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“Wait...”

“I admire your compassionate heart, but it’ll get you killed if you’re not careful,” he whispered huskily, thumb absently tracing my lower lip. “It’s better to fight me like I’m your enemy.”

“So everything you said was meant to get a rise out of me? Are you fucking crazy?” Angry, I yanked my face out of his touch.

Sloan watched me quietly from his place on the floor. “It worked, and you got a hit on me. Once you stop looking at me like a friend and treat me as a foe, you’ll be unstoppable.”

“What if I’d actually killed you?”

His teeth gleamed as Sloan offered me his prettiest smile yet. “I doubt that seriously, love. You’re nowhere near my level.”

Damn sexy bastard.

“And I thought Phillip was cocky,” I grumbled, barely hiding a smile.

“He and I have reason to be, V. We’ve spent a long time fighting things you can’t even imagine and survived. If you bested me at your weakest, it’d be a miracle.”

“Hey. I’m not at my weakest,” I whined unattractively, throwing my head back in petulance. “Not my fault I didn’t know all the other stuff. Grams is ruthless. I mean, you’re pretty damn close, but Grams would never let me get a hit on her.”

“I didn’tlet you,” Sloan rebutted, laughing. “I only ever fight with my all, so you got your hit fair and square.”

Beaming a smile, I looked down at him. “Guess it’s my win this round?”

His sultry look answered my excitement, and the earlier sexual tension was back. My eyes dropped to his mouth, absently wondering what they would feel like if I were to kiss him. But guilt was a raving bitch and seeped like poison into my thoughts.

It was ridiculous to feel like a cheating girlfriend when Phillip and I were supposed to be casual. He’d made it perfectly clear that was all we’d ever be. Still, that didn’t stop me from feeling terrible for entertaining fantasies of having the gentle Hunter underneath me, naked and swathed with sweat the way he was.

The Brit’s lips lifted mischievously before I was on my back, his hips intimately laid over mine with my dagger arm pinned to the floor. His long dagger was at my throat the way mine had been on his only seconds ago. “Win? Not even close.”

I sucked in a breath before Sloan’s blue eyes flicked up to the door and his dagger retreated. Abruptly, I was on my feet with Sloan’s help, still a bit out of it.

Phillip regarded the two of us with an expression I couldn’t read. “Looks like you two are having fun in here. Is it my turn yet?”

Sloan touched my lower back, smiling. “I think it’s probably a good idea to give her some time to rest. I was a bit hard on her.” His eyes locked with Phillip’s before Sloan led me out of the training room.

Phillip followed me with his eyes but didn’t trail us, and the shame and guilt wreaked havoc on my stomach the entire walk upstairs to the kitchen.