Page 25 of Green Flag (StormSprint #2)

Luca

We stayed up until the early hours. We’d planned to learn all we should about each other if we were in a relationship, but then we were playing games on my PlayStation.

Or, I was. She was busy running around in circles, pouting and flailing about more than her avatar.

I laughed so hard my stomach hurt in the gym when I dragged her with me.

She’d been eager to get out of my little temporary home into the newly empty trailer park.

Maybe spending the night hadn’t been wise even if I’d been on my best behaviour, despite knowing she was next to me.

I needed the rules we’d made. I had to have some boundaries around her because I couldn’t hurt her or get swept up in whatever this was. She was still in love with that creep.

Everyone across StormSprint had heard about our romance by now, and the number of shoulder claps I received rolled Everly’s eyes so many times they were her first reps of the day.

I introduced her to Marco, my PT, who was running a session in the ring with Ces. I let her take her time warming up with stretches and the step machine. Though I could only last five minutes before wheezing.

“On the mat,” I said, stopping my machine beside hers.

She laughed, but it wasn’t as pronounced as when we were alone. I wanted to make her really laugh again — the crackle of sound that made me grin.

Her face dropped when I didn’t laugh with her.

Her expression stiffened. “You’re serious.”

“Yes.” I reached over to turn off her machine and she sighed. “Go and fill up your bottle. Should be easy for you. You’ve been studying my moves for months.”

Her mouth fell open but no words tumbled out. I left her with her lips parted as I went to the mat and pulled out the paddles from Marco’s bag.

When she came over, she was pouting. “Do we have to?”

“Yes,” I said. “Show me your fighting stance.”

Her eyes widened. “I… don’t have one of those.”

“How would you stand if you wanted to punch someone?”

I could see the cogs turning in her mind, searching for a victim. Then she widened her legs stiffly and turned her hands into fists.

Now my eyes widened as I felt the protective streak in me rise to the surface, cutting through the gentlemanly exterior. I thought I’d been mistaken yesterday. “Tell me you did not just put your thumb inside your fist.”

She quickly popped them out. “I didn’t.”

Oh, we were starting from scratch. She was more likely to hurt herself than anyone else.

“Right, copy me,” I said and placed my feet hip-width apart, bending my knees slightly. She mirrored me, but her left foot wasn’t facing the same way as her hip. Instead, it was diagonal. “Bend your knees. You want a 90-degree angle. If your feet were together, they would be heel to heel.”

She shuffled.

“Better. Now drop.”

She dipped a millimetre, knees hardly bending.

“You’re too rigid, Everly. Drop lower.”

“It’s awkward,” she hissed, glancing left and right. The gym was busy, but no one paid us any attention.

“I’m not asking you to slut drop.”

She rolled her eyes and fixed me with a glare. “If I squat, it looks like I’m going to the toilet.”

My laugh was sudden and all-consuming.

She pouted and dropped her half-assed stance. “Everly, trust me, no one’s imagining toilets when they’re looking at your ass. It might feel awkward at first, but it gives you more bounce, more balance, more movement. You’ll be able to dodge better.”

She straightened again while I spoke. I gestured for her to lower, and she did, with another eye roll and her lips in a tight line.

Good girl.

“Punch one of the pads.”

I lifted them both and, with her left hand, she hit my right pad. Straight. No swing, no power, barely a tap.

“Open to feedback?”

“Yes,” she said, immediately standing straight again.

“Down,” I ordered and she groaned but obeyed.

If I kept saying down… how far would she go? One word and she dropped. My brain short-circuited. My cock twitched. Fuck.

Around her, sense was on the back burner. I was startled by just how dirty my thoughts ran over this clothed, unknowing woman.

I needed to teach her to fight. Instead, I wanted her flat on her back.

I needed to clear out my brain.

I walked across the gym to Marco’s gym bag — he cocked a brow in question, training someone else now — and I grabbed a pair of gloves before walking back.

She remained in position, but she watched me return over her shoulder.

And I could see her squatting ass and thought to myself, I am screwed.

Fucked . I wanted to spank it, grab it, hold her against me as I had in the lift. In my bed. In her bed.

Blood was rushing to my cock.

I placed the gloves over my groin as I walked back and gave them to her. “Stay there.”

Dutifully, she put on the gloves. She struggled pulling the velcro strap tight with her gloved hand. I took her wrist and pulled it for her. “Feel good?”

She nodded.

“Try again.”

We worked over and over, emphasising the turns of her hips, adding more power to her swing. Throwing herself into the punches, she improved so much that we started to create a sequence of steps – left, right, hook, uppercut.

Her uppercuts were weak, but anything was a vast improvement on her thumbs in her fists.

When her frustration picked up and I could feel the anger in her punches, I couldn’t help but ask, “Who are you thinking of?”

It had to be Pedro. That piece of shit had touched her yesterday and I’d seen the way she rubbed at her elbow throughout the night.

She stopped short, slightly breathless and blew the loose hair from her braid out of her red face. “My dad.”

I blinked, not expecting that response.

“You really don’t like him, do you?”

She shook her head and punched the pad again, silently requesting another round of the sequence. She ran through it three times before stepping back and breathing out deeply, lips pursed in an exerted ‘o’ shape.

“Well…” She shook her head, taking a deep breath, eyeing up the pads again.

With the fury in her eyes, I lifted the pads more to protect myself.

“You know what Pedro was accused of. And… by extension, I was also investigated. I lost everything. Music deal. Friends. The sport.” She went again, punctuating every word with a hit. “He. Ruined. Everything.”

She let loose, naturally falling into the position I’d requested.

When she’d exerted herself, she rested a wrist on my shoulder and leaned against me, collecting herself.

“I know it sounds dramatic,” she said, too exhausted for her laughter to really sound.

“But then sometimes he actually acts like a dad and I go all… hopeful.” She sighed, shaking out the tension in her body. “He doesn’t care.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, letting the pad fall to the floor and brushing back the hair from her face before I could stop myself. “That’s really shitty.”

Cris was a different man at StormSprint. I wouldn’t have ever thought he was like that. Whenever he spoke of Everly, her sister or his sons, it was always with such love.

And he hadn’t protected her enough against Pedro or the investigation.

She’d been twenty. Still so young.

She nodded and we worked on her swing, building more and more force with each punch.

“Nice,” I said with an impressed nod twenty minutes later and dropped the paddles onto the mat. “Much better. Now we just have to practice.”

She cocked her head to the side, looking me up and down. “So I can punch now?”

“You can throw your fist at someone without breaking your thumb, yes,” I told her, trying to stop my smile. If Pedro touched her now, I had no doubt she’d hurt him more than herself. “Want to go again?”

She didn’t answer, just lowered into her ‘sitting-on-the-toilet’ position.

“Now I want you to groan,” I muttered in her ear as I bent to pick up the paddle from the floor.

She blinked. “I know it’s a paddle, but what are you going to do? Spank me with it?”

I wanted to drag it lightly up her leg like I had her own fingers. All the way to that spank-worthy ass where I’d lightly tap it, half jokingly.

Half.

“Don’t tempt me, Everly.”

Her eyes sparkled brighter, intense on mine.

Down, boy.

“You haven’t spanked me before,” she sighed whimsically, stepping closer. She looked down at my hands. “I can imagine just how hard you can hit.”

My head lowered. Fuck. We needed to stay close because, yes, I was fully erect now.

“And how wet you’d get me.”

She pressed a finger into my chest with enough pressure for me to step back. “You got me in a state.”

Her delicate fingernails were painted in green and red — my colours. If I had my way, they would also have 68 drawn on them.

Was my mouth watering over the thought of her finger and how she’d let me suck on it before? Shit.

“Don’t know why you took that glove off, Bacque. We’re not done here.”

She slid it back on, then struggled with the velcro again as I sat back onto one of the jumping blocks.

“Can you do me up?” She offered her wrist. I pulled the constraint tighter.

“You’ll have to use the bag.”

“Why?” she frowned and eyed the thing with distaste. “I’d rather beat you up.”

“Well, now, you’ve got me in a state.” I waved a hand over my lap.

Her mouth dropped open, the corners turning up in absolute delight. “No,” she nearly choked on her breathy laugh. She fell to her knees and placed her hands beside me on the box. “No way. Luca Mendes, do I affect you so much?” she tormented.

I shook my head in my hands.

Marco called over, “You okay, Luca?”

Through my fingers, I could see Everly lift her gloved hands, trying to give a thumbs-up.

“He’s just swell. ” She was turning red, her lips pursed so tightly together as she tried to contain her laughter.

“Or, should I say, swelling up, ” she whispered to me and then a laugh erupted from her, so loud it could burst eardrums. But it was music to my ears.

She stopped abruptly, finishing with a breathless smile before turning to the bag.

But Marco had started to walk over, grinning like a smug bastard, a couple of water bottles in hand. “You’ve got a type,” he said, nodding towards Everly. “Big eyes. Good punch.”

I caught the bottle mid-air. “Just the one girl. And yeah—turns out I like trouble.”

Everly didn’t say anything right away. Just tilted her head, pretending to focus on peeling off the Velcro of her glove, but I caught the smile she was trying to hide. That pleased little smirk I wanted to tease out of her always.

Her voice was casual when it finally came. “Only turns out now?”

I leaned against the wall, sipping my water. “I’m a slow learner.”

She didn’t laugh, not really. But she didn’t look away either.

And I was so completely fucked.