My hand trailed down his arm, and his pulse jumped under the warm skin on his wrist. His wrist slipped out from under my fingers, and his hand clamped around mine.
When had he moved closer? I looked up. His face was only inches away.
“And the scar on your eyebrow?” I asked. I reached up, and ran my fingertip over the jagged skin partially hidden in his eyebrow.
“A fight.”
“The one by your ear?” I touched that one, too. He leaned into my hand.
“A fight.” His voice grew quieter.
“The one on your chest?” Even though he had a shirt on, I knew he had a scar there. I pressed my hand against his chest. His heart rate sped up, and feeling it under my flat palm relaxed me.
“Trying to jump a fence when I was little.”
“Before your ninja skills?” I said.
“Before my ninja skills.”
His gaze felt heavy. I titled my head back, and our eyes locked. His pupils constricted; his chest raised quicker and quicker. My hand fisted his shirt. I wanted so badly to reach out and kiss him.
“And you? This one?” His hand brushed against my hair; his fingers trailed the scar at my temple.
My skin tingled under his touch, and warm arrows shot down my cheek, down my throat. When had it gotten so hot in here?
His question registered in my muddled brain. Between that and wanting to kiss him, I did the only thing I could think of. I threw a double jab, putting distance between us, followed by a cross with my fight hand.
He slipped the cross, and this time sent one of his own back. I slipped it, went in for a hook, but he moved. Still in close. As I grabbed his neck and yanked him forward, I sent out a right Thai knee, angling my hips open, landing my knee rib level. He grabbed my thigh, and wrapped his arm underneath it.
I tightened my arms, and prepared for punches or to be dropped to the mat. Instead, he yanked me forward, and my stomach, bare from where my tank top had rolled up, hit his. I dropped my arms, surprised. He stared at me; we were so close now. He no longer held my thigh. His arm wrapped around my back, his palm against the area above my butt, and I pressed my body tighter against him.
I felt the movement before he hooked his foot around my ankle and yanked. I was already off balance, but I didn’t even try to stay up. I fell, him on top of me, one arm around my back and the other hand cradling my head.
At first, the movement confused me. He knocked me down all the time and never seemed overly concerned about my head.
With my back on the mat, his fingers touched my hair and trailed down my cheek, my jaw, my neck. Hot skin pressed against my abs. Leather and sweat mixed with Max engulfed me.
With one hand resting on my neck, he kissed me.
L.G. Kelso writes speculative and contemporary novels. Having grown up watching Xena and Hercules with her grandmother, L.G. inherited her passion for the fantastical, mythological and paranormal. She writes fantasy genre mash-ups that have empowered heroines, complicated heroes, and, of course, magic. Her contemporary works are NA sports romance novels that focus on people in love with combat sports and sometimes each other. L.G. is involved in combat sports and she strives to bring an authentic view of the always breathtaking, often times crazy, and sometimes painful world of MMA into her novels. L.G writes in various categories, but her passion in New Adult, and has been long before New adult was acknowledged. This interest led her and a group of other New Adult fanatics to create NA Alley: Bridging the Gap between YA and Adult Fiction.
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