Page 28 of Kings of Sherwood

He shrugs.

“Well, what did you try to teach her?”

LJ shifts in his seat, stone-faced all the while. Now, credit to him: he is not much for outward expression. Guantanamo couldn’t get shit out of my man. But there is the tiniest, most imperceptible flicker of a smile on his lips.

And then it’s gone.

But it’s enough.

“She has a lot to learn,” he mumbles. “I’ll put it that—”

Slam.

Scarlet sits up from the radio. “What the hell was that?”

I blink. “Sounds like a door slamming.”

I look at LJ, do some mental calculations. Think back to the other night. And to Maren’s current...attitude.

Damn. I can hardly resist a smile myself. That treacherous bastard.

“Oh.” Scarlet relaxes on the stool. Then frowns. “Tuck go out, or something?”

There’s a pause, then some heavy, stomping footsteps that are both too angry and too delicate to be Tuck’s.

“Nope,” I say. “He’s in the library.”

I cast a gaze around the room, ever so slowly.

LJ sits still. Suspiciously still. I rub my chin, eyeballing him.

“Interesting,” I murmur. “What could have the lady in such a state, I wonder?”

It’s only half-rhetorical, as questions go, because I have an inkling. Still, I watch.

“Hmm, hmm,” I say. “What could have her feeling sofrustrated, sounsatisfied...”

“Do you mind?” Scarlet snaps. “Reception is shit as it is without your thinking out loud.”

The footsteps get louder. Then my door snaps open.

And lord have mercy, but even angry as a hornet, that girl is gorgeous.

Her hair’s all messed up, hanging out of a ponytail in wild hanks, and her face is flushed, cheeks dark and eyes bright, which, along with the shimmer of sweat over her collarbone, indicates to me that LJ really put her through her paces in that training session.

In more ways that one, judging by the way she’s...standing at attention against that sports bra of hers.

To my disappointment, she folds her arms.

“My eyes are up here,” she informs me.

I bob my head. “Man’s gotta look,” I say in apology. I flick a glance at LJ, but he’s gone stony-faced as Mt. Rushmore. Bastard. Some kind of self-control, I have to say. I lick my lips and turn back to Maren, willing myself to think of baseball and paint drying and anything that’ll keep me from getting hard as a damn marble statue right now.

“You need something, pretty lady?”

A glimmer of suspicion dances in her eyes, and she purses her lips in a way that’s inadvertently sinful. “What do you mean?”

I cough. “Just, uh...to what do I owe the honor?”

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