Wrong (A Bad Boy Romance)(122)
Watching Cain train is interesting and even educational. I’ve always known a little about MMA fighting, since I’ve seen it on a regular basis since I was about ten or twelve, but I’ve never had the opportunity to dig into the art behind it. And it is an art—melding several kinds of fighting styles from kickboxing and regular boxing to jiujitsu to Greco-Roman and freestyle wrestling and several other disciplines I’d never heard of before. Paul throws out names of holds and moves and Cain responds immediately, knowing exactly what he’s talking about. They spar, using boxing and kickboxing moves, then go to the floor, grappling in a variety of wrestling moves. Sometimes Paul slows them down, demonstrating each move and flowing through a sequence so Cain can see all its parts and how they fit together.
Cain focuses on it all with an intensity I don’t see in him often. He talks in monosyllables, mostly, like his mind is totally absorbed by what he’s doing. He nods a lot, and though he doesn’t always look right at Paul when Paul talks, I can tell he’s taking in every word.
When they finally wrap up, Cain is sweaty and breathing hard. He shakes himself off, flinging sweat droplets around the ring, onto the mat beneath him. He flexes his hands, and I can tell they hurt. Whether from bruises or cuts or stiffness, I can’t tell.
Cautiously I move through the ropes to join him. Paul has retreated to his corner and has shed his gloves. He’s pulling the tape off his hands.
I reach for Cain’s still-taped fists and start to do the same, peeling the tape back a bit at a time. He watches for a minute and then grins at me. “It’s going to take forever that way,” he says, and grabs an end of the tape and jerks it back.
“Doesn’t that hurt?” I ask him.
“Not yet. It will when you get to the skin.”
“I’ll be more careful with that part, then.”
He shrugs. “Suit yourself. Sometimes I’d rather just get it off. It’s not that bad. Maybe lose a little bit of hair—that’s about it. It’s like…” He pauses. “Getting your eyebrows waxed?”
I laugh at the apt comparison and follow his instructions, figuring he’s done this a zillion times before, so I probably shouldn’t argue. When I reach the last few inches, I slow down a little.
Cain, chuckling now, grabs the end of the last stretch of tape and just jerks it off. Then he loops the tangled tape around my own wrists and ties it into a sloppy knot.
“What’s that for?” I protest.
He laughs again and ducks a little to kiss me. He tastes sweaty, smells sweaty and musky and on the verge of actually ripe. He needs a shower. Behind us I vaguely sense Paul watching, maybe a little too closely. I don’t care. Pop already knows what’s going on between me and Cain and has already made his opinion on the matter abundantly clear. So who cares if Paul approves or not?
I rub my thumbs over Cain’s where he’s holding my hands. “You know,” I tell him, “you could just pick up and go any time if you want. I wish I could.”
“I told you, babe, we’ll do what we have to do. It’ll work out.”
He seems more smug even than usual. I wonder what’s up. Then I get lost in the look he’s giving me. Maybe it’s just wishful thinking, but his eyes seem warm, open, with a caring in them I’ve never seen before. He squeezes my hands. “Come on back to the locker room with me. I have something for you.”
I wonder what he could possibly have for me in the locker room. If the place were empty, I’d figure it’d be some crazy sex. But I don’t think he’s going to do that right now. There are about five other guys working out today, and I doubt he’ll risk having one of them walk in on us.
However, he doesn’t seem too concerned about taking me back to the locker room. There’s another guy in there who looks like he’s fresh out of the shower. He makes a noise of protest, and I avert my eyes, but apparently Cain gives him some kind of signal, because when I look again, the other guy has put his pants on—rather haphazardly—and is hurrying to get his shirt over his shoulders and his feet in his shoes.
“That was mean,” I tell Cain in a low voice.
“Eh, he’ll survive.” Cain sits down on a bench and grabs a towel out of his open locker. He scrubs some of the sweat off his chest and out of his hair. “Sorry,” he says. “I’d go ahead and take a shower, but I don’t want to wait with this.”
“With what?” I ask as he turns away again, reaching back into the locker. He takes out a manila envelope. It has papers in it, I can tell. Not a huge stack, but not unsubstantial either. I can’t see anything written on it. “What is it?” I ask as he hands it over.