Page 114 of How to Kill Your Rival

She looks at me for a long moment. ‘And when I win?’

‘When you win? That’s bold.’

‘Bold but true.’

‘If you’re naked first, I’ll admit you’re the best.’

That makes those eyes glitter. Ever my challenger.

‘And if you’re naked first?’

‘Then you have to admit I’m the best, obviously.’

Her eyes narrow. ‘It’ll never happen.’

‘You a sore loser?’

‘No. Because I’m not going to lose.’

We stare at one another, and I’m hyper aware of her chest rising quicker. The muscles in her arms are tensing.

Then she runs.

Goddamn, she’s so fucking fast.

I don’t know why I’m surprised by this. I’ve seen her training. I’ve seen her hunting men. Still, when she whizzes off, the sheer violence in which she moves has me salivating.

Allowing myself four seconds in which to drool over her, I lose myself in the way her long, red tresses dance on the wind.

Then I’m chasing her with my pulse racing and my feet pounding.

The woods are thick with summer foliage, and I lose sight of her almost immediately. Which only makes it more fun. Chasing a contract is one thing; chasing my girl is another.

Circling the bracken, I take the way I think she’ll least expect me to go. It’s difficult trying to outsmart a woman who is undoubtedly smarter than I am.

For a while, there’s nothing but my own breathing and evening birdsong. Then ahead, the briefest flash of glorious red, and I’m moving again. Eliza clocks me, and I push my thighs to the point of burning.

‘So slowwwww,’ she calls out, her laughter making me smirk. She’s disappeared again and I stop, breath catching.

‘Where are you, you little she-devil?’

‘What happened to Sweetheart?’ Her voice comes from a different direction.

‘You’re only a sweetheart when you’re moaning like a good girl.’

A flicker of movement catches my eye. I lunge left, but her hand catches my shoulder blade. Barely. The tips of her fingers. Then she dodges out of the way.

‘Shirt off,’ she demands with a shit-eating grin.

‘That was barely a touch.’

‘If I barely fuck another man, will that not count either? Shirt.’

‘I’d kill the fucker, as well you know.’

Admitting a small, but not unrecoverable, defeat, I tug my T-shirt over my head. Eliza’s eyes graze over my stomach, following the trail of hair that disappears into my jeans.

When I throw the shirt at her, she takes a deep sniff of it like a little creep before hanging it on a branch.