to stop herself from falling forward into him on momentum alone.
He smirked, and it was so much more infuriating closeup. “Vigilance, Evans. Constant Vigilance.” He moved, stepping back, and Lily felt cold, which was weird given she hadn’t even realised the warmth radiating between them until she’d lost it. “But we’ll start with something a bit easier.”
They started with an arm grab. James got her to grasp him around the wrist first, playing the victim, and showing her how to twist her arm to release the grip. He made it look so simple, first slow, then at lightning speed. It was only when they swapped roles that Lily realised it was much harder than it looked. But with practise, and his constant encouragement, she got it.
His beaming smile was a fantastic reward system.
The motivational looks continued as he showed her how to extract herself from getting pulled by her hair, how to strike with her elbow, her palm, her keys. Over and over they practised until she was as quick as he was with the basic moves.
Then he grabbed her from behind.
All hell broke loose inside her.
“Gotcha,” James growled in her ear as his arms wrapped around her stomach. She’d been taking a quick water break, and dropped her bottle immediately to grasp at his forearms. Lily was all too aware of every part of their bodies that touched. His chest against her back, both bare apart from her sports bra, her singlet having been discarded long before he’d even approached her at the punching bag. The curve of her bottom, covered with the thin nylon of her shorts, fit perfectly over his groin as his body curled around her. Heat blistered as their damp skin slid against each other, the salty musk of exercise and exertion filling her senses.
She was so overwhelmed by the swirl in her stomach, the clench of her gut, it took her more than a few moments to realise she needed to try to get away. That she should want to get away.
Lily struggled, trying to pry his arms off her, but his fingers only dug into her torso, spanning out over her ribs. His head dropped, chin jutting into her shoulder, glasses cold against her feverish neck. He held tighter as she fought harder against him.
“Not that way,” he murmured. “You’ll only tire yourself out. You’re smaller, so you have to be smarter.”
Frustration mixed with other emotions she didn’t want to name. “Tell me how.” A barked order.
The amusement he felt at her temper was obvious. “Alright, alright. Move your hips to the side, swing me so you can drop your elbow into my stomach.”
She tried once, twice and landed a solid blow on her third go. Her reward was James’ puff of breath, sweeping across her skin, causing the tiny hairs to raise on her shoulder and down her arm. His grip loosened, just enough.
“Good.” The praise felt like liquid honey, soothing her tantrum. “Then you’d go for the groin with your fist, though I’d appreciate you going for my thigh given this is a demonstration.”
“Worried, Potter?” She couldn’t help the challenge in her voice.
“I’d still like to have kids, someday.”
A couple of strikes to his thigh and James stepped back, his arms releasing. Without coaching Lily turned instinctively, repeating the high knee she’d used earlier with the pads. This time she caught him off guard, her knee coming impossibly close to his manhood. He caught her knee just in time, and turned it, sending her off balance until she fell against him.
“I said I wanted those kids, Evans.”
“My mistake, Potter.”
Not even trying to regain her balance, she swept her foot around the back of his legs, catching the back of his knee and pushing it into flexion. Satisfyingly, James went down as she’d intended, but her proximity caused the inadvertent result that she hit the deck right along with him. Lily landed on top of him, but quickly found herself plonked on her back, James on all fours above her.
His eyes were black, none of the usual gold and hazel glinting behind his metal frames. He breathed just as hard as she did, palms on either side of her head, knees next to her hips.
“So, it’s like that, is it?” He growled. “I try to help you, and you take me down.”
She licked her lips, watching his eyes dart, following the movement. “It’s like that,” she confirmed. Bucking her hips, she shifted his weight forward, slipping her body down. Using her arms to hug his stomach, she twisted an arm, buckling his elbow until his shoulder hit the mat, and her legs gave her leverage to follow until their positions were neatly reversed.
Lily’s own smirk crossed her face as she stared down at him, eyebrow raised. “How’d I do?”
James laughed, “Like a fucking natural, Evans. Like a fucking natural.” His hands moved from his sides on the mat to rest on her legs where they hovered over him. “How are you feeling?”
“Better,” she admitted, trying not to focus on the way his thumbs were brushing along the delicate skin of her inner thigh. Closer to her knee than her hip, sure, but still. “Thanks for the lesson.”
“Anytime, Evans,” he smiled, not seeming to care a wit that she was still kneeling over him. His fingers squeezed her leg. “Going to tell me where I can find that tosser?”
“Probably not.”
“You shouldn’t have to deal with that.”
“It’s fine, Potter,” she took one hand off the mat, reaching up to push stray strands of hair back from her face. “It’s not your problem.”
“I’m making it my problem, Evans.”
Taking advantage of her instability, James grabbed for her waist before her arm could come back down, and twisted her. Refusing to go down without a fight, Lily flailed, threading her leg through his midair, trying to stop herself from going down. They grappled back and forth, hands grabbing and pulling, bodies shifting together, sliding against each other, trying to fight for dominance.
Experience, sheer size and overwhelming strength meant James eventually quite literally came out on top, only he wasn’t kneeling this time. His upper body was held over her on his elbows, bringing his chest in line with hers, one knee between her legs, torso flush with hers. Each heavy breath echoed from his chest to hers.
Nose nudging hers, James hovered inches from her lips. “In case you needed me to spell it out, Evans, I’m making you my problem.” His knuckles stroked along her cheekbone, and she felt her eyelashes fluttered against the side of his thumb, the gentle touch a striking contrast with the rough brutality of their wrestling.
“Potter,” she sighed, unable to stop the breathy note in her voice. “You don’t-”
“Lily,” James' head bent impossibly lower, yet his mouth still didn’t meet hers. "I really do. And you've got about five seconds to stop before I show you why."
She arched against him, relishing in the shift of his hips, his hard length against hers. Her hand drifted hand up his side, the other moving higher, curling around the back of his neck. “I'm not going to stop you."
He had just enough time to respond, a growled, "Thank fuck," before she closed the gap herself, preventing him from saying anything else, for a long, long time.