This sizzling spark of connection between us was dangerous. I hadn’t even realized I was searching for something like this.
It was foolhardy.
But what if it wasn’t? What if this was what Rhodes and Curtis had been talking about? Having someone to come home to, someone I could care about.
Curtis had once told me it was policy because when Aidan Saint-James and Orion McClintock founded the original agency, they had seen what the isolation could do to their agents. They were efficient, but they only had a shell of a life. The moment they gave them something to care about, they became more stable and lasted longer in the job.
So our agents were encouraged to have relationships. But obviously, operators couldn’t tell their partners anything about what they really did, so there was still a bit of distance there. Exodus never wanted an agent who would choose loyalty to their partner over loyalty to their agency.
And you might care a little too much about Lyra. You would just about give up every dime you have just to see her smile.
She grinned up at me. “Like this?”
I nodded slowly, my eyes focusing on her lips. When she pulled the bottom of her lip with her perfectly straight white teeth, I groaned. “Lyra, you’re trying to distract me.”
“I am not. I’m here to learn. I am making a fist. Look at me with my fist.”
“Okay, let’s try a couple of combinations with the pads. Remember what I showed you about making sure you keep your guard up? When you punch, you want to tuck your head just a little bit into your neck, kind of like a turtle. You don’t want to give anyone an easy target, yeah? And keep your arm locked in. You don’t want to swing wide because you’re losing the power of your force in that arc. You got me?”
“Um, okay. Tight fist, tuck my neck, hands up. Sure, got it.”
I loved her determined face. The furrow of her brow, the slight bite of her cheek that she always did, my little warrior. She wasn’t terrible either. She just needed time and work.
And let me guess, you volunteer all the time to put in the work with her?
I just wanted her to be able to take care of herself. I would never get the image of her getting hit out of my head. I hated it. She delivered some blows to the bag, still swinging a little too wildly. “Put your hips into it, and remember what I said, lock your arms. Keep them straight.”
More lip biting. More nodding. More combinations.
When I started to notice that she had sweat on her brow, I gave her a break.
“It’s good to get a workout in. Kickboxing is fun, but I guess not that applicable to a real-world fight. It’s not like I’m doing the stuff you see in MMA or anything.”
I helped her take off the gloves. “Hey, it’s okay. Most people aren’t. Most sane people anyway.”
“How come you know so much about self-defense? I know you said that you did Krav Maga, right?”
“Yeah. And I also did a lot of jujitsu when I was younger.”
“Wow, all these things I didn’t know about you.”
“Yeah, well, lots to learn, isn’t there?”
She tossed the towel over her shoulder after she dabbed her eyebrows. “So how does an adorable computer geek come to learn jujitsu and Krav Maga?”
I laughed. “Remember, I said I have brothers, right?”
“Yes, but that doesn’t... I mean, I’m sure boys fight, but to take it so far as to need to learn martial arts?”
The giant floor-to-ceiling windows of the gym let in so much light. The sunlight was dancing in her hair, adding streaks of brown, gold, and auburn to her curls.
“My older brother, Liam, is military, British SAS, and let’s just say kids who love computers and programming aren’t exactly the popular kids.”
She winced. “Right. I could see that.”
“So, anyway, I had my arse kicked. A lot.”
“Oh no.”
“Eventually, I got a lot bigger. But I also got into gaming hard core. Wanted to build my own games. So I started taking jujitsu and Krav Maga so I could have a good enough understanding of the moves to design games.”
“That’s so cool. It must have come in incredibly handy.”
I laughed. “Yes, handy indeed.”
“Even nerdy, you must have been cute though.”
I shook my head and laughed. “Uh, no. I was awkward. Gangly. For the longest time, I was small. So small.”
She stared at me, brows lifted. “No way.”
“Yes, way. I honestly didn’t see sunlight once for three weeks on a holiday break. Mom was beside herself. I was a proper geek. I stayed inside the house on a steady diet of American snacks from the corner shop.”
“What was your favorite?”
“Cheetos and Mountain Dew.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Ugh, those are the worst. You know that.”
“I’m sorry, but Cheetos are excellent. They’re the right kind of radioactive goodness that you need. Don’t get me wrong. Mum made sure that I ate actual food. But the moment she wasn’t looking, all the crisps I snuck didn’t do anything except make my skin oily and acne prone.”
She stared at me. “There isn’t a hint of a scrawny, geeky kid inside you.”
“Yeah, it was brutal at school. Luckily, my brothers were there, otherwise, the ass-kicking would have been much worse.”
“Fuck, I’m so sorry.”
“Nah, don’t be sorry. Liam, he comes through for you when you need him. And he did. The kind of fighting that Liam did in the military was hugely different than what I eventually learned to do. But still, it saved my life.”
“You know what? It’s sort of weird for you to actually be a video game designer with that body.”
“Well, I couldn’t stay a gangly, awkward kid forever. I grew ten inches over the course of a couple of summers, then one big final burst, and now here I am.”
She blinked. “Somehow, I don’t think that’s a prescription most people can follow. Eat crisps, play video games, grow
