Pas de Deux: Part One (A Cross and Pointe Novel Book 1) (13 page)

He followed her through the main entrance, up the stairs to her floor, and down the hall to her unit. It got harder and harder to breathe with every step, and sweat beaded her forehead as the sickly tingling feeling that preceded fainting consumed her.

When she reached her door and turned around, he was at least three paces behind her, studying the carpeted floor, his hands in his pockets. Relief washed through her so intensely, her knees actually weakened for a moment.

Or maybe it’s just him…

In her panicked, fear-stricken state, she’d forgotten all about how good he looked. At Cliff’s, it had been almost impossible to take her eyes off him. His normal appearance always appealed to her—athletic attire that showed off his impressive physique and sexy tattoos, his scruffy beard. But tonight, his form-skimming, soft-looking black sweater, nice jeans, and dark shoes made him look sexy and sophisticated, and his smooth face made him look even more gorgeous than he usually did. And he was close enough for her to smell the spicy, heady cologne that clung to him without being overpowering.

She sucked in a breath, louder than she meant to, as his gaze locked onto hers for what felt like an eternity. Her heart kicked into another level of irregularity when his eyes slowly dropped to her mouth.

Oh, shit. Oh, fuck. Don’t try to kiss me. Please don’t do it. You’ll ruin it. I’ll ruin it.

Her arms involuntarily rose and she hugged her bag to her chest like a shield, pressing herself against the door. Cillian froze, his brow knitting. Then his eyes softened.

“Better go on in. It’s late.”

He lowered his eyes and his hands never left his pockets as he subtly retreated a step. She gulped, feeling like she could breathe again, and also a strange little twinge of disappointment. Her hand fumbled for the knob.

“Thanks for the ride.”

“Anytime. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight,” she said to the door.

Sammi rushed inside, shutting and triple-locking the door, then collapsed against it. Anxiety flooded through her again, but it wasn’t because of what happened outside Cliff’s.

I wanted him to kiss me.

That realization alone terrified her.

When Cillian finished his footwork drills on Monday evening, sweat dripped off his body like he’d been caught in a monsoon, and his calves and quads burned like they’d been doused in gasoline and set ablaze. He hunched over to catch his breath for a moment, then guzzled some water.

Baz folded his arms, eyeing him. “All right over there, pumpkin?”

“I’m fuckin’ Army strong. Of course I’m all right.”

“If this is Army strong, I’m terrified for our nation. I’ve never seen you this tired before, dude. What’s up?”

“Shit.” Cillian tiredly scrubbed a hand over his face. “Take your pick. Endless paperwork, computer crashing for hours, breaking up two fights, and workin’ all weekend. I need a break.”

“Mm-hmm.” Baz nodded, his mouth pursed and his forehead creased with sympathy. He reached out and smacked Cillian hard on the shoulder. “Sack up, princess. No rest for the wicked. Look, ‘cause I’m a nice guy, I’ll give you a five-minute break. Then it’s weights.”

“Yeah, yeah, Coach.”

He spent another hour with Baz before showering in the locker room and returning to his office, all but collapsing into the chair and yawning deeply. Despite his tiredness, there was still plenty of work to do.

But instead of answering the emails, updating the gym’s social media pages, going over the bookkeeping, checking the appointment calendar to line up the week, his mind drifted to Sammi. Over a week had gone by since the night at Cliff’s; she hadn’t been to the gym at all.

She avoiding me?

Cillian couldn’t think of a single woman who would enjoy being treated like a piece of meat by any man, let alone a group of drunken assholes. But it had gone deeper than that with Sammi—much like the night at the gym when she’d been assaulted, it was obvious she’d been overtaken by sheer panic and had completely shut down.

Didn’t help that you almost made a huge mistake in the hallway…

It had been awful timing, but she’d looked so heartbreakingly beautiful staring up at him outside her apartment door that his body had just taken over, moving toward her. He’d felt the urge to just touch her, pull her into his arms and let her know she was safe.

And kiss her.

The little fearful, gasping sound she’d made as she backed up against the door had been like a bucket of icy water all over him on a cold day—she didn’t need someone else trying to come on to her. She needed a friend.

He hated that she’d been gone for a week—he had no idea what was going through her head, or whether or not she was all right. He didn’t have a phone number for her, so he couldn’t even call her to check.

Can’t keep obsessing over it…

Cillian reached for a pencil and a pad of paper, scratching the new five o’clock shadow on his face. Maybe a little work would distract him.

One of his goals for the gym was creating a self-defense seminar for women. He’d kept putting it on the back burner, and now with the tournament, all of his focus was on that. But ideas started flowing, and if he didn’t get them down on paper, he’d probably forget them.

His pencil scribbled madly over the pad as the idea took shape.
Two-day seminar. Classroom part with case studies, statistics. Hands-on application. Sparring.

A couple hours flew by as he wrote, his exhaustion forgotten and his excitement growing as he started listing basic, solid physical techniques to teach. He barely noticed the knock on his door before Baz poked his head in.

“Just makin’ sure you’re alive in here. And not sleeping.”

“Thought about it,” Cillian replied, not looking up from his writing.

“What’re you workin’ on?”

He looked up and grinned at Baz. “You know that women’s self-defense thing I wanna do?”

“Yeah.”

“We’re doin’ it. After the tournament. Here’s what I’ve come up with so far.” He handed Baz the pad, who took it and scanned it, nodding.

“Looks pretty good, Killy. We can do a social media blast to generate some interest. How much you gonna charge?”

Cillian shrugged. “I’ve been researching similar courses in the area. I wanna beat all the prices they’re charging. I was thinkin’, like…free.”

“Free?” Baz gestured to the pad. “This is a shitload of work, man. And two whole days. You’re gonna have to close the gym for the regular clients, which will probably piss ‘em off.”

“They’ll live. We’ll cap it, so we don’t have hundreds of people in here, but I think the information should be given for free.”

Baz shook his head slowly. “I dunno, man, I think this is a great idea, but we gotta charge something—”

“I wanna make it a weekly class. And we can charge—reasonably—for that.”

“A class, huh?” Baz shrugged. “Okay. I can see that.”

“I want women to be confident, walking weapons.” Cillian folded his arms and started to pace. “I want them to learn about situational awareness. I want them to make smart decisions that keep them from ever having to use what they’ll learn in my class. I want them to know that, if they have absolutely no other choice and it’s a matter of life and death, they can protect themselves.”

“So, you’re thinkin’, what, some sparring, some ground work?”

Cillian nodded. “Gotta have ground work. It’s gonna be a mixed bag of combatives, some simple jiu jitsu techniques, a little Krav Maga. We ain’t teachin’ ‘em to just scream ‘no’. And if the response is good—which I think it will be—we gotta have a regular weekly class, maybe a couple times a week. If I gotta hire more trainers, I will, but this isn’t a one-and-done thing. You know as well as I do it takes discipline and ongoing practice.”

Baz nodded and smiled. “I like it, dude. I love it, actually. What do you think Carl is gonna say?”

Fuck. Carl.

He frowned. “I don’t know. He won’t like having a free seminar. And he’ll have to approve the budget for hiring more trainers so I can teach the class. But I think once he sees how many more clients we’d be getting…he’d be an idiot not to get on board.”

“You remember who you’re dealing with, right?”

Cillian snorted. “At least I’ve got you.”

“This is gonna be badass. And it would be even more badass if we could have a woman help teach, too. You think Sammi’d want that job?”

“I don’t know. She said no last time I asked her.”

“Yeah, but that was when she didn’t like you. You should ask her again. I mean, she’s a dance teacher, so, she’d be perfect. She’s here, by the way. You could talk to her about it tonight.”

A surge went through his body like a jolt of electricity. “She’s—uh. Okay. Almost closing time. Let’s start cleaning up.”

“Why’d you just get weird all of a sudden?” Baz demanded, his narrowing at Cillian. “She hasn’t been here for a week. Somethin’ happen Saturday night?”

Cillian hesitated. He didn’t want to tell Baz too much; whatever was going on with Sammi wasn’t anyone’s business but hers.

“Some drunk guys gave her a hard time. She’s fine, though.”
I hope.

“Oh, save the day, did you?”

“Not at all. Anyway, shut up about it in front of her.”

Baz elbowed Cillian in the ribs. “Aw, Killy’s all sad. Look man, you gotta sack up. Women want a confident man. You know, beast on the streets, freak in the sheets.”

Cillian chuckled in spite of himself. “How you ever get girls with those corny-ass lines is beyond me, dude.”

“It’s this beautiful Asian baby-face I got.” Baz flashed a big grin, patting his smooth cheeks. “I’m tellin’ you, dude, ditch the fuckin’ mountain-man look, and I mean not just for drill. I could tell Sammi was diggin’ it. She was starin’ at you from the bar all night.”

She was? Cillian just shrugged. “Nah, she’s just cool, man. It’s not like that with us.”

Baz tilted his head. “That’s bullshit. Anyone with eyes can see.”

“Drop it, dude.”

Baz shrugged and saluted. “Yes, sir. Now I’m gonna go clean.”

Cillian half-heartedly cleaned off as much equipment as he had the patience for before deciding he’d deal with the rest tomorrow morning before opening. When Baz returned to the front to put away his cleaning supplies and looked at him pointedly, brows raised, Cillian waved him off.

“Go home, dude. See you in the morning.”

He crossed the gym, rounding the corner of the ring in the middle of the room listening to the steady thump of Sammi’s fists on the bag.

What the hell do I say to this girl?

The signs and symptoms of PTSD were all too familiar. After his first deployment, he’d had nightmares almost every night. Celebrating the 4th of July was out of the question. Any loud, sudden noise instantly put him back in Afghanistan, in the middle of an insurgent attack. After his second tour, things got harder. His nightmares became watching his friends burn up in the Humvee because he hadn’t been able to save them.

But I did save them.

Except Lee.

Sammi was hitting the bag with everything she had, throwing technique out the window. Her arms flailed, and he could tell she’d been at it for a while, because she was covered in sweat and her arms were visibly shaking with fatigue. Her sharp exhales of breath had turned to grunts.

She’s gonna hurt herself.

Cillian leaned into her vision like he always did to make sure she saw him. Her eyes immediately shifted to him, fire and anger making them practically glow. She yanked her earbuds out and dropped her arms, staring at him almost defiantly, her chest heaving.

“Hey. You need to take it easy or you’re gonna hurt yourself. You all right?”

She barked out a laugh that made him cringe. Abruptly, she yanked her gloves off and dropped them to the ground. “Fine.”

“You haven’t been here for a week. Is everything okay from the…other night?”

“I said, I’m fine.”

Cillian didn’t know everything there was to know about women, but he did know that when women said they were “fine” it usually suggested the exact opposite.

You press her, she’s gonna take your fuckin’ head off.

He switched gears. “I could use your help with something.”

“My help? With what?”

Still a little snarly, but I can work with that.

He folded his arms. “Well, it’s something you already shot me down for. I got a plan worked out for the women’s self-defense seminar. Now that you know I’m not a total piece of shit, maybe you could help me work the moves out.”

She shrugged. “Why can’t you use Baz or someone else?”

“I need a female body.” A second later, he heard how that must have sounded and shook his head as Sammi smirked reluctantly.
There’s one dimple.
He grinned a little. “Not like
that
, smart-ass. I need to make sure the moves I teach work with a woman’s body, that the techniques aren’t too advanced for beginners and shit like that.”

“I’ve sparred before, but that was boxing, and we didn’t do that very often. I’m not sure how well I’d fare with self-defense moves.” She swallowed and glanced away. “Isn’t that a lot of, like, wrestling-type stuff?”