Burned (Cosmo Red-Hot Reads from Harlequin) Read online

  ‘We’d better go back inside.’ I stepped away from him. ‘You’re supposed to be team building.’

  This time around, I was in control of my emotions. My feelings were my problem, not his. It was up to me to handle them. To accept the truth.

  He’d been the right guy at the wrong time and I’d always regret that, but it was something I had to learn to deal with.

  CHAPTER SIX

  It was an exasperating truth that the harder you tried to avoid someone, the more you saw of them.

  I was determined to avoid Hunter as much as possible, so of course I bumped into him everywhere and it was very distracting. To be fair, the rest of the female members of staff were distracted, too.

  I tried to work off my frustration in the gym. I took extra sessions and did extra workouts myself.

  By Friday of the following week I was physically exhausted but nothing had dampened my sexual frustration.

  I texted my sister, ‘Pick up batteries on your way home.’

  She texted back, ‘Pick up Hunter instead.’

  I ignored that, gritted my teeth and got on with my day. I avoided the changing room because that made things worse.

  I did pretty well until late afternoon when I saw Hunter in one of the studios, hunkered down in front of a skinny boy of about nine. I didn’t recognize him.

  ‘He’s being bullied at school.’ Caroline’s voice came from behind me. ‘His mum came in earlier in the week and talked to Hunter about whether he should start karate.’

  We stood together watching as Hunter talked quietly to the boy and then gave him a lesson, one-to-one.

  I could see the confidence flowing from Hunter into the boy, just as it once had with me.

  ‘He’s good with kids.’ I didn’t realize I’d spoken aloud until Caroline agreed with me.

  ‘I guess it has something to do with his own upbringing. It’s really important to him to help kids who are in trouble at home. It’s kind of like a project for him. Probably because of his own background.’

  I tried to remember what I knew about his background and realized it was very little. When we’d been together, we’d been so wrapped up in each other, so focused on ourselves, we’d rarely talked about other things. But as I stared at the tear-stained face of the boy—who was looking a lot happier now—I realized I’d been the same. Older. Probably less endearing. But just as vulnerable.

  A project.

  I remembered that day Hunter had come over to me and wondered if he’d seen me that way.

  Was that why he’d found it so easy to walk away?

  Caroline glanced at her watch. ‘We’re all going out again tonight. There’s a new club in Soho. Are you coming?’

  I shook my head. I had to try and cure myself and the way to cure myself wasn’t to carry on immersing myself in the problem. And anyway, I’d had enough torture for one week.

  Instead I put my client through his paces and then decided to find a quiet place to train. I needed to let off steam. We stayed open until ten on a Friday, so I changed quickly and found an empty studio. I didn’t bother turning the lights on. Instead I practised kicks.

  I’m a black belt in karate—men don’t usually want to hear that—but I’d taken up Muay Thai only a few years ago. In Muay Thai we generally don’t kick with the foot. It’s full of small bones, easily breakable. We prefer the shin.

  There was a bag in the corner of the studio and after warming up, I started practising. The kick is the long-range weapon of Muay Thai and the most important things are speed and placement, so I focused on that.

  I thought I was on my own, so when I turned, breathless, and saw Hunter standing there, it was a shock.

  ‘Why aren’t you at the club with the others?’

  ‘Why aren’t you?’

  ‘I had a client. And I wanted to train.’

  ‘So let’s train.’ He strolled across to me with that loose-limbed easy gait that made my mouth water and my stomach curl with agonizing tension. As he walked across the room, I noticed he didn’t bother turning on the lights. The studio was in semidarkness, the only lights coming from the glow of the city.

  And now I was trapped.

  I could hardly tell him the reason I hadn’t joined them on their night out was that I’d thought he’d be there. I couldn’t change my mind without drawing attention to the way I felt. It was my problem.

  Dealing with it in the only way I knew, I turned back to the bag but he caught my shoulder.

  ‘No. Full contact.’

  In other words, he was giving me permission to kick him.

  I wasn’t about to object to that.

  Thai pad training is a classic way of teaching attack and defence techniques. It helps improve speed, mobility and reaction time.

  In theory the pads absorb the blows and minimize the force but I wasn’t sure there was enough padding in the world to protect him from the energy I was prepared to put into my strikes. I was handling a lot of pent-up energy.

  I waited while he strapped on belly pads intended to absorb punches, knee strikes and kicks and then I started.

  I didn’t hold back but that didn’t seem to bother Hunter.

  He stood rock solid as I came at him, coaching me, making suggestions, occasionally demonstrating a better technique.

  ‘You’re overrotating on your kicks.’

  ‘I am not.’

  ‘Too much hip turn without the shoulder and arm torque.’

  ‘Anything else?’ I turned, fuming and frustrated, and he smiled.

  ‘Yeah, you’re cute when you’re angry, Ninja.’

  The way he said it almost cut me off at the knees.

  ‘Don’t call me Ninja.’ And don’t call me cute. The words hovered in the air unsaid and his eyes held mine.

  Then he carried on coaching as if that moment had never happened. He gave me some tips he’d picked up in Thailand and I tried not to look impressed even though I was. Training in Thailand was my dream. Secretly I wanted to sit on him and torture him until he told me everything he’d learned but I didn’t trust myself to be that close to him.

  When I’d exhausted myself kicking the bag, we did clinch work. Close-up training.

  Believe me, you did not want to be doing that with someone you were trying to avoid.

  Without looking at that dark jaw, those powerful shoulders, I slammed him with knees, elbows, and then we were grappling and he tripped me.

  Holy crap.

  I fell onto the mat on my back and he came down on top of me.

  I knew from the hold he used that we were no longer practising Muay Thai.

  His gaze was fixed on mine and then he lowered his head and kissed me and his kiss was more devastating than anything he could have done with the rest of his body.

  There is nothing about this in a Muay Thai training manual. Seriously. Being knocked out just doesn’t mean this. He devoured my mouth with his as if I was the best thing he’d ever tasted, as if I were a meal and he couldn’t get enough of me. It was as wild as it had been that night in the changing room and somewhere in my blurred brain I realized he’d been holding back when we were together the first time. His tongue slid against mine and I was dizzy with the feel of him, the taste of him, the intoxicating heat of his mouth on mine. My heart pounded at an insane rate and any hope I had of hiding how I felt vanished. I wrapped my arms round his neck but the padding got in the way and I writhed under him, frustrated by the barriers between us.

  He shifted his weight so he didn’t crush me and then caught my face in his hand so I was forced to look into the fierce blaze of his eyes.

  ‘Is this what you want?’ His voice was thickened, his eyes darker than usual and I was so hypnotized by what I saw in those eyes I could hardly breathe, let alone speak.

/>   ‘Yes. But just sex, nothing else. I’m over you.’

  His eyes were dark as flint, hooded, slumberous. ‘Right now you’re under me, Ninja, which gives me the advantage.’

  He had all the advantage, but I wasn’t going to tell him that. This time around, I had myself under control. This time, he was the one right on the edge.

  The only sound in the room was our breathing. Beyond the glass lay the river and the crush of people that came out to enjoy London at night, but here it was just the two of us. We were alone, wrapped by excitement and smothered by a sexual tension that threatened to blow my brain.

  He eased away from me and hauled me to my feet. Then he reached to help me remove my pads but I stepped back.

  I did everything myself now. Everything.

  ‘I’m fine.’ My fingers were shaking but I managed it and he watched me the whole time, those eyes dark and assessing, as if he was making up his mind about something. Then he strolled across to the glass and stared down over the river. He leaned his hand against the glass and looked down into the street and I saw the rigid set of his shoulders.

  I knew regret when I saw it and this time I was determined to cut him loose. ‘Look—maybe you’re right. We should just forget it.’

  ‘Is that what you want?’ His tone was raw and he turned, his gaze burning into mine. ‘Is that really what you want?’ He prowled over to me until we were standing toe to toe. My skin felt sensitive and heat uncoiled low in my belly. The look in his eyes made my heart pound because I realized I wasn’t seeing regret.

  ‘I—well—’ I was stammering, torn between the lie and the truth. I couldn’t think with him standing this close. I couldn’t breathe. I licked my lips. ‘No. I don’t want to forget it. I wish...’ Oh, God, I was as bad as Brian, stopping in midsentence, but Hunter simply slid his fingers under my chin and tilted my face to his.

  ‘What do you wish?’

  ‘Like I said the other night, I wish I’d met you for the first time now.’

  ‘Why?’

  I gave a half smile. ‘Because we would have had great sex. You’re the only man I’ve ever met who isn’t threatened by my turning kick. I don’t scare you or threaten your masculinity.’

  He lifted his eyebrows. ‘That happens?’

  ‘All the time. My turning kick might not impress you but it’s a turnoff for some.’ I tried to keep it light and suddenly I didn’t feel like laughing.

  The truth was I longed for someone who liked me the way I was. Who encouraged me and supported me while I travelled the route I’d chosen instead of always trying to push me onto another path.

  Hunter wasn’t smiling either. He lifted his hand and pushed my hair back from my face. ‘I happen to love your turning kick,’ he said softly. ‘And you don’t scare me or threaten my masculinity.’

  I suspected that nothing aside from a direct hit in the balls would threaten his masculinity and possibly not even that. I’d never met any man as comfortable in his skin as Hunter.

  He was silent for a moment, as if making up his mind about something. Then he muttered something under his breath and let his hand drop.

  ‘So let’s pretend we’re meeting for the first time. Have dinner with me.’

  It was the last thing I’d expected him to say. ‘Why would I do that?’

  ‘Because you want to. Because you’ve thought about me every day for the past five years.’

  I gasped. ‘You arrogant b—’

  ‘And because I want to, and I’ve thought about you every day for the past five years.’

  His words knocked the protest out of my mouth and the breath from my lungs.

  It was like landing on my back on the mat.

  I stood drowning in fathoms of emotion, trying to fight my way to the surface, trying to get my head above it so I could breathe.

  ‘It’s been a long week. I’m not in the mood for going out.’

  ‘Neither am I. We’ll go to my place.’ His tone was rough and I immediately knew he was feeling the way I was feeling. I could hear it in his voice.

  I stood for a moment staring at the door, knowing I had to make a decision because both of us knew this wasn’t about dinner.

  We could carry on as we were, dancing around the past, kissing whenever we came too close, fighting it, pretending it wasn’t happening. Or we could make an active decision. We could choose to step forward or back.

  And I realized Hayley had been right when she’d said I’d never moved on.

  I’d never had chemistry with a man as I did with Hunter. And maybe I was seeing the past through rose-tinted glasses, but I knew I had to find out. I couldn’t go through life using him as the ruler against which I measured every man—and I was talking figuratively, in case you thought I went round sticking a ruler down men’s pants.

  I wasn’t the same vulnerable teenager he’d rescued. I’d grown up. Last time he’d had my heart, but this time my heart was mine. All that was on offer was my body.

  ‘How far is your place?’ I was so desperate I wasn’t sure I’d make it and he smiled as he held the door open for me, waiting while I picked up my bag and all my gear.

  ‘One floor. I live upstairs.’

  That close? My heart rate doubled. ‘Upstairs?’

  ‘You didn’t know?’ He walked down the corridor toward the foyer but instead of going down to the ground floor, we went up. ‘I lease the apartment with the rest of the building. It has great views. We can eat and talk without being crushed by the Friday-night London crowd.’

  I didn’t think talking was what either of us had in mind.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Hunter’s apartment was spectacular and the crazy thing was I hadn’t even known it existed. I’d worked at Fit and Physical since I finished my degree in physiology and sports science and I’d never once wondered what was on the floor above us.

  The answer was two floors of real-estate nirvana.

  The living room stretched across the whole of the building, open plan with huge glass walls that looked across the river. Cream sofas were grouped around an ultra-modern fireplace enclosed by glass and in one corner was a dining table positioned to make the most of the spectacular views.

  ‘Nice.’ I thought of our little apartment in Notting Hill. We loved it but you could barely do a scissor kick without knocking something over. Here you could have held a tournament and still not filled the floor space. ‘It’s huge. Who are you living with? There’s space for the whole of the British karate team.’

  He gave a faint smile. ‘Just me. I like space. I don’t like feeling enclosed.’

  ‘Who lived here before you?’

  ‘A banker. He moved out when I bought the building.’

  ‘So Hollywood pays well.’ I strolled to the windows and stared out across the river. ‘It reminds me of Nico’s apartment.’

  ‘Nico?’ His voice was a little cooler and I smiled. I still had my back to him, so I thought the smile was between me and the window but it turned out I wasn’t as clever as I thought, because he was standing behind me and the window acted like a mirror. ‘You’re trying to make me suffer just a little bit for what I did to you.’

  ‘No. I don’t play those games.’ I could feel the warmth of him behind me and watched as his hands came to my shoulders.

  ‘Who is Nico?’

  ‘He’s a lawyer. He’s seeing Hayley.’

  His grip on my shoulders eased. ‘So who was the guy you were with the other night? The one who wants you to join a book group and bake cakes.’

  ‘Brian.’

  ‘What were you doing with him, Rosie?’

  ‘Having dinner.’

  ‘He’s so obviously wrong for you.’

  I could feel his hands, strong and sure on my shoulders. ‘You’re not the exp
ert on me.’

  ‘I know you.’

  ‘No.’ I turned so that we were face to face, so there could be no mistake. ‘You knew me. I’m a different person now.’

  ‘Why was he breaking up with you?’

  ‘He finds me scary. Unfeminine.’

  Hunter told me what he thought of that in a single succinct word that made me smile and then he slid his hands down my arms and suddenly I wasn’t smiling anymore. I felt his palms, warm and calloused, brush against my skin. Knowing what those hands could do, I shivered.

  I’d been badly burned, and here I was playing with fire again.

  Was I doing the wrong thing?

  My courage faltered. ‘Maybe I should go. Are we being crazy?’

  ‘No.’ His voice was rough and raw. ‘I really want you to stay.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I can’t get through my day without thinking about you. Because I can’t focus. All I can think of is you, naked and underneath me.’ His jaw was tight, clenched, and it was obvious he was suffering as much as I was.

  For some reason that made me feel better. Not that I wanted to suffer, but I didn’t want to be trapped in this cycle of sexual torment alone.

  ‘Who says I’d be underneath?’ I shot him a look. ‘Maybe I’d be the one on top.’

  His eyes gleamed. ‘Maybe you would.’

  My breathing was shallow. I still didn’t know what was going on in his head. ‘I’m not some project.’

  His eyes narrowed. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Nothing.’ I decided this wasn’t the time to think about it. It didn’t matter anyway.

  ‘I don’t blame you for hesitating. I hurt you. I’m sorry for that and I’m sorry I made you wary about men.’ There was a raw edge to his tone that caught my attention as much as the hard bite of his fingers and I realized I’d never really thought deeply about his reasons for leaving. I’d been so hurt all I’d thought about was myself.

  I looked down at his hand, bronzed and strong, holding me firmly.

  We could spend the evening talking about the past, going over what had happened like a tractor with its wheels stuck in muddy ground digging itself ever deeper instead of moving forward. But I knew I didn’t want to live my life sinking into the mud of what had happened five years before. I wanted to put it behind me. I couldn’t change what had happened, but I could choose not to let it taint my present. I could choose to be in charge of my future.