"Again. Use your height as an advantage. Be fast and don't second guess your next move, got it?"
"Got it," I reply, nodding, refusing his hand to help me get to my feet.
I push myself up from the mats, standing tall or small, since he likes to keep pointing out that I'm vertically challenged for being five foot two against his six... whatever his bloody height is. I try to catch my breath, raising my fists to guard my face and getting into my stance. Eric does his usual and decks me yet again, the same drilling he's been doing from the start, and I'm beginning to get the hang of it. The tenth time around, I manage to stop him from dragging me to the ground, jamming my knee into the back of his so he nearly folds.
I give him a cocky smile with a shrug as he glares at me. "What? You dropped your guard, should pay more attention," I say with added enthusiasm. "Be careful. You don't want me to beat you black and blue for my mum's party tomorrow."
"Such a full of shit cow," he replies with a laugh, jerking his head to the side until it cracks and gets into his own stance. "You need to punch harder, make sure you remember to twist your hips into-"
I cut him off by striking, my knuckles barely skimming his cheek, the other fist catching under his eye. He tries to hook his ankle behind my leg, but I lose my balance and tumble back to the ground, taking him with me when I grab his wrist. Acting fast, I quickly roll over, so he's pinned beneath me, holding his hands above his head.
He's smirking at me; the idiot isn't even trying to stop me. "You're learning. The element of surprise... good, keep going."
I should probably add in that he's topless and my spaghetti strap keeps sliding down my arm, something that's been catching his eye one too many times.
"You just talk too much," I say through a pant, sitting upon his midsection, leaning back against his bent legs and shoving my hair out of my face that's fallen from my messy bun. "I'm tired and it's late."
"Perfect," he says with wide eyes, making me flinch forward to grab at thin air as he parts his thighs, sitting up and pushing me so I fall onto the mats between his legs. "One lap of the dome and we'll call it a night."
Propping up on my palms behind me, I scowl at him and blow my hair out of my eyes. "Really?" I ask in disgust, looking at the pitch-black outside. "It's dark and nearly midnight!"
He doesn't seem to care about my protest, just runs his hand through his hair and leans his elbows on his parted knees, as if I haven't been here training since this morning. "And? Scared of the dark, Dan?"
My eyes narrow. "You know I'm not."
"Then stop complaining."
I fight the urge to scoff at him, to grab one of the dumbbells and whack him over the head. He's been more of a dick than usual today, and if he gives me one more comment about Gary and Robert, I might knee him between the legs.
I'm starting to think the added time and more aggressive fighting forms are because I told him Gareth had offered to help with the training yesterday, and instead of denying the poor lad who had the biggest pleading eyes, I'd said I wasn't too fussed if Eric wasn't.
Apparently, my trainer was fussed, and even told me to stay away from him.
"Would my dad not go crazy if he found out I was out at this time? You're not on duty. You're still suspended, so it would be unauthorised." He nods at me in response, and I ponder on how many ways I can hurt him. Maybe I can sneak into his room while he sleeps and smother him? Yeah, I'll try that. "I hate you, in case you've forgotten all the other times I've told you."
Laughing, he stands and wipes his face with a towel, his top tucked into his shorts that hang low on his hips. "Sure you do. Get back into your stance and block me."
"Wanker," I mutter under my breath.
My vocabulary has definitely taken a bashing from constantly being around him. Before I go to sleep, I have him ordering me through my wristband to eat and drink water, a chain of cursed slurs that I return with the middle finger through my kitchen window. Then, commenting that I look like fucking death first thing in the morning when I sit up in my bed, hair skew-whiff.
I'm slowly morphing into a female version of him by picking up on his annoying quirks and phrases. It's terrifyingly exciting, something Ains has been having a field day with every time we chat.
But sometimes, he can go too far, and that's usually when he notices my mood changing and quickly tries to cover it up by kicking my feet away from me or ending our training session, telling me to go get some sleep.
He really is exhausting to be around, yet I get butterflies when I walk up to his front door or when I receive a rude voice note from him. Refusing my attraction towards him has become harder, he seems to be the only bloody person I can think of when I'm not with him.
And because I decided to blurt out that I cared about him that night at the cellblock, he probably sees me as some lovesick puppy that he's being forced to be around constantly.
But then again, telling him that hasn't changed the way he's being with me, so I guess he has either forgotten or is doing a really good job at staying professional and not telling me to bugger off.
It's been this way for the past ten days, and physically, my body wants to crawl into my bed and never leave with how much I'm aching. My muscles are straining from overworking them for the first time ever, and he doesn't help with the early morning runs and late-night weight sessions.
However, as annoying as Eric is with his orders and abruptness, I am enjoying the long days of fighting and pretending I know what a bicep curl is while I ignore him opposite me benching God knows how much weight. I'm sleeping better, my mind isn't flooded with unnecessary thoughts, or even worrying about how we have a countdown on our impending deaths. Dad still allows me to go to work, where Eric picks me up and makes me run home with him, yelling at me to hurry the fuck up.
He hasn't suggested we spend any time together that isn't related to the training, but I think that's a good thing, even if I do linger in the doorway when it's time for me to leave.
And now the idiot has me running in the dark, and as usual, I'm trailing behind.
"It's going to take us nearly three hours to do a lap of the dome!" I yell at him as he runs ahead, the dogs by his side. I think Skye got fed up with me going too slow and stopping every two seconds. I clear my throat and make sure he can hear me. "I need to wash my hair and stuff for tomorrow night and it's already half-past one!"
He slowly stops, his head lolling from left to right in obvious annoyance. "I highly doubt your hair takes that long, Dan."
I point to the mop of ginger locks falling from my scrunchie. "Are you joking? Have you ever tried to wash this much hair? Do you know how long it takes to get the shampoo and conditioner out, then to dry it all? Oh, let's not forget styling."
His brows raise, a bored expression on his face. "I can't say I do."
"And the hairdryers here are rubbish, do you know it takes me nearly two hours to even partially dry it? Oh my God, you're laughing at me? No, fuck this, I'm going home," I say bluntly when I see him trying not to laugh at me. Turning on my heels, I stop, looking around at the stretch of land full of rubble. The town is miles away while we stand in the middle of nowhere, not even the spotlights of the dome are above us. "Where are we?"
"I wanted to show you something," he says, making me turn to look at him in confusion, the moonlight shining on our faces as he walks towards me. "But we need to keep moving."
"What is it?"
I hear Skye bark, and I look to see the dogs rolling in the dried-up dirt, inwardly wincing that he might make me wash them again. The two furballs left my house a disaster the last time, and all Eric did was sit on his tablet while I ran wild trying to catch them covered in bubbles.
"Just move," he responds with a huff, whistling to the dogs to follow him as he starts jogging again.
I follow behind for the next twenty minutes, and the further we go, the darker it gets. Eric tilts his head and nudges me to walk between trees, moving a branch aside for me to get by safely. "We'll go this way, it's faster."
"Okay." Nodding, knowing he'll give me a death stare if I even question where we're going again, I give him a tight smile as I pass. "As long as you're not going to kill me and hide my body, but I doubt that because you'll miss me far too much."
"Funny," I hear him reply in a blunt tone behind me.
I know we're in a dead forest. I'm sure this part used to be called the Nature Trail of Loch Thom, but obviously, half has been obliterated, and this side had been saved by the dome's structure. The branches snap under my shoes so easily, so fragile and weak as the crunching sounds echo around me. The smell of damp moss and flowers barely lingers, but I can still inhale a trace of it and let my imagination do the rest while I hum Zombie to myself.
Eric stops to pick up a large branch and throws it ahead of us, so the dogs run to catch it, repeating this with several sticks. I trip up as soon as I catch up to him, and he grabs my arm to help me balance. I must admit, the feeling of his fingers on me for other reasons than throwing me around is exhilarating, like my body is jolted alive by his touch, until he lets go.
"We're here," he says, shoving aside a branch, jumping into a ditch that leads to an open field. He doesn't help me when I accidentally slide to the bottom, just shakes his head when he looks down at me. "Ready?"
Getting to my feet, I eye him suspiciously. "For what?"
He raises his arm in front of him and presses a button on his wristband. "Frank, can you turn on the South field irrigation for an hour? I need to check something."
"What the hell does that mean?" I ask, but he ignores me as the band beeps with Frank's reply.
"On it."
Eric smirks at me as multiple lights spread along the field in front of us, and I gasp in surprise as water starts spraying over the top of us, spreading the land with freezing cold liquid. There are loads of sprinklers in rows, all watering the ground beneath us.
"Oh my God!" I scream with a wide smile, raising my hands to gather puddles of water in my palms, my hair stuck to my face, my white top completely see-through. "Oh my God," I repeat, feeling the mud under my shoes begin to soften, droplets falling from my eyelashes. "It's like rain!"
Eric hasn't taken his eyes off me, not even to watch the dogs jumping around trying to catch the sprays of water. He smiles when I look up at him, and I fight the urge to hug him.
This is unbelievable.
It's like real rain. I'm not pretending to feel it while sitting in a cold shower and imagining the cracks of thunder. I'm really standing in a field in the rain, and I feel like crying.
I am crying.
"This..." I choke, cupping more puddles in my palms and watching the water pour from my hands when I part my fingers, mesmerised. "This is-"
My words are cut off by a clump of wet mud slapping against my face.
It takes me a few moments to realise that he's just thrown soggy dirt at me, the petrichor smell stuck to my cheek, sticky and wet, sliding down as the droplets of water mix in.
When I eventually look at him with a growl, he slowly backs away while biting his lip, trying not to break from his indifferent expression. I'm about to kill him, and I will do it as soon as I wipe the sludge from my face with the palm of my hand.
Maybe it will be his body that gets buried out here and not mine.
Being a mature twenty-two-year-old, I've decided that it's a good idea to have a mud fight, in the synthetic rain at two in the morning, as I launch a handful at him. And Eric, the extremely responsible bodyguard and trainer, the one who will most likely get his balls chewed for having me out here with him, seems to agree as he dodges the clump, spending the next however long getting covered head to toe in dirt while the dogs roll around in it.
I even hear him laugh, a lot, and the deep sound makes me smile even harder.
Especially when I slide, the mushy ground beneath me seeping into my hair and clothing, as if I'm being swallowed by the field. He helps me up, catching me completely off guard as he spins me so his chest presses against my back.
My heart instantly starts racing, his lips dangerously close to the shell of my ear makes me let out a low whimper. "Now, what do you do if someone has you like this?" he asks with a hiss against my neck, one arm trapping mine at my sides, the other holding my hip. "Think, Dan. No second guesses. How do you stop me from going further?"
I try to squirm, but my feet slide in the mud, starting to engulf my shoes. It's impractical, I'm rendered completely useless.
My mouth waters as his fingers spread against my hip, dipping under the material of my soaked top so his thumb grazes my ribs, his pinkie near the waistband of my underwear. "Think." The word is like a drawled out whisper, and I'm trying to heave air into my desperate lungs, trying to think logically, trying to not melt in his arms as he breathes deeply against the sensitive skin below my ear.
With the adrenaline of running around and tossing mud at each other, releasing endorphins from how much I've been laughing, and then the shocks of electricity heading south, I feel paralysed, mindless, utterly dazed.
I know this is just Eric's way of training me still, the element of surprise as he had said. It's working, because all I can think about is his hands on my bare skin, and how much I want him to keep going, even if it isn't intended to turn me on enough to make me pool between my legs.
I'm losing my freaking mind.
I wriggle in his arms, and he tightens his around me. I can feel his heart hammering against my back, panting in my ear. It has me wondering if he's falling into the same hole I'm currently trapped in. If I arch my back, I would know if this is affecting him the same way, right?
But I won't do that, especially if this is his way of teaching me how to get out of these types of scenarios and all I'm doing is trying to press my arse against his soft, uninterested, cock.
Focus, Danielle.
"Tell me what to do," I say, breathlessly. The sprinklers have us both drenched, and although the water is freezing, I'm on fire against him. I need to stop letting my emotions cloud my judgement. This is work to him, nothing more. "Just tell me how to get out of it."
I feel him chuckle against me, lifting his head so his chin rests against my hair, his fingers still pressing against my bare skin. "Try to step forward on your left or right foot, twist your body to the other side and use your elbow to hit my face. Do it fast, though."
I stare at the dogs trying to catch the water in their mouths. "Um... I don't understand."
He huffs, and to my absolute horror, he moves away from me. I think I whimper from the loss of his touch, I'm not too sure, but I hope he didn't hear it. "Do this," he says, and then continues to show me by twisting his body and lifting his elbow eye level in one quick movement. "Then you can knee him in the balls, or, if you're taking in any of my training, you'll punch him in the face."
"What if it's a girl?"
He raises a brow. "Do the same, obviously." Tilting his head, he studies me, taking in the tendrils glued to my face, hair askew, my white top and shorts stuck to my skin. "By the way... you'll stay away from Gary tomorrow night."
Well, that was a random thing to blurt out. "Why?" I ask, my hand resting on my hip. "He's just being nice to me."
His stone-cold expression is pressed back onto his face. "He wants to shag your brains out. The skinny prick has already told a few of the new guys that he's going to try to approach you at your mum's party tomorrow, and I'm not having him mess Richie about like that. We have strict rules when it comes to you, and he isn't breaking them. If he tries, he's out."
I roll my eyes, my high levels of fun slowly slipping away like the mud on my face. "That's ridiculous. You break more rules than anyone when it comes to me."
"No I don't," he responds quickly, grimacing at the words.
"That's why we're out here at..." I look at my wristband, clicking to see the time, laughing in disbelief. "...nearly three in the morning. Because you don't break the rules? So, I guess I can call my dad right now and tell him I just had a mud fight with you in the middle of nowhere?"
"Fucking fine. We should go, anyway. You have work in the morning."
Oh, yeah... in six fricking hours.
Whistling for the dogs to come as he walks by me, wiping his face, he tells Frank to turn off the sprinkler system, which stops a few seconds later.
I don't want him to be annoyed at me, we have actually had a fun night even if he hadn't intended it to be that way. I do exactly what he did come here to do, I catch him off guard by quickly coming up from behind and kicking his legs away from him.
Thanks to the soft ground beneath us, Eric's feet slice through the mud as he tumbles onto his side, and all I can do is laugh as he growls up at me.
"Element of surprise," I say, winking as I try to step over him.
Eric, the tube, grabs my ankle and yanks hard enough that I fall face first in the mud, and I'm thankful that my mouth is closed. "Really?" I groan as I try to push myself up, but my feet slide, and I come to the realisation that lying down is easier than ice skating in the mud to try to stand. "You're a dickhead."
He doesn't say anything, but he doesn't get up either, he's lying on his back, staring up at the blanket of stars. And they're lovely, an artist would be in their element right now.
"Wow," I say as I roll onto my back beside him, my eyes wide. "There are a lot of stars out tonight, I usually lie in bed and watch them."
"I know," Eric replies, and I feel my heart skip a beat. He clears his throat as if he realises what he's just said, and I can see from my peripheral that he's studying the sky intently, as if he's at peace. "We should really go, Dan."
"Can we just... lie here for a bit? It's cordial, almost as if everything else is in the background."
I fully expect him to grimace at me, but he just releases a deep breath and nods, moving his head to the side to face me, and I do the same. "Why do you need this?" he asks, his brows furrowed as if he's trying to figure me out.
"Need what? To relax?"
He shakes his head, his eyes flitting between mine. "As if you search for a subspace, you find a way to escape. And I don't mean from all this shit with the dome and the fact we're going to die pretty fucking soon, because you always needed it before we were even in here. Why?"
I shrug, watching him stare at me, the dogs still running wild around us. "I guess it's just the way I am. Belinda always told me to find something to help me stay grounded, especially when Robbie and I would argue or when Dad told me I couldn't be friends with certain people. It's really lonely being me, money means nothing when all you care about is being loved."
He snorts, the corner of his lip curling slightly. "We were always told to suck it up and move on. My Sergeant wasn't too fond of me, so I always got fucked around, and because I was just a sixteen-year-old kid, I let it happen." Shaking his head as he leans up on his elbow, his body turned towards me, he bites down on his bottom lip. He really is handsome, and I'm trying so hard not to reach up to him. "When I was in Afghanistan, I was on patrol when shit went down, after it, I lay down for hours watching the stars to try to shut off from what was going on around me."
I tilt my head, surprised. "You did?"
He nods. "So, when I came to work for your dad and saw you doing the same on your balcony for hours, I wondered what happened to you. Let's just say I was... curious to find out who hurt you and if it was Robert causing it."
"Why did you leave the army?"
He's silent for a long minute, and I watch his expression, tough yet soft, thinking hard. "I'm a really good bodyguard," he finally answers, but I can see the sarcasm behind it. He doesn't want me to know the truth, and that's okay. "Who knows what would have happened to you the billion times I've had to save your annoying arse."
I smirk. "Cute." His eyes roll and he rubs a wet, muddy palm down my face. "Eric!" I shriek, trying to slap him but he dodges my hand.
I pounce at him, straddling him as I try my hardest to push his head into the mud beneath us. He manages to keep me from suffocating him by grabbing at my wrists while laughing. I give up, twisting my hands to free myself and pressing them into the sinking splodge at each side of his face. "You're such a dick," I spit out, followed by a high pitched giggle.
The chuckling slowly dies down as Eric's palms settle on my bare thighs, kneading at the skin, his eyes darkening as he lowers his voice. "Tell me what to do when someone has you like this," he says, flipping me as I release a yelp. I'm pinned down by his hips, my legs around his waist, my body in overdrive as all my nerves spark. "Think fast."
"If I had enough energy, I'd reach up and strangle you."
He releases his hold on my hips, grabs my hands, and pins them above my head, lacing our fingers together. I'm sure my heart has stopped completely with how flushed our bodies are together, the surreal feeling becoming overwhelming.
Between my legs is a completely different story.
"What now?" he continues, dropping his gaze from our interlocked hands to my face, his eyes dancing yet dark, his pupils dilated. I can feel how heavy he's breathing against my mouth. "Think, Dan."
I still have my ankles crossed behind him, and it's taking me everything not to move my hips to relieve the growing ache, or to beg him to stop and just admit my obvious arousal.
I feel warm within the cold, his body pressed to mine, and I think he can sense the tension, too. His facial expression is starting to soften, dropping his gaze to my mouth, his lips parting.
Surely not?
No, he wouldn't be thinking that.
He would never kiss me.
It's me.
And, it could get him killed.
I bite my lip, and he just stares at me, waiting for me to get out of this... position. "Tell me what to do," I say, more so pant out the words, nervously shifting against him, regretting it as his eyes widen slightly, his jaw tensing. I feel heat crawl up my chest, neck, and cheeks, trying and failing to control my breathing. "Please."
I don't know if I'm begging for him to tell me, or to rip my clothes off. But since I already broke down to him about how I felt nearly two weeks ago without any reaction, I highly doubt he has any interest in me to do the latter.
In all honestly, I think I would want him to work harder if this were real, but I know it's not.
"What are you doing?" he asks, his eyes narrowing. "Really... what are you doing?"
I don't understand the question.
He's the one who keeps staring at my lips.
"I don't know," I reply with a low tone, shrugging, my heart racing so fast it may blow out of my chest, my pulse throbbing in my neck. "What are you doing?"
A double beep sounds from Eric's band, and I don't think I've ever seen him turn pale so fast in my life.
A live holograph of my dad stands above us, projecting from Eric's wrist, and thankfully, it's not an instant live. He gets to his feet quickly, putting his finger to his lips, telling me to stay silent. "What's up?" he speaks as the glow around him changes from blue to white.
"Emergency meeting, you need to be at my study in half an hour," Dad angrily spits out.
Eric looks confused. "I'm still under suspension, Sir."
"It's about Danielle."
_________________
This was long as fuck... nearly 5k. But I couldn't cut it without ruining the scenes, so please don't be mad at me! I actually prefer writing longer chapters so I can fully tell the story without the book being 100 parts, but I know it can be off-putting, I promise it won't be a regular occurrence.
Thoughts?
To be honest, I thought the mud fight and star gazing were cute moments, but don't get used to those scenes, they make me cringe as if I've just touched soggy food in the sink while doing the dishes.
I wonder what will happen at her mum's birthday party tomorrow😏?
And what did her dad want?
Am I allowed to say that I'm ready to ramp the maturity up? REMEMBER, THIS IS A MATURE BOOK. Also, slow-burning the shit out of this is killing my soul, but I don't want to rush things, they'll be kissing and screwing each other's brains out when they're ready.
This hasn't been edited thoroughly since my Wolfie (laurenwolfe12 go follow her and read her work) is on her holidays, so if you see any errors, you are welcome to point them out, dudes.
Thank you for 20k reads already, you guys rock!!!
Much love ❤