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“What are you doing now? You gotta go into work yet?”
“Not ’til five. I’m on night shift. You want some help?”
“Gardening?”
“Yeah, why not. I need to burn off some off this energy before I explode. Give me something heavy to swing or some pavers to lift. Boulders to roll. Whatever. That shovel will do.” She grabbed it from my fingers and drove it erratically into the ground, spearing one of my baby plants in half.
She cringed. “Oops. Was that a weed?”
“A weed I very carefully planted during the summer…”
“Ah, shit. Sorry. Got a carried away. Adrenaline makes me jittery.”
I took the shovel from her hand. “Maybe, for the sake of all these other little plants that have not yet had the pleasure of even reaching their first birthdays, we do something else.”
She cracked her neck. “I’m wired.”
“I can see. I get like that too. But you know where I channel it instead of being a psychopathic plant murderer?”
She gave me a questioning look. “Sex?”
I blinked but then realized she wasn’t actually far off base. “Well, yes, but that isn’t what I was going for here. Fighting. You said I could train you. You still up for that?”
I frigging missed fighting. I was just searching for any excuse to get back into it and to have something in my life other than this job and this house, and bloody Vaughn resurfacing out of the wild blue yonder.
Her shoulders slumped at my offer. “When I saw that guy at the hospital, I froze. He looked right at me, and I just sat there and did nothing, trembling and contemplating pissing my pants. It was Fang who did all the impressive stuff.”
There was so much regret in her voice. I hated that for her. “We can fix that, so next time you don’t freeze.”
She bit her lip. “I forgot how much bigger he is. How much bigger they all were. I’m so fucking short and weak. It never seemed like a problem before. I had my knuckle-dusters, and that was all I needed. But I had so much false confidence. I know I’m not a complete pushover, but every time I went up against some big guy at Psychos, there were other people around to back me up. Nash—that’s the guy who owns the bar with my bestie, Bliss. Or Vincent, the security guard. Or Fang and his guys from the MC. The one time none of them were around, look what happened.” She dropped her gaze to the floor, the shame in her stance killing me.
I couldn’t help it. I stepped in and put my finger underneath her chin, hoping like hell Fang wasn’t watching me touch his girl through the bedroom window. “Hey.” I lifted her face to stare down at her. “You got overconfident. It’s a danger, sure. And this time, you got beat. That doesn’t have to be the case during the rematch, okay? You know your weakness now, and it’s not that you’re small. I’ve seen women take down men twice their size. It might actually be your biggest advantage, because they’re going to underestimate you.”
Her expression hardened. “I hate being underestimated.”
“Yeah, girl. That’s the spirit. So show me what you got.”
She gazed around. “Right here on the driveway?”
“Why not? You think the next time they come at you they’re going to politely ask you to step onto some cushy mats?”
“Fair point. I suppose the same would apply if I complained I don’t have my knuckle-dusters.”
“The little demon learns quick.”
She grinned. “So, what? I just come at you?”
“Why not? Give it a go. See what happens.”
She made a show of stretching her arms over her head and linking her fingers together to stretch her back. She stuck her hips out to one side and leaned to the other, her shirt riding up over her hip and showing off a sliver of her belly.
Like a moth to a flame, my gaze dropped to that tiny strip of skin, caressing every inch of it, because my fingers couldn’t.
Fuck, she was hot. Cute as hell, but with a banging body. Tight thighs. A barely-there handful of tits. All big sass and smart-mouthed. Just like I liked them.
Her shoulder rammed me right in the stomach, winding me before I even realized what she was doing. I spluttered, taken by surprise, only to find her tiny arms wrapped around my neck in a chokehold.
Jesus fuck. She’d said she was scrappy. I’d made the very mistake I’d said her attackers would.