Mia
Guilt wasn’t a nice feeling.
But Mia didn’t do nice.
Ever.
So maybe guilt fit right in. She certainly had shouldered her fair share of it over the years.
She lay awake, eyes on the ceiling, already having gone through her tried and true techniques for sleep—quieting her mind by going over the next day’s lesson plan, reviewing the forms she taught her students, the precise combinations of kicks, blocks, and punches came in varying degrees of difficulty based on their level, even counting backward from one hundred—but nothing helped.
Her gaze stayed on the ceiling, her brain was still alert.
Sighing, she pushed out of bed, fingers running over the smoothed edge of the large abalone shell that sat on her nightstand as she went. It was the single bit of clutter in her apartment, but it remained next to her bed, nonetheless. A bed she should be sleeping in, but since she wasn’t, Mia knew it was a pointless endeavor to stay under the covers, counting the minutes until the sun rose. Instead, she padded on bare feet through the apartment that was above the studio, the one she’d purposefully circled the block and entered through the back door instead of the interior one when she realized that Liam was going to sit all night in his car watching the place until he saw her leave.
That probably should have made her instincts prickle uncomfortably, or even to piss her off that the man, the stranger who’d dared put hands on her thought he could out-wait her.
But . . . he seemed lost.
That was her first and most overwhelming thought.
Liam seemed like he had a good core, had been helpful, and was apparently also protective, making sure she got out of the studio okay.
He didn’t know that there was a staircase hidden behind a door in her office, that she lived above, and while he was giving her instincts definite good-person vibes, she also hadn’t wanted him to know where she lived.
She’d spent too long guarding that secret, guarding all her secrets.
Sighing, she turned on the shower, letting the water begin to warm up and thankful that she’d invested in a tankless system for the building a couple of months ago after another in a long line of too many cold showers. Still, it took a few minutes to get hot, so she used her time wisely, brewing a pot of coffee, pulling out what would become her breakfast—a whole wheat bagel, peanut butter, and a banana.
By the time she had laid everything on the counter, the water was warm, so she made her way back into the bathroom, stripped down, and showered.
Wash hair. Wash body. Wash face.
Efficient, graceful movements that didn’t waste water or time.
Nothing extra. No fluff. No girlie fragranced soap or perfumed shampoo. No soft towels or floral-scented wall plug-ins that filled her apartment with the scent of something fanciful and sweet.
There wasn’t room in her life for anything superfluous.
Scents. Men.
They were one in the same to her.
Extra. Meaningless. Of no use.
Or at least, that was what her father had tried to engrain in her.
It had worked for the most part, too, she knew. Aside from a warm shower every morning, she didn’t long for much, was content with her small apartment, her students, her hot water.
She finished washing her face then immediately turned off the water, another expectation entrenched in her by her father, and reached for the plain white towel. They were the same towels she and her father had since after her mother had passed. Thin now, needing replacing, but she still knew that when she bought another set, they wouldn’t be something fluffy and soft and pink.
They would be utilitarian. Steadfast. Efficient.
Just like her.
She slipped on clean underwear, a bra, sweats, and a T-shirt. Moved back to the kitchen to toast her bagel, to get her mix of grains, protein, and fruit. A well-rounded meal to start the day, even though it was—her eyes flicked to the clock—just after three in the morning.
The building housing her apartment and the studio was old. There was always something that needed repair or replacing, though she tended to rely less on duct tape, super glue, and white paint than her old man, and more on YouTube tutorials and proper supplies from the hardware store.
Plenty of elbow grease was required in both instances, however.
And speaking of elbow grease, Mia washed her dishes, set them on the drying rack, and slipped out the front door of her apartment, down the stairs, and into the studio.
She had lived her whole life above the space, knew exactly where to step, how to avoid any obstacles and not trip over anything as she made her way over to the light switch and flicked it on. Then she spent the next few hours doing her least favorite thing in the world . . . disinfecting the foam squares that snapped together to make up the floor.
Clean one side, pull it up, flip it over, sweep beneath, then clean the other. It didn’t take long in the grand scheme of things, less than five minutes per square, but . . . there were a lot of squares.
And so the sun was firmly up by the time she finished.
She glanced over the nearly-sparkling floor for a long moment, thinking about all the times she’d done this before.
Too many to count.
Too many to remember.
Too many times in front of her.
Not liking the sudden tightness that rushed into her at the last thought, Mia tucked the bottle of cleaner away and washed her hands. Then she found her way back out onto the floor, to the X marked with a small strip of tape in the center of the mats, to the spot she’d stood at so often over the years.
Front and center and with plenty of room to move.
This was her favorite place to stand, the spot she always took when they weren’t lined up by rank or when she had to present herself to the judges during a testing ceremony or . . . when she had to present herself to her father.
For his tests. His approval. His—
How was it that he had been gone for five years?
It seemed like yesterday he was standing in front of her, the center judge in a group of others who were testing her on her knowledge and abilities in order to decide if she was worthy of that fifth degree.
Five years of training solely for her current rank, having had to wait that long after gaining her fourth degree, protocol demanding she take the time to train, to focus, to put in the years of effort in order to prove herself worthy of the fifth yellow stripe embroidered into her black belt.
Her father had lived to see her pass that test.
But he had only lived six months beyond it.
She sank onto the mat, her body automatically dropping into the warm-up routine she did in her classes, push-ups and sit-ups, planks, and mountain climbers, feeling her heart begin to beat faster, her body temperature to rise.
When her muscles were loose enough, she stood, stretched for a few moments.
And then she began to move.
There were a number of forms she had to know, both to teach to her students and for her own work toward her sixth degree. She still had at least a year before she’d be ready to test for it, but the sheer volume of knowledge she needed to be able to present at a moment’s notice meant that regular practice was required.
But not only that, the open form she’d been required to prepare—basically she got to make up her own combination of moves as one part of the test—was one of her favorite forms she’d ever done.
Mia had been able to do all her favorite things, play to her strengths, focus on her flexibility, her grace, her ability to transition smoothly from one move to the next.
Inhaling deeply, then releasing her breath slowly, she took one moment to focus.
Then she began to run through that beloved form.
Slow. Slow. Quick. A jumping, spinning kick moving rapidly toward the mirrors, but a quiet landing. Then transiting to the other direction, blocking, pretending she was battling multiple attackers.
Turn. A flurry of kicks, of blocks that were interspersed with control. Long, slow movements designed to show off her balance.
Sweat began to bead on her forehead, slide down her back.
Her breath came quickly, the sound of it mixing with the soft pad of her feet on the mat as she landed, shifted, punched, and kicked fiercely in the quiet space.
A few moves from the end though, her arms began to burn, her legs struggled to launch her into the air for one more jumping-spin-hook kick. But that was part of the beauty of it, part of the beauty of this sport. Pushing through, persevering. Strength, courage, grace.
She landed on the balls of her feet, completed the final flurry of punches, and then turned, stepping into the final stance, holding it for a long moment.
During the test, the judges could ask her to hold that final move for as long as they wanted.
But today she stayed in place until her pulse calmed, her breathing evened out.
That was when she felt the prickling on her nape.
Her eyes flashed up to the mirror in front of her, and her heart picked up its pace again when she saw who was staring at her through the plate glass window.
She’d raised the shades an hour before, letting the sunshine in.
But she’d also let Liam in. Or rather, to glimpse in. Tall, dark, and handsome stood on the sidewalk outside the studio, his face a blank shell, a white bag clutched in one hand, a tray with coffee cups in the other.
Her breath caught, suddenly as out of breath as she had been at the end of her form, and she spun. His face transformed from blank to amazing, and Mia watched as his lips formed the word, “Wow.” Not gonna lie, that made a curl of pleasure coil in her stomach. She was used to people watching her, spent most of her time on display, but not exactly like this.
A man with heat in his expression, his eyes slowly sweeping down her body and then back up.
That long, inching perusal set fire to the veins of a woman who didn’t deal in extras and fluff, but rather who dealt in reality, in black and white, right and wrong, A led to B.
Her body liked the fluff of that long, slow look.
It wondered why A couldn’t lead to . . . fucking.
The last thought pulled her back into herself, her mind to sharp focus. A virtual stranger was outside her door. That was creepy and pushing the boundaries, no matter that her body liked the look of his. Further, it had been a good three months since she’d been on a date, and maybe three—no, four months before that since she’d been on the receiving end of an orgasm that wasn’t courtesy of her and her vibrator.
She was pent up.
That was why she was so attracted to the first halfway decent, single man who’d showed her the least bit of attention.
Or . . . she thought he was single.
That hadn’t really been made clear.
The knock on the door made her eyes—which had been staring at the glass but not really taking in Liam because her mind was too lost in thought—focus on the man outside. He held up the coffee and bag, mouthed, “Hungry?”
She wasn’t.
She was.
But this was fluff. The attraction. The man waiting for her to make it safely out of the studio the night before. The fact that he’d brought breakfast now.
And it went against everything inside her to move toward that fluff.
“Fuck,” she muttered, annoyed with herself, her thoughts, her indecisions. This wasn’t her. Mia was a straight arrow, the straightest fucking arrow on the planet. She didn’t waver, and she sure as hell didn’t worry about fluff. “Enough goddamned fluff,” she growled, striding toward the door and glaring out at Liam. “What are you doing here?” she snapped through the glass.
He put a hand to his ear. “What?”
“What are you doing here?” she asked louder.
His hand stayed up, cupping his ear. “What?”
Later, she would realize that both of his whats were crystal clear to her ears, which also meant that her questions had to be perfectly audible to his. But she’d been up for several hours already, was sweaty and a little shaky from her form—and only her form, because she didn’t give one damn about the fact that this man was just on the other side of the glass (. . . and no she wasn’t going to examine that thought too closely because she was living in glorious delusion at the moment).
So, it was certainly either the fatigue or brain fog (and not the man), that had her sighing and reaching over to unlatch the lock.
Liam grabbed the handle, quickly opening the door, probably assuming—rightly, she could admit—that she’d regretted the move and wanted to lock it just as rapidly. But then it was unlocked, it was open, and . . . he was inside, mere inches from her.
“Morning,” he said softly, his voice a little husky and way too sexy for her comfort.
She shivered, stepped back before she caught herself. Dammit, she was a Caldwell. They didn’t retreat. They pressed forward. They bided their time before they struck—
“Why do you look like you want to punch me?” he asked, still soft, though there was a glimmer of mischief in those stormy gray eyes.
“Probably because I do,” she told him, crossing her arms.
Instead of backing off or leaving, like she half-expected him to do—she had put him on his ass twice the day before after all, so he’d be stupid not to tread a little cautiously—he stayed in place, studying her closely. “You’re tired,” he said.
Something unfurled inside her and she frowned, both at the words and the strange sensation pulsing through her.
Not desire—that seemed to be at a baseline level that made her skin prickle, her pussy throb, her breasts feel heavy and aching when within eyesight of this man.
It was . . . soft.
Fluff.
Uh-oh.