Total pages in book: 87
Estimated words: 82367 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 412(@200wpm)___ 329(@250wpm)___ 275(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82367 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 412(@200wpm)___ 329(@250wpm)___ 275(@300wpm)
It had been the look on her face and the set of her shoulders that had disturbed him. Defeated would have been a word he could have used. Alone and defeated.
He hated that on her.
Sure she’d wiped it away when he’d walked in but he’d seen it. He’d seen the tears she’d steadfastly refused to allow to fall down her cheeks.
Damn it! This woman wasn’t supposed to sink into his skin like this. No one was, not here. He was leaving. Going back across the ocean.
She twisted her wrist again and he stepped up behind her, reaching around to grasp and adjust. She stiffened beneath his touch and he couldn’t help himself. Yes, the proper thing would be to step back and give her space like men should do to women, but with this woman, he couldn’t.
So he inched closer, making sure she knew he was there, pressing up against her. Even sweaty, she didn’t lose that delicious and intoxicating scent mixture of mint and violet. Christ, did she bathe in a tub of it?
“Ready to hit something alive, lioness?”
She’d put her arms down after finishing up the punch for which he’d corrected her posture. Rosamunde tried to hold herself away from him but he didn’t allow it. God, her curves were to die for.
“Does that mean I get to hit you?”
He tsked and lowered his head, skimming just above her shoulder with his nose. It wouldn’t take much for him to drag his tongue along her smooth skin. “It means you get to try.”
Will she tremble like this for the man she takes to her bed before her father marries her off?
The real question should have been why that thought pissed him off to the very marrow of his bones. He didn’t want another man close enough to smell that damn alluring scent she wore so well, much less one knowing how to make her shiver like she did.
Firming his jaw, he forced himself back so she could turn to face him. Thick tendrils of chestnut hair lay plastered against her temple. Tiny beads of sweat dotted her skin, which was uncommonly flushed.
Again, unbidden thoughts popped into his head. Her flushed from his kisses, skin sweaty from him taking her again and again. His cock swelled and he ignored it, holding her gaze with his own.
This wasn’t about him.
“I’ll hold my hands up and you strike them.” He gave a nod. “Get into position.”
Fuck him, when she shifted her feet without hesitation all he could think about was having her respond to him in a different manner. Grinding his jaw, he dipped his head in approval.
While he was acquainted with boxing and its rise in popularity in London, he also was a man who’d traveled and learned other forms of fighting. All this was incorporated into what he used when he was in the ring and what he was going to teach this little lioness before him. While in some circles it wasn’t honorable, he didn’t care. After all, they assumed the worst of him anyway. He would do what he could to be better.
Assuming he could keep it professional.
He smacked his hand into the opposite palm. “Come on, give it a go.”
He thought there’d be more hesitation but again, he’d underestimated this woman. Something he believed most people did when they met her. A mistake on everyone’s part and one he wouldn’t be making again.
Her fists struck with both speed and accuracy. There was far more power behind each one than he’d been expecting.
“That’s it, lioness. Let it out.”
She froze, going rigid in a manner that told him this was more than what he could only assume she heard on a daily basis from that shit group called her family. He got it, he did. Yes, he had his father and grandfather’s names to lend support, but he understood what it was like to have people ridicule and say hateful things. He also knew what it was to try to conceal his anger, most of the times self-deprecating anger, from the rest of the world.
“Don’t presume to know me,” she growled, her fists lowering to her sides, but she wasn’t relaxing.
“I know you better than you think I do.”
She scoffed and he put his hands down, deliberately encroaching on her space. If this was what it took, then this was what he’d do. All Bryn knew was he couldn’t fucking stand that look of bone-deep betrayal she’d initially had when he’d seen her today.
“Back off.”
He clucked his tongue at her. “How exactly do you think you’re going to find a man to lie with you if you don’t like them close?”
She inhaled sharply and pushed at his chest. Bryn struggled to keep his moan contained. How the hell something so simple could create such a maelstrom within him, he hadn’t a clue.