Page 20 of Keep Your Guard Up
“Anything I can help with?” Chance took a step closer. He towered over me. He was so much bigger that I couldn’t not get lost in him—he was everywhere.
He reached his own fingers out and brushed the backs of them across my cheek, skimming them further until they were tangled in my hair. Thank god I left it out this morning.
“A thing or two,” I repeated, breathless.
His skin felt incredible on mine. The fingers that were gently tugging on my hair released and traced an invisible line down my side all the way to my waist. He palmed my hip, pulling me closer in one quick motion while his other hand fed back into my hair, weaving easily through the curly strands.
Yes.
Yes, yes,yes.
“You know where to find me, Trevino.”
My curtains were wide open with the sun blazing in—but it was blindingly obvious that wasn’t the reason I felt sohot: unbearably turned on, a hand between my legs, and absolutely soaked through my pyjama pants.
No.
No—I refuse to feel good from this.
No. He’s a fighter. He’s an employee—
He’s a sex icon.
Nowhere was safe from this man—not even my subconscious. I cursed the world for not recognising the effort I’d been making. After the slip I had in his wrestling class two weeks ago, I’d been making a point of avoiding him at all costs. I trained every day but showed up a second before class started and left as soon as it ended. I partnered up with someone other than JJ, not wanting to give Chance a reason to come my way. I even ignored Jayden and all of the hush, hush comments he’d fire at me. All to avoid the unavoidable—Chance’s attention.
Though I hid like an absolute child, he still found me. Whenever I was doing well, he was always there telling me. Whenever I wasn’t, he was there too.
The worst part about it all—I didn’t hate it.
I didn’t hate the fact that he always watched me.
I didn’t hate the fact that he taught most of his higher intensity classeswithouta shirt on.
What Ididhate was the fact that I couldn’t bring myself to hate these things.
I should have loathed all of these things—my vow against dating fighters required me to do so. But I couldn’t help butnoticethings. Like the fact he always watched me do the techniques before he watched anyone else. Or that he hadn’t partnered me up with Jayden since that day in the kitchen. Or that he always glanced my way before stripping off at the end of class, usually for a heartbeat longer when I was also shedding my clothes. He usually cast a glance over the room, to see what everyone else was doing during the latter too.
My inconvenient dream did a fantastic job at kicking my ass into gear, and I got dressed and to the gym in record time.
I opened up the gym, sighing in relief that I was the first one in, and headed straight for the kitchen. I filled and flicked the kettle on boil, a soft squealing starting to sing from the old machine. Needing to keep moving and fight the goddamnitchin my hands, I strode over to the offices quickly. It was dark and I couldn’t see shit, so I flung my bags in the general direction of the couch. Instead of landing with athud, a soft groan sounded, followed by my bags hitting the floor.
“Ah, fuck.”
That voice.
I ran my hand along the wall until I hit the light switch. “Jesus! Riordan! What the hell are you doing in here?!” I gawked at his once-again shirtless torso, along with the sleepy expression he was wearing.
Yep, my subconscious was right on the money with that image.
His long, golden locks were messy and some were starting to fall over his face.
How he still looked so delectable first thing in the morning was just plain unfair. After sleeping, when our hair is wild, eyebrows muffled, and with sleep in our eyes—as humans we’re meant to wake up out of shape. Wake up gross, with dried drool on our faces.
But Chance Riordan appeared to not fall into the category of human.
“Well, Iwassleeping.” He groaned again, rubbing his hands slowly over his face and grumbling a few more curses.
“A-are you …” I could barely get the words out.
