“What about your mom?”
She squeezed her eyes closed. “Is there a class for dealing with self-absorbed mothers?”
Shannon’s shoulder shook as she laughed. “Sign me up if there is.”
Fifteen minutes later, after delivering the CliffsNotes version of her Adeline high tea, Avery fell into bed and closed her eyes. It felt good to have the validation of one of her friends. There wasn’t a thing wrong with the direction she was taking in her life.
She was a warrior.
Which was a hell of a lot better than being a victim.
Chapter Four
He was a contractor, not a freaking handyman. So why was he nailing racks to walls in a gym like an apprentice?
Oh, yeah . . . that’s right. He’d started going down this fork in the road once he realized that the blonde named Avery didn’t take the group class. He’d told Brenda, the owner of the studio, that he had to work for her after his normal working hours to give her the deal she needed. And when the group class turned up empty of his target, he might have seen the schedule on Brenda’s desk when it “accidentally” fell open on the floor. After flipping a few pages, he saw Avery’s name and insisted that Tuesday or Friday was the only time he had to finish his contracted job.
A voice in his head suggested that his motivation was a tinge too close to a stalker’s.
He was good with that.
The door from the locker room to the studio slammed.
“You need to get this door fixed, Brenda!”
Liam didn’t turn around.
It was her. He could tell by the way the hair stood up on his arms.
“Your warm-up is on the board,” Brenda yelled from her open office.
“I hate burpees.”
Liam felt his lips split into a smile while he lifted his level to the rack he’d just attached to the wall.
“I haven’t seen you in a week. You’re weak and pathetic,” Brenda sneered.
Avery’s displeasure was voiced under her breath. It was then that Liam glanced over his shoulder.
Oh, damn.
He was in trouble.
She was taller than he remembered. Or maybe it was the spandex she wore that seemed to add inches to her frame. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail. No makeup. Curves.
Rail-thin women did nothing for him.
She noticed him for the first time.
Her eyes narrowed. “Hello.”
“Hey.” Yeah, he was playing it cool, like a damn teenager. Hey? Who said hey?
“Do I know you?” she asked.
Liam started to shake his head.
“Ignore him. He’s working. Fifty burpees. One-legged. Twenty-five each side.” Brenda took a breath. “Stretch first.”
“Brutal,” Liam said quietly.
Avery rolled her eyes before lifting her hands over her head.
Liam swallowed.
Hard.
Spandex. He loved spandex.
She caught him staring and waited for him to stop.
“Sorry.” So not sorry. He turned around.
“One,” Avery called out. “Two, three.”
Liam made the mistake of looking over his shoulder on ten.
One leg up, her shoulders peeked out from under her skintight shirt, making his mouth go dry.
Since when did a woman’s shoulders make his dick stir?
He closed his eyes, shook his head, and turned around before she could catch him staring a second time. Get it together, man.
On forty-seven, Brenda walked out of her office, past him, and stood over Avery.
“You’re not sweating,” she said once Avery announced she was done.
“I am.”
There was a pause.
“Ten more!”
Avery grumbled. “I hate you.”
“As long as your check clears, I don’t care.”
Liam laughed. He couldn’t help himself.
“Are those shelves done?” Brenda asked.
“Almost.”
Brenda turned and focused on Avery as she did her last ten burpees.
“Damn, that hurt,” she said as she collapsed on the mat after the last one.
“That’s because you missed Friday.”
“I had to leave town.”
“Yes, I know. But take your workout with you and it won’t hurt as much when you return.”
Liam finished screwing in one of the brackets and moved on to the next, all the while eavesdropping on the conversation as much as he could.
“Today we’re starting with punches.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Avery twisting on a pair of boxing gloves while Brenda placed pads on her hands to catch Avery’s swings.
For five minutes Brenda yelled out a series of numbers: One, two. One, two, one. One, two, three, four, one, two. Jabs, cross hits, uppercuts. He had no idea krav had so much boxing involved.
Avery was sweating; her rapid breathing accompanied the grunts that would occasionally follow her efforts.
Brenda broke them off. “Get a drink. The next round is on your back.”
Liam had never worked so slowly in his life. Once Avery caught her breath, she lay down on the mat, and Brenda straddled her. He was pretty sure he’d seen something like this before. Only the women were wearing bikinis and were covered in mud.
“Left, right, until I call it.”
Avery started punching. Each slap of her boxing gloves to the mitts the instructor wore cracked the room with noise.
Brenda called time and instantly told Avery to force her off the domineering, if not slightly erotic, position she held over her.
For a brief second Avery sighed and acted as if she were going to just lie there, then, in a blur, Brenda was knocked off to the side, and Avery was two feet away and on the balls of her feet with her hands in front of her face.
“Holy shit.”
Brenda shook off her mitts and wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. “Don’t be impressed.”
For an instructor, Brenda didn’t seem to have a lot of motivational skills.
“I’m impressed.” Liam met Avery’s eyes.
“She refuses to spar with others.”
“I was with Leslie last week.”
“You have ten pounds on her. And she kicked your ass.”
Avery didn’t argue.
“You need more of a challenge. There is only so much I can teach you one-on-one. One of these days a man his size is going to challenge you, and you won’t have the skills to get away.” She pointed to Liam.
He placed his hands in the air. “Don’t look at me. I don’t attack women unless they ask for it.” He was pretty sure he smirked.
Avery rolled her eyes. “I could get him off of me.”
He laughed and sized her up. “I’m twice your size.”
Brenda glared. “Size means nothing.”
“Do you study krav?” Avery asked him.
“No.”
Avery turned to Brenda. “Then I could get away.”
“You think you can get away, but you’ve never tried. How do I know if anything I’m teaching you is useful if you don’t exercise it?”
“You’d be surprised at what I exercise.”
Brenda narrowed her eyes. “I know about the drunk at the bar.”
“What?”
“Leslie told me. In group. Right after she fought off two—not one, but two—of my best male students. So you can put a drunk into his drink. Good. I’m glad I taught you that much.”
Liam watched the women arguing in silence until that moment. “If you can’t teach her any more, then why do you keep taking her money?”
Both women turned to him as if they’d forgotten he was in the room.
“So I can pay you to stand around.”
“If I can get him off of me, will you let this go until I’m ready?” Avery pointed toward him.
He was pretty sure she’d just suggested that he straddle her while she tried to squirm away. This idea he could get into.
Brenda cocked her head to the side and shook it. “Too much liability.”
“I won’t hurt her.”
Brenda looked at him like he was an idiot. “Not her. You!”
Liam laughed.
That had both women glaring.
Without words, Brenda stormed into her office and returned with a piece of paper. She shoved it in front of his face and handed him a pen. “Sign this.”
“What is it?”
“Waiver. You get hurt? You don’t sue.”
He was cocky enough to think the blonde in spandex wasn’t big enough, fast enough, or strong enough to get him off of her. He was cautious enough to know he could lose a nut in the process.
He signed the paper. “I might wanna have kids one day.”
Brenda walked across the room and produced a jockstrap.
He held no shame in strapping on the ball barrier on the outside of his clothes, which was what this one was designed for.
The whole time Avery watched with her hands on her hips, determination in her eyes.
When he was ready, Brenda pulled him onto the mat. “You.” She pointed at Avery. “On your back.”
Liam had to admit, this was a first.
Avery lay down.
A hard-on in a jockstrap is probably not the best idea, Liam.
Talking to himself was a thing. And this time the voice told him he was an idiot.
Brenda knelt on the ground. “You remove him three times and I won’t harp on you for six months. No punches to the face. He doesn’t have padding.”
When she stood, she patted Liam’s chest. “Straddle her. Don’t let her up.”
Yup, definitely a first.
Liam puffed his chest out and smiled. Only that cockiness subsided as he knelt beside her. A combination of annoyance and vulnerability lurked in her eyes. And while Liam had no problem attracting women, he never purposely hurt them. “You okay with this?”
She motioned with her hand to climb on up.
The moment he straddled her hips, his dick waved. She was hot, sweaty, and flushed from her workout, or maybe that was the anger. One pass by in the bar a week ago and he’d already thought about this moment.