Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 70320 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 352(@200wpm)___ 281(@250wpm)___ 234(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70320 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 352(@200wpm)___ 281(@250wpm)___ 234(@300wpm)
“They’d really kill you over this?”
“I think they would, yes.” He glances over at me, face a deadly mask. “Now you understand the stakes.”
“They’d kill me too.” I say it with perfect certainty and a cold chill runs down my spine. “What did we just do?”
“We put our fate in Rastus Filo’s hands. And it’s not a good place to be.”
He reaches the main road, turns, and hits the gas.
Chapter 11
Peter
“Hands up, just like I showed you. Good, like that. Now, punch. Use your legs and hips.” Adrienne strikes the heavy bag with a grunt. Her form is sloppy and there’s not much power behind her strikes, but she’s a world better than where she was when we first started. “Not bad. You’re getting better.”
“I hope so.” She leans back against the wall. “We’ve been at this for days now.” Sweat drips down her forehead and my eyes move down to her sports bra and the tight black yoga pants that make her ass look like heaven. She’s wet from working out in the heat and it drives me fucking wild looking at her flushed, toned body. She grins at me. “Eyes up here, asshole.”
I run a hand through my hair and consider her for a moment. She’s harder and tougher already than she was when she came to me. We’ve been working hard for the better part of a week, doing weights, yoga, boxing, Muay Thai and a few other martial arts. I’ve been putting her through her paces, through hell really, and she hasn’t complained once. Not when I accidentally hit her in the face, or when she broke her left pinky toe, or when she twisted an ankle, or the numerous minor cuts and scrapes and bruises, or the bone-deep exhaustion and sore muscles.
No, she’s only gotten leaner, stronger, harder. Still soft and beautiful—five days won’t change her that much—but she carries herself with her head held high now, and that confidence is intoxicating. I’m watching her break out from her shell and come into herself, and it’s incredible.
“I think you’re ready for some light sparring.”
“Against you?”
“There’s nobody else around, little killer.”
“You’re twice my size. It won’t be fair.”
“Do you think you’re going to fight people in the same weight class?” I gesture for her to follow me and lead her into the back yard. I toss her gloves and a mouthguard which she dutifully puts on. I wrap my fists in tape, yank on well-worn gloves, and get myself set. I roll my neck, shake out my arms, and face her. “Come at me.”
She hesitates, frowning like she doesn’t know what to do. “You mean just—”
I attack before she can finish that thought. I strike out with my gloved fist, aiming for her face, and she barely ducks out of the way. Days of hard training clearly left a mark because she reacted on instinct. Otherwise, I think I might’ve broken her nose.
“Good. Very good.” I circle around her and she keeps me in her line of sight just like I trained her to. I feel a surge of pride. She was meek and timid when we started and now look at her. Beautiful, angry, strong.
“You could’ve taken my head off, asshole.”
“You want to learn to fight, don’t you? You’re not going to do that without taking a few—”
She comes at me hard. Fists swinging, snarling with a sharp rage. I dodge back, block a kick aimed at my shin, and step into a punch. It misses me by inches and I move down, drive an elbow into her midsection, and shove her back.
She wheezes, holding her gut. “Prick.”
“That was good. Fast and vicious. Didn’t leave me any room for maneuvering. Let’s go again.”
We fight like that for an hour. I pull my punches because I’m not trying to kill the girl, but I hit her and knock her over and every single time she gets back up. More than once, I offer to let her quit. I give her an out—tell her we can have drinks on the beach or lounge in the pool—and each time she tells me to fuck off and we go again.
She’s gorgeous. She’s incredible. The more I hit her, the more I hurt her, the more I want to fuck her and feast on her. The more I want to kiss her. It’s the strength that draws me, that inner light shining through her rage. When she first came to me, she was an injured, beaten little puppy dog, afraid of loud noises and limping around and feeling sorry for herself.
Now she’s growing into a killer. Now she’s turning herself into a monster.
And I love it.
“Good,” I say when she lands a punch and tries to ram her knee into my balls. I barely twist out of the way before throwing her to the ground. She hits with a grunt and flips me off from her back.