Caleb hadn’t recognized the man, but if Grant had brought him in, that was good enough. Grant might appear casual and careless, but he never fooled around with the important things.
“They have floor mats over there, right?”
Lana nodded, but her brows drew together in a curious line. “A few we use when I can get one of the local gymnastic coaches to donate some lessons.”
“And you have a key.”
“Of course. Caleb, what are you getting at?”
“I was just thinking about something Grant said to me today he thought I should try with you.”
Caleb saw her eyes darken and a pretty blush spread up her throat. “I’m, uh, not sure that we should be doing anything Grant suggests at the youth center.”
It took Caleb a minute to realize that she thought he meant sex. Possibly kinky sex. Which, of course, made Caleb’s mind go there, too. What a lovely place that was.
She hadn’t said no to the idea, just no to doing it at the youth center, and if that wasn’t enough to make a man’s blood boil, Caleb didn’t know what was. “It’s not what you think. I just wanted to show you a few self-defense moves.”
“What for?”
“Just in case.”
“In case of what?”
“In case those secrets you’re keeping come back to haunt you. I don’t want you to be completely defenseless.”
Any sign of sexual interest he thought he’d seen vanished. “I’ve taken self-defense classes,” she said, her voice even.
“Not from me.”
“And what makes your teaching special?”
“Because in my class, the best defense is a good offense.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
An hour later, Lana was sweating and breathing hard, and only partly from the strenuous moves Caleb had her practicing. He’d stripped out of his shirt, leaving that glorious expanse of muscled chest and abs on display. And she got to touch him, too. Not just little passing touches, but hard holds that taught her just what the man would feel like if she ever got him in her arms for real. It was more than any red-blooded woman should have to take, and yet it wasn’t nearly enough.
“That was good,” he said as he pushed himself back to his feet. He’d let her knock him onto the ground to show her how it felt to folow through the motion. Of course, once she’d knocked him flat on his back, she wanted to climb aboard and stay there for a good long while, but that wasn’t in the cards.
“This time when you get me on the ground, I want you to folow through with that stomp kick I showed you.”
“I don’t want to hurt you,” she said, her voice light with breathlessness.
His black eyes were glittering in the bright lights of the gym, and his skin glowed as if it had been oiled. “Aim just to the side of my head, but don’t hold back on the force of the kick. If you get too close, I’l just dodge.”
“What if you’re not fast enough?” she asked, taunting him. She knew ful wel he was. She’d seen him move tonight and was astonished that a man his size could be so quick.
“I’l be fast enough if you’re not trying to hurt me. Come on,” he said, motioning her toward him with his fingertips. “Let’s go.”
Lana took a deep breath as she waited for Caleb to come toward her. She went through a series of moves he caled “nothing fancy,” using his own momentum and a kick to the back of his knees to bring him down. Something went wrong, and a second later she found herself on top of him with her nose in his crisp chest hair.
Lana’s laboring lungs puled in the scent of his skin, felt the firm bed of man beneath her, and she felt the liquid flow of desire pooling low in her bely. She tried to hold in a low groan of need, but her breathing was too ragged to control it.
“You okay?” he asked, sounding a little winded himself for the first time tonight.
Lana nodded and tried to push herself up. Her arms shook with effort as her mind tried to take control of her wayward body, which wanted to stay right here and taste the salt of his skin.
Her weight shifted as she worked to move off Caleb’s body, and pressed against her stomach she felt the unmistakable length of his arousal. Lana went stil, trying to make sense of what she felt, trying to figure out if it was al in her head or if he realy was hard and hot against her bely.
“One of us should move,” he told her in a thick voice. “And if it’s me, I swear to God I’m going to slide you under me and do something that would make even Grant blush.”
The words went into her brain and roled around in an indecipherable pile. Blood raced along her skin, making the gymnasium air feel cold. Something deep inside her melted, and her muscles went weak. She wanted to stay right here—to force him to do whatever it was he had in mind. She wanted it. Needed it. She’d been too long without pleasure in her life, and she knew on an instinctive level that Caleb had what it would take to make her body sing.
She must have stayed stil too long, fighting for the right decision, because she felt Caleb shudder beneath her. His powerful muscles clenched and shifted, and when they stopped, she was lying on the cold vinyl mat and Caleb was gone.
She looked up and saw him with his back to her a few feet away. “I’m sorry, Lana. I shouldn’t have said that, shouldn’t have put that pressure on you.”
She tried to tel him it was okay, but words lodged tight in her throat. She wanted to tel him to come back and bring back the warmth he’d given her, but al that came out was a choking sound of unsated lust.
“I’l, uh, be back in a sec,” he said and headed toward the men’s room.
Lana flopped onto her back and looked up at the steel beams and bright lights overhead. It was better this way. No ties between them, nothing to rip her apart when he was gone. Some things weren’t worth a night of pleasure, and watching Caleb walk away with her heart was one of them. And there was no doubt that he could walk away with her heart. No matter whom he’d pretended to be in the past, she saw him for who he was. Noble. Honorable. Dependable. A freaking Boy Scout’s pledge ful of things that Oran had never been. He was the kind of man a woman wanted to keep, and that was the problem. His days with her were numbered. She didn’t know how many, but eventualy, Monroe would find some better use of Caleb’s time and talents, and when that happened, Caleb would leave.
The world needed its few remaining heroes, and Lana needed to keep any more people from getting tangled up in her mess of a life. She had nothing to offer him but secrets and lies and night after night of being woken by her screams.
He deserved more than that.
“Did you do as I asked?” said the metalic voice on the other end of the phone.
Denny felt himself start to sweat—a cold, sour sweat that made his stomach turn with the stench. “I couldn’t. There was some guy watching her place.”
“One man and you couldn’t handle it?” asked the voice, mocking his ability.
Something about that man had made Denny think twice about taking him on. There was nothing particularly special about him, just this air of confidence that made Denny hesitate. The guy was no amateur. “It wasn’t the right time. That’s al. I’l try again tonight.”
“Don’t bother. She’s got a guard dog now, and there’s no way you’l get in while she’s sleeping.”
“What do you want me to do?”
Silence reigned on the other end of the phone long enough to make Denny shake. He was sure he wasn’t going to like whatever his boss was going to have to say. He never did.
Denny had puled al the blinds shut, hoping that the nagging sense of being watched would go away. It hadn’t. He stil felt the silent gaze of his boss heavy on the back of his neck.
“I want you to obtain a set of blueprints for the First Light youth center. The file number is listed along with the location of the file in a letter in your mailbox.”
“What do you want those for?” he asked before he could stop himself. He’d drunk too much tonight. His wits were slow, and now it was going to cost him. He braced himself for the reaming, but it didn’t come.
“Shame on you, you naughty boy.” The words were almost singsong, grating discordantly against one another in the robot’s voice.
“Sorry.”
“That’s a good boy. Now get some coffee to clear your head, and have the prints sitting on your kitchen table by morning.”
“Where do you want me to take them, then?”
“Nowhere. I’l come get them.”
“In my house?” Oh, man. The thought of having this guy come into his home made him sick. There was something off about him—something that was more fucked up than even Bruce’s love for breaking guys’ legs.
“You won’t even know I was there. You never have.”
The phone went dead, and Denny started shaking, and not from the booze. His boss had been here before and he hadn’t even known it? What else didn’t he know?
Before the thought could scare him stupid, he got up and made a pot of coffee, feeling his boss’s eyes on the back of his neck the whole time.
Lana showered the sweat from her body, letting the hot water run over her tired muscles. Even through the physical weariness, she felt a new kind of strength flowing through her. Despite the embarrassing episode on the mat, Lana realized that she’d learned more in the hour of training from Caleb than she had in weeks worth of self-defense classes in colege. There was something about the brutaly effective moves he’d taught her that gave her a thin strand of confidence to grab on to. It made her feel powerful, safer somehow. She just hoped that the end of their lesson tonight didn’t mean the end of lessons altogether. If she could keep her libido in check, she might actualy manage to fight back some of the fear she’d been living with for so long.
The notion made her giddy with hope.
Now if she could only convince Caleb to continue the lessons without the two of them ending up naked, she’d be set.
Yeah, right.
Caleb had frozen up and stayed frozen from the moment he’d walked out of the men’s room. He was the picture of walking regret, and she knew that her lessons were over.
Lana puled on her pajamas—a knit T-shirt and matching shorts set that was cool and comfortable. She came out of the bathroom and Caleb’s black gaze slid up and down her body, making her nipples tighten to hard points against her shirt. Lana licked her lips and tried not to read anything into his stare.
“Those hurt?” he asked, nodding toward her legs.
Lana looked down the surgical scars and saw a few shadowy patches of skin where their mock combat had bruised her. She wasn’t sure which he’d referred to, but the answer was the same. “No.”
“Good. You sore?”
She would be tomorrow, but for now, she was just pleasantly tired. “No.”
He ran a wide hand over his face and puled in a deep breath. “I’m staying here tonight,” he told her in a tone that gave away his displeasure with the notion.
Lana felt a zing of excitement race through her but tried to hide it. “You weren’t invited.”