“Lessons?” I asked with a quirk of my brow. I leaned against the wall with my arms crossed over my bare chest, waiting for her to answer.

“Yeah, I heard there is a pro here, teaching lessons.”

I went rigid and stood up straight from the mention of my past. “Lyla…”

“Funny thing about the internet, Kace. You can find out anything about people, especially if they’ve been in the limelight.”

Fury blazed through me, and I tried to tamp down my anger, but it was too much, there was too much pent-up aggression. I didn’t want her searching me on the internet. Who knew what she would find.

I got in her face and said, “You had no fucking right looking up my shit.”

“Public knowledge,” she shrugged, not startled one bit by my proximity. “If you’re not going to open your mouth, then I’ll look things up myself. You know what’s funny, though? When I was doing my research, I saw you lost your license for shooting up steroids.”

“We’re done here,” I said, blowing past her, knocking into her shoulder so she was thrown off balance for a second.

As I walked away, my past came flooding back to me in full force. That morning I received a call from Dale hit me hard and all the painful memories from that night came to the forefront of my mind. I didn’t want to relive it. I knew I deserved to live with my past sins, but I didn’t want to, not now. Not with Lyla in the room.

Keeping my back toward her, I held on to the wall and hung my head, trying to shake the sickening feeling that was trying to bubble to the surface of my emotional state.

Coming up behind me and placing her hand on my back, she said, “Let’s talk about it.”

I whirled around. “I don’t want to fucking talk about it. You’re not my shrink, so do us both a favor and leave.”

My booming voice echoed through the room, but it didn’t affect her. She continued her pursuit of trying to “help” me.

“I don’t believe what everyone said to be true,” she stated softly. “I don’t believe you would do such a thing to your body, not after seeing the strong work ethic you have. It doesn’t match up.”

I ran my hands down my face, trying to wipe away the moment. They stopped mid stroke from her confession. “What?” I asked, almost shocked by her statement.

“I don’t believe the accusations.” She pulled a paper from her back pocket and unfolded it. “Your trainer did it. See?” She pointed to the paper as if she’d solved the world’s greatest mystery.

“I know he did,” I responded, relaxing only slightly.

“Oh,” she replied, a little shocked by my knowledge. “Well, if you knew he did it, then why didn’t you clear your name?”

I shook my head and looked at the ground. “Too late.”

“It’s never too late—”

“It’s too fucking late, Lyla, so just drop it.”

I leaned against the wall and crossed my legs at my ankles and my arms over my chest. Her gaze landed on my bare chest, and she lightly licked her lips, like I was her lunch, waiting to be consumed.

“Don’t look at me like that,” I told her.

“I can look at you however I want. You’re not the boss of me,” she replied defiantly.

“Mature.” I nodded.

“It’s the truth, but if you ever let me into that closed-off world of yours, I might let you be the boss of me.”

The proposition was incredibly tempting. To be able to control the mouthy yet sexy woman standing in front of me would be something I would enjoy immensely, but that would mean letting her into my world, letting her know who I really was, and that was something I just couldn’t do.

“Tempting, but I’ll pass,” I answered, hating the betrayal I was playing on my true feelings.

She shrugged as if my rejection was no big deal and started putting on the boxing gloves she held in her hands. The first one went on smoothly, but the second glove she struggled with because she didn’t have the use of her right hand anymore. A seasoned boxer had no problem slipping on gloves, but she was a newbie, and it was painfully obvious she had no clue what she was doing.

Instinctively, I went up to her and grabbed the glove from her struggling hand. Her green eyes searched mine as I held the glove open for her to slip her hand inside. A small smile crossed her lips as she slipped her hand into the glove. Once the gloves were on, I helped secure the straps. She punched her fists together to test them. Clearly she was happy with their fit from the light in her eyes.

Lightly, she tapped me on the shoulder with the gloves and said, “Thank you.” Then she knocked her gloves together once again and bounced on her toes. “All right, how does this work?”

Shaking my head, I grabbed her hand and led her over to the row of punching bags. “Go ahead.” I nodded at the first one in the row.

“Just punch it?” she asked, looking hotter than hell in her skimpy outfit and boxing gloves. Visions of her only wearing the gloves and possibly tied to my headboard ran through my mind. That was a sight I wouldn’t mind seeing.

“Punch it,” I confirmed.

She cocked her arm back and geared up for what seemed like was going to be the whammy of all punches. Before she could do serious damage to herself, I grasped her arms and stopped her.

“Hey, I was about to gut this bastard.” She nodded at the bag.

“Yeah, and you were about to most likely snap your wrist while doing it.” Standing behind her, I wrapped my arms around her upper half and held her wrist. “See this?” I breathed into her ear. “This is a weak little wrist that can break if you’re not careful. You don’t have any wrist stability on, and by the way you were about to hammer out a punch on this bad boy, you were going to snap something.”

She leaned into me, her hair brushing my shoulder and her face turned toward mine. “Okay, so teach me how to knock things out.”

Her voice was breathless, and a faint flowery scent wafted from her hair, practically bringing me to my knees.

I wanted her.

I ran my hand from her wrist up her arms, feeling the effect I had on her from the goosebumps that instantly rose on her skin. With my hand on her elbow, I pulled her arm back and showed her the proper technique for punching, all the while holding tightly to her hip.

“So just pull back like this and let go?” she asked, her face turned toward mine, slaying me with those green eyes of hers. I nodded to confirm, not able to open my mouth in case I said something stupid.

“All right, look out.”

With the biggest wallop she could muster, she cocked her arm back and let it fly, making contact with the punching bag. An immediate cry escaped her as she bent and gripped her wrist. She sat on the floor and started to rock back and forth, holding her arm.

“Are you okay?” I asked, sitting on the ground next to her and pulling her onto my lap so I could take a closer look at her hand.

“Remove these,” she said, referring to the gloves.

Quickly, I took off the left glove and chucked it aside. Then I went to her right one and held it steady as I took off the strap and pulled it, fearing I was going to find a bone popping out of her skin. To my surprise, everything was fine. There was no bruising or swelling. I looked at her to see where she was hurting only to find her smiling at me with an evil grin.

Before I could even move, she straddled my lap and pushed me back on the floor so she hovered over me.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“Getting you into a position I know we both enjoy.”

“Are you hurt?” I asked, trying to keep my eyes away from the obvious cleavage shot Lyla was handing me on a silver platter.

“No.” She lowered herself so her face was mere inches from mine. “I just wanted to get you in a position where I could entice you.”

“Not going to happen, Lyla,” I gritted out, annoyed she’d faked an injury to top me and annoyed I’d fallen for it.

“Oh, really?” Her hand seductively found its way down to my crotch, where with one stroke over my workout shorts, she had me growing in seconds. It was impossible not to when I was presented with such a gorgeous and enticing woman. “Looks like your dick is singing a different song,” she teased.