Page 61 of Wicked Temptations
“Fuck you, Ash.”
He turned and walked away.
***
The music cued.
I stepped into the smoke, letting it swallow me whole, and let the strobe lights wash over me. They cut the darkness into fragments. Shadow. Light. Shadow. Light.
The crowd pressed against the barriers; phones raised like offerings to gods they didn’t believe in.
Professionals.
I could do professional.
The choreography rolled through muscle memory. Hit the mark. Crouch. Stalk. Let them see the dead-eyed predator in the leather and buckles, with his demonic paint smeared across his cheekbones.
I’d arrived in the designated fight zone early, so I leaned into my character, hyping the crowd up and growling threats and dark promises to kill my adversary.
Then Jude emerged from the opposite side.
Even pissed off, even with this chasm carved between us, my body responded. The way he moved. It was fucking sinful. Fluid and dangerous, his deceptively lean frame coiled with controlled violence. The gel in his hair caught the strobes, making him look like something carved from shadows and sharp edges. I had to grit my teeth and remember that I was mad at him.
Our eyes met across the smoke, and the world narrowed.
We circled. The crowd existed somewhere beyond the pounding in my ears, their screams muffled and distant, but my focus was sharpened to a single point. Him. Just him andonly ever him. The set of his painted jaw. The tension in his shoulders. The way his fingers flexed against the buckles of his tactical vest as he taunted me.
You want professional? I’ll give you professional.
I lunged.
Jude dodged, spinning away. His boot scraped the concrete, and I followed, closing the distance. Our choreography had beats. Pauses. Moments for the audience to gasp and shriek and film. We ignored them all and pushed hard.
He came at me low. I blocked. His forearm connected with mine; the impact jarring up to my shoulder. I shoved him back. He caught himself against a prop wall, then launched forward again. We crashed together, grappling, and his fingers dug into my vest, hauling me sideways.
“Selling it hard, aren’t we?” Jude’s voice was gravel in my ear.
“Giving them their money’s worth.”
I twisted free, putting distance between us. My chest heaved. The smoke machines pumped harder, filling the zone with gray-white clouds that swirled in the colored lights. Red. Blue. Purple. Each flash painted Jude in a new shade of violence.
He stalked toward me, so I backed up, maintaining the gap.
I changed course just to fuck with him. I went right instead of left, and Jude’s eyes flashed as he adjusted. We collided again, this time harder, and his shoulder drove into my chest. Air burst from my lungs as I grabbed his arm and used his momentum to swing him around, trapping him against me. He’d always enjoyed it when I’d manhandled him like that.
“Fuck off.” His breath was hot against my cheek.
“Make me.”
We broke apart and circled. Jude’s hand moved to his belt, fingers curling around one of the prop weapons. It was a tactical knife, rubber and harmless except for the way he held it, like he actually wanted to use it.
It wasn’t something we’d properly practiced, but I grabbed my own and we squared off, blades raised.
We should have danced around each other, trading silly little jabs that were all for show and executed safely, but we’d never been good at doing what we should.
We threw all that rubbish out the window and collided.
Jude came in fast. I blocked and countered, but he ducked under my swing and drove his elbow up. I pivoted, but not fast enough, and the joint caught the corner of my jaw.
