Page 23 of Kings of Sherwood

“Start with your feet planted. Push off, twist your hips, keep your shoulders light. Like this.” He shifts me through the motion. “Got it?”

“I...” I stammer. The strength of his hands rocking my hips back and forth temporarily cleared any instruction from my mind. “I was—”

“Figure it out,” he repeats. “You’ll need to learn to fight distracted.”

Then he lets go, and I suddenly wish he hadn’t.

He moves—fluid and final. One knee slides to the outside of my hip, then the other. He plants his palms on either side of my shoulders, bracketing me like a cage yet not even touching.

My breath catches. Every instinct I have flares—panic, arousal, defiance—all of it roaring up in the same heartbeat.

“If I wanted to hurt you,” he whispers in my ear, “you’d already be done.”

My pulse kicks. My skin flushes hot, all the way down to my chest. And then—something else.

Energy, and not ordinary energy. I can feel the spark crackle under the surface, the not-quite-right flickering just below my ribs, a hum demanding my attention and release.

But I shove it down.

From there it’s a whirlwind—upaescapes, shrimp to guard, scissor sweeps—and I’m messing up easily half the time, more than that, but gradually the movements start to feel...not natural, exactly, but logical. Like my body starts to know which comes next and doesn’t need to ask my brain permission.

“Better,” LJ says, after a few breathless rounds of sweeps. I crouch, hands on my knees, heaving in breaths as I feel droplets of sweat fall from my forehead to the mat, and stare at him.

“That’s all you can say?” I say. “Better?”

“All the praise you deserve,” he says. He’s barely broken a sweat, if he has at all. “You were terrible. Now you’re less terrible. You’re better.”

I snort, clutching at the bottle of water he throws my way and almost snapping the top off in my desperation to hydrate.

“Maybe,” I say, after chugging half of it, “you’re just scared I’ll beat you.”

LJ says nothing—he lunges, spins his leg to catch mine, and dumps me easily onto the mat.

The water bottle hits the floor a few feet away with a sadchlunk.A knee presses beside my hip, LJ’s broad chest low over mine as his forearm pins me lightly but firmly by the collarbone.

“You’ll never learn, will you?” he murmurs. “Princess always wants to get her way.”

His free hand skates over the crest of my hip, the pressure of his forearm increasing just barely. I shudder as I feel him tease the waistband of my leggings, trace toward the inner curve of my thigh.

But I jut out my chin. “See? I knew it,” I say. “You know I can take you now. And you’re afraid.”

“Take me?” His voice is dark and rough, his eyes clouded as one thick finger, then two, finds exactly where I’m slick. My eyes float shut instinctively, a moan tight in my throat as he stirs his hand.

“You like that?” he asks.

“Mhm,” I say around the blood ringing in my ears.

“You want more?” His strokes turn firmer, deeper.

I can only nod, catching my lip in my teeth as he teases my clit. Maybe it’s the adrenaline or the exhaustion or both, but suddenly my leggings are damp with wet heat and my nipples are achingly taut under the press of my sports bra and the sure, strong touch of LJ’s broad hand is threatening to make me come right here on the sparring mat.

“Fine.”

There’s a rush of cool air as LJ pulls back his hand, and when I look up, dazed, he’s got the barest smirk on his face.

“Then fight me for it.”

It takes a second to register, dim thoughts penetrating the haze of arousal, the swooning edge of release ebbing back within me. But he doesn’t move—to touch me, or to let me go.

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