Page 41 of Not Fooling Anyone

I can’t help but laugh. “Yeah, right.”

He grins, those incredibly straight white teeth on display. His orthodontist must have charged a pretty penny. “Come on. I thought you would jump at the chance to hit at me. Get some of that aggression out.”

I shake my head at him. “I don’t box.”

“Lawrence didn’t teach you anything?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“See? I knew it.” He holds up his fists in a blocking position. “Show me what you’ve got. If anyone has a wicked right hook, it’s you.”

I twist my lips. I guess I should do something he wants after earlier today. I owe him. “Okay, but I’m putting on gloves. I’m not accidentally breaking my hand when I hit your thick skull.”

He pumps his fists up. “Yes.”

God, he’s so ridiculous.

We head over to the rack along the east wall with all the gloves and I search through for the smallest looking ones.

“You wrapping?” He holds up a roll of hand wrap.

I don’t need it since I’m not seriously hitting him, but I still find myself nodding for some reason, avoiding his eye.

“Should I wrap it?” he asks when I make no move to take it from him.

I nod again, though I’m perfectly capable of doing it myself. I learned how years before he even picked up a glove.

He unrolls it, taking my hand as he loops it over my thumb and back the opposite way around my wrist, his touch as steady and sure as it was earlier today in the lab. Fingertips work-roughened where they hold my hand still, warm against the cool of my skin. Gaze focused completely on his task, the playful air usually about him gone for the moment.

I hold my breath, barely inhaling as he leans in closer to check his work, unable to help taking note of the way the hairs at the nape of his neck curl slightly with sweat.

He continues wrapping my hand, something hypnotic about it, just like the way he’d soothed me in the lab today, tracing those fingertips featherlight over my skin, stirring something within me…

I couldn’t process it at the time with everything else going on, but now that I’ve had a chance to calm down, I realize maybe it wasn’t only the situation earlier making me feel like he had some kind of weird pull over my body. Maybe it wasn’t just the adrenaline making me feel something that wasn’t really there.

Because I feel it again now.

CHAPTERNINE

LEXIE

There’sa strange lightness in my stomach, the warmth of his touch permeating me, filling me with something I don’t quite understand. No one in memory has ever touched me like this. With purpose. With care. With concern.

We held hands multiple times last week, even walking into the lab today, but it didn’t feel like that then. Like something… more.

Wow, maybe that needle addled my brain more than I thought.

I jerk my hand back, his head lifting in surprise. “I can finish it myself,” I mumble, making quick work of the wrap on both hands.

He watches me, brows lifting. “I can’t even do it that fast.”

“It won’t hold for a whole fight, but we’re not doing that.” I slip on the gloves, eyeing him. “You’re only defending, right? Not hitting back?”

He frowns. “I’d never hit you.”

I release a sigh. Too much honor will get you killed in the ring. You have to play a little dirty sometimes.

I come at him, and he barely blocks me from hitting his face in time. “What the fuck, Lexie?”

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