Infliction |Infected Book 2|

Chapter 12 - Wrestling

Desi

I followed Ryder into the training room, the smell of sweat and leather filling my nose and feeling all too familiar to me now that I was in here everyday.

"So what are we doing today?" I asked him as he stopped in the center of the big padded mat in the middle of the room. "Weightlifting? Cardio? Anger venting session with the punching bag?" The more I spoke the bigger the whiff of coffee I scented from my breath reminding me of Ryder's gaze while we sat across from each other in the breakfast nook, my hands fidgeting nervously in my lap the whole time.

Ryder turned around to look at me with a smirk on his face. "Wrestling," He said, raising his eyebrows.

"Wrestling?" I asked him, suddenly jittery. "As in full contact?"

"Well, if you want to think of it like that.." His voice trailed off as he chuckled.

My hand rested on my hip, waiting for him to get serious and my eyes glared at him as the smile faded from his lips.

"Warm up," Ryder told me, bending his arm over his head to stretch. His muscles tightened, my gaze lingering on his ripped tricep as he stretched his arm across his chest.

I felt his ocean eyes on me, bringing my attention to his stare but quickly looking away when I saw the longing imprinted in his gaze. I straddled my legs and bent down towards my foot, my torso brushing along my thigh. I knew when Ryder was looking at me and every time I would lift my head to catch him in the act, he idly glanced at the clock on the wall or the punching bags dangling on the other side of the room.

I finished stretching and began to run in place, warming up my body. I got lost in myself, closing my eyes and drifting away to the woods-- to Cody.

Ryder cleared his throat in front of me, snapping me out of it. My feet planted into the mat and my chest heaved up and down as I softly panted.

"So tell me, why are we wrestling?" I asked, skeptical of his reasoning.

"You never know when an infected might charge you in the cage," Ryder replied. "Leaving you to grapple on the ground."

"And there's no ulterior motive to this?" I tried to hide the smile that twitched at my lips, pretending to rub my nose with my hand.

"I don't know what you're talking about." His face was serious but his eyes told a different story, revealing his lie. "Come at me," Ryder said, raising his arms out at his sides. "Give me every bit of strength you've got. You might get paired up with an infected man bigger than I am, so you need to be prepared." He watched me as I stayed in place, hesitating approaching him.

"Are you sure about this?" I said, suddenly feeling sorry for him. "You have no clue what I might be capable of."

A line creased between his brows and a smile stretched across his lips. "Show me what you've got."

I clenched my fists at my sides and quickly crossed the distance between us, my body colliding with his, my shoulder digging into his chest and my arms wrapping under his as I tried to heave him backward onto the mat. Ryder's body was a mass of muscle, not even budging as I shoved harder into him.

As if I were as light as a feather, Ryder swept his arm below my knees and dropped me lightly onto the mat, making me grunt in frustration. Before I had a chance to react he was straddling me on his knees, pinning my arms above my head with his hands.

I squirmed my body side to side, a chuckle rumbling in Ryder' chest, amused with his obvious strength over me.

"Ha. Ha. Ha," I taunted him. "So hilarious." Struggling to get out of his grasp I lifted my head off the ground, stopping short when I saw how close our faces had become, the scarce proximity between our lips heating the air that separated us. I felt Ryder's body relax above me, his eyes glazing over, and I took this opportunity to quickly pull my arms out of his loosened grip, snaking underneath his arm so quickly he didn't even know what was going on.