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I pat his cheek…hard. “It’s cute that you think that.”
Koehn strides in and walks to the center of the gym. “Okay. We basically have no rules except no low blows and raising your arm means that you’ve conceded. At that point, I will declare the other one the winner.”
“Terrific. Let’s do this,” I say and bounce on my feet lightly. I’ve got the energy and drive to do this. I know I do. I just need a little bit of luck.”
Koehn smirks at both of us. “Are you both ready?”
I squat and eye him critically, my hands set in a ready position, waiting until the moment we clash.
He grins. “Let’s do this.”
Koehn grunts. I guess that means set in Koehn speak because Varnak also squats.
I breathe in deeply, pushing away all the thoughts and feelings of the day and the way everyone is staring at us.
None of that stuff matters.
One more deep breath and the world tightens to just the two of us and then Koehn hollers and I charge forward until I kick sharply at Varnak’s knee. He grunts and goes down for one second. Then he races forward and slams into me, grunting as we collide.
I groan and then slip to the ground but before he can say one word I’m on my feet and I slap away the hand he’s holding out to me. I bounce again on my feet, feeling light and airy. My fists come out and one of them connects with the well-muscled torso of him and I fight to keep from wincing at the pain in my fist.
He grunts but barely moves. I chase him across the gym and then I grasp his long hair and whip him around until he roars with anger. Then he drops to his knees and bounces almost immediately to his feet.
He circles me and snarls, his fangs exposed, glistening white in the dim gym. “Come on, vistu. Is that all you’ve got? Surely you can do more damage than that.”
I grin cheekily. “I absolutely can.” My leg comes out and I grunt as my foot comes into contact with the hard bone of his shin. But it’s worth it because he drops to one knee and my fist connects with his side.
“Vreck!”
The crowd around us quiets and he glares at them. “I will not let you best me, vistu. No matter what you do, I will win. You might as well give up now.”
I snort happily and shuffle around him easily. “Dude. I have no intention of giving up.”
“I should hope not. I don’t want to win because you let me. I don’t need that.”
As he’s saying that, I dart behind him and clamber up on his back, startling the hell out of both of us. I can feel him still and the quick intake of breath in front of me.
Before he can do much more than that, I grasp at his neck and throw all of my weight behind me, dropping him to the floor again.
He growls and then all hell breaks loose everywhere around us.
CHAPTER 4
Varnak
Her body is pressed up against me and I can feel her warm skin sizzling along my own skin. My nerves are dancing and it feels like I can’t think more than one second without picturing her under me in another room, in another hour, another second, another lifetime where we could indulge in the dangers and joys of the flesh.
But this is not that time.
“Tell me again why you think you can win this, vistu,” I grunt and shove at her shoulder, pushing her off of me and breaking her hold easily.
“Because….” But she stops talking and then her fist connects with my jaw and stars dance behind in my eyes.
I stand up and snarl as I push her back, stalking lightly around her frail little body. It pisses me off that she’s the one that insisted I needed to fight her to force her to admit that she’s not the right person for this mission.
I don’t want to touch her let alone fight her. But I’ll be a vrecking moldesta if I let her make this trip with me. I cannot do it. I am just not sure I have the control to keep to my own side of the ship and not sneak in to see her sleep, watch her breathe and dream about her when I do manage to close my eyes for a few minutes. I will get no rest and it will be the worst thing that I could do to myself.
I shake my head again, my ears still ringing as I pace around her. She keeps one eye on me at all times and I can’t do anything but look for an opening where I will not hurt her unnecessarily.
