Chosen by Fate (26 page)

His expression pierced into her as if he was searching for something within her own gaze—understanding? But understanding of what? She realized she was leaning toward him, that she’d practically melted at his touch. At his words. What was wrong with her? Where was all this . . . this
human weakness
coming from?

She cleared her throat and stepped back. She forced herself to be as bitchy as she possibly could. “So I guess that tattoo of yours must be a tribute to all the females you’ve laid in an attempt to balance their
energy
, right? How big of you.”

He just stared at her as if he saw right through her, making her avert her gaze. Instead of sounding snide or disgusted, she’d sounded exactly the way she’d felt. Defensive. Jealous. Fighting the connection between them with her last ounce of strength.

He jerked his chin toward the bag he’d been working. “You ever work on a bag?”

Her gaze jumped back to his in surprise. His expression told her he was letting her off the hook. For now. “No.”

“Why not?”

She smiled slightly. “I’ve had enough practice on real individuals. Punching a bag seems like a waste of time.”

He grinned and winked, causing her to narrow her eyes.

“What?”

“Nothing. You wanted to blow off steam. You can either do that with me or the bag. I figured you’d choose the bag. Am I wrong?”

In response, she strode to the heavy bag and punched it. Then kicked it. Despite the power that made the bag swing on its chains, it felt foreign to her. She felt awkward. Incompetent. Weak.

That wasn’t something she ever put up with.

She looked at Caleb. “Show me.”

 

An hour later, Wraith was sweating, and her arms felt like they were going to fall off. More precisely, she wanted to cut them off; at least then she’d be in less pain. She was used to pain, but not the bodily exhaustion she was experiencing with it. Both were almost too much to handle.

“You ready to stop yet?” Caleb shouted to be heard.

Wraith shook her head and kept going.

She was on the last portion of a regimen Caleb had taught her. She didn’t know if she could complete it, but damn it, she wasn’t going to quit with him looking on.

First, she’d done a series of punch-out drills—short, rapid, successive straight-arm punches for sixty-second intervals, increasing intensity with each interval. Then she’d done four three-minute rounds of skill work, where she threw punches but had also integrated head movements, feints, combinations, and kicks. Next, punches in a variety of different combinations—left to right, right to left, hook, cross, and undercut. Finally, she got to what she was currently working on: varying her punches while hitting at full-out maximum power.

Her muscles were screaming, begging for mercy. Sweat was dripping into her eyes, stinging them. She wondered if at some point her body would simply get used to the pain and numb out. If so, she prayed that time came soon.

“Stop.”

Even she knew her power was waning, but she had to keep going. She couldn’t stop. She had to keep going.

Couldn’t stop.

Had to keep going or she would lose.

Couldn’t stop fighting or she would die.

“God damn it, I said stop!” Caleb grabbed her arms and roared in her face loudly enough to snap her out of her thoughts. He was panting hard, his eyes wild as he stared at her. His lip was also bloody and she . . .

Her eyes widened. “Did I . . . ?” No, she’d been hitting the bag, just like he’d shown her. She hadn’t been hitting
him
. Had she?

“You didn’t even know you were doing it, did you, Wraith? For all you knew, I could have been Doug or Emmett. Remember them? The two guys who attacked your friend Joanna? The two guys who were hired to snatch you? You were so zoned out you couldn’t even tell foe from friend.”

At the censure in his voice, she straightened, every muscle in her body and face stiff. “We’re not friends, Caleb. We work together. You get on my nerves, but you’re hot. Too bad you’re not willing to inflict a little pain to give me a whole lot of pleasure. Or maybe your ability to give me pleasure was just a fantasy.”

His face remained stiff and unreadable even at her jibe.

She stalked toward the door. “I need a shower.”

“Not so fast, Wraith.”

She froze.

“Look at me.”

Bristling at the command in his voice, she turned, cocking her hip as she placed her hands on her hips. “What is it?”

“You’re sweating.”

He was right. She was. That was another thing that was new. “So. It’s happened before,” she lied.

“You’re also tired, when I thought wraiths never tired.”

“You were wrong again. Imagine that.”

“So maybe I was wrong about other things.”

She sucked in a breath at the heat in his eyes and the way he began circling her body like a lion going in for the kill.

“Like the fact I couldn’t give you enough pleasure to make it worth it for me to touch you. You want to test it out, Wraith? If I can really give you what we’ve both been wanting?”

“Is that a rhetorical question? A threat?”

“What do you think?”

He began coming straight at her. She stepped back a few steps, not realizing what she was doing until she bumped up against the punching bag. “I think it’s another tease. One that you’re not going to follow through with, Caleb. You had your chance last night. I don’t give second chances. Forget it.”

“I can’t.” He raised his hand, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. Immediately, she froze, her body trembling, her mind conflicted. She didn’t want his touch because she was afraid he’d see right through her, see how much she still wanted him—no,
needed
him.

His fingers shifted, dipping into the hollows of her ear so that trembling turned into virtual shudders of delight. Desperate, she knocked his hand away, making him chuckle.

“Don’t touch me. I don’t want you to.”

“That’s okay. I’ll change your mind.”

“In your dreams.”

“Always.”

“Shut up, Caleb.”

“What’s the matter, Wraith? You didn’t have a problem with intimacy yesterday. Why the sudden change?”

Why? He dared to ask her why? Even worse, to expect her to answer? To admit it had hurt, the knowledge that he could turn her away when all she could think of was being close to him, feeling his hands on her skin, feeling him loving her. When she’d already told him he wouldn’t hurt her.

“Wraith?”

She frowned when he shifted closer, trying to keep him in her sights as he circled around her. “Maybe it was one rejection too many.”

At first he looked confused. “Is that what you thought? That I was rejecting
you
? You know it’s always been about me not wanting to hurt you, Wraith.”

“I already told you . . .” She squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head violently for a moment. When she opened them, he was staring at her, his cheeks flushed, his expression determined. “Look, let’s just go with that. Don’t touch me. Don’t hurt me, okay?” But he already had, simply by rejecting her, by pushing her back when she’d needed his warmth.

“It’s too late—”

She shoved him in the chest, making him take a step back.

“Good. That’s good. I love how strong you are.”

Her eyes widened at his use of
that
word. She shoved him again, and Caleb grabbed her by the arms, kissing her. Her lips clung to his. Then she hooked her leg behind him and tripped him to the floor. She had to fight him, or he’d hurt her even more—not her body, but her heart. The heart she’d never thought she’d had but was just beginning to show signs of life inside her.

Caleb kept his hold on her as he fell back onto the gym floor, immediately flipping her over so that his large body pinned her to the ground. She struggled, trying to free her legs or her arms—which he’d pinned above her head—so that she could knee him in the nuts or do some serious damage to his face. So she could punish him for awakening this desire in her and then not fulfilling it.

He had to struggle to keep her in place, but he still managed to do so. She could feel the hard length of his arousal against her stomach. She wanted to surrender to it, to him. But her head fought her heart and won.

“Is that all you’ve got, Wraith? Come on, you’re a badass, remember? You can do better than that.”

Calling her a badass helped quiet that tiny voice in her heart that kept on telling her to give in. Narrowing her eyes, she met his challenge head-on. Literally. Raising her torso off the ground, she head-butted Caleb in the face.

“Shit!” His hands loosened momentarily, and she shoved him away, turned on her stomach, and tried to do a quick crawl away from him. She knew where this was going, and she had no intention of staying for it. She felt raw and jittery, incapable of controlling the emotions that Caleb brought out in her. Fear. Wildness. Desire. She needed to get out.

Caleb covered her body with his, grinding her breasts into the unforgiving concrete. He put his mouth to her neck, biting the vulnerable cord there, using none of the care that he normally took with her and forcing the fight from her body in a sudden rush of pleasure.

“I guess I asked for that. But you know what, Wraith? I’m strong. And I’m not afraid of your strength. I can handle it. Handle you. And you can handle me, too. That’s where I’ve been going wrong, isn’t it? Worrying about causing you pain when I know damn well you can take care of yourself. Hell, you could kick my ass if you really wanted to.
If
I was hurting you. So all I’m going to concern myself with is the pleasure I can give you. Do you want it?”

Wraith said nothing. Closed her eyes and relaxed her body so that her left cheek was resting on the ground. When he leaned down and kissed her mouth, she didn’t fight him.

 

Caleb knew the instant she surrendered. She opened her mouth to his tongue, inviting it in with a prolonged groan that thrummed throughout his body. He ground his cock into her firm buttocks as he kissed her, running his hands along the length of her hips.

Lifting his body so she could turn onto her back, he caressed her breasts through her clothes. He tried to play with her nipples, but the thick fabric of her leathers hampered him. Growling with frustration, he unhooked and unzipped until he could pull the fabric away from her bare breasts. Lightly, he kissed his way down her throat, making a liar of himself as he watched for any sign that the pain was overriding the pleasure. From the way she was arching and grabbing his hair, it wasn’t. He was about to cover a nipple with his mouth when she wrapped her right leg around his hip and twisted her body up and over. She grabbed his hands and immediately pinned them next to his head.

She stared into his face. “How does it feel? Having someone control you? Not so great, is it?”

He pushed his pelvis up into hers. “Actually, it feels pretty good to me.”

That surprised a laugh out of her. She shook her head, then stared at him for a few more minutes. Slowly, she let go of his hands and sat up. He closed his eyes at the feel of her body shifting along his.

“So you think you want me? The real me? All right. You’ve got it.”

With that, she shrugged off her leather jacket and undershirt completely. Caleb immediately sat up and buried his face in the lush valley of her breasts, inhaling the musky scent of female sweat. He grabbed her buttocks and encouraged her to arch into him, which she did.

“What do you want, Wraith?”

Instead of answering, she grabbed his hair and tried to push his face toward her nipples. Caleb wouldn’t let her get away with that. He looked her in the eyes. “Full participation, Wraith. That’s what I want. Now tell me what you want.”

She bit her lip, and the vulnerable move, so foreign to how he thought of her, twisted at his heart.

“I want you . . . I want you to . . . kiss my breasts.”

Caleb immediately did so, slipping first one nipple into his mouth for his attention before turning to the next. After several minutes, he lifted his head and studied the tight red nubs. Then he laid himself flat on the ground and put his hands behind his head.

“Take what you want from me.”

For a moment she looked indecisive. Then determined. She raised herself up and to the side. Standing, she kicked off her heels and peeled herself out of her tight leather pants. Then, with the barest of hesitations, she reached down to remove his clothes. When they were both naked, she straightened but seemed to lose her nerve. She stared at his cock almost fearfully, which certainly wasn’t what he wanted. He stood and reached around her, caressing her buttock. Wound his way around to her vagina and played with her soft folds. “What do you want, Wraith?”

She still didn’t look away from his dick, and he felt himself getting harder.

“I . . . I want to kiss you.”

“Then do it.” As they both watched, a pearl of semen oozed out of the bulbous tip of his cock. Wraith met his gaze seductively and slowly lowered herself to her knees in front of him. Instead of covering him with her mouth, she flicked out her tongue and delicately licked the pearl of liquid off of him. He arched his hips and groaned in pain. Blissful, unbelievably pleasurable pain. It made him understand all the more that he’d been a fool for holding back simply because she’d experience some pain. He’d take much more pain himself if it meant he’d have the pleasure of being with her.

“You’re going to make me come.”

She lifted up her face, stared at him solemnly. “Isn’t that the whole point?”

“No, this is about you. About you taking what you want, remember?”

“I want you to come.”

He shook his head. “But you want to come more, don’t you? Remember how it felt yesterday? How you touched yourself and struggled to get to the top, and then once you were there, you completely let yourself go? It felt like climbing a fucking mountain, didn’t it?”