Losing an Edge (Portland Storm Book 13) (21 page)

Cadence dug her fingers into my hair. “But I want—”

“Not so fast,” I repeated. I pushed myself up to keep from continuing. “You’ve had a lot happen in the last couple of days. The last thing you need to do is jump into something without thinking it through.”

“I have been thinking it through, though.”

“I know. But one day we’re only friends, then the next you need space and can’t even be friends with me, and now you’re mauling me on your brother’s couch with his kids sleeping upstairs. Not that I mind being mauled.” I couldn’t stop myself from grinning. “I actually like it way too much. But I still think it’s better if we take things one step at a time like we were before.”

She pouted. It looked so damned cute I wanted to nip her nose.

“Fine,” she said. “You’re probably right.”

“I know I’m right.” I had to be. Otherwise, why the hell would every nerve ending in my body be screaming that I was wrong, that I should ignore all that shit? There was a part of me that wanted to carry her out to my car and take her home with me, and screw the rest. But I was smart enough to recognize that part of me was behaving like a fucking idiot.

“Don’t get used to me agreeing with you, though,” she said.

I chuckled and climbed off her—reluctantly as all hell, but it had to be done. Otherwise, I’d be the one doing the mauling. “I should probably head home. Come on and lock the door behind me.” I grabbed my coat from the hall closet. When I turned around, she was standing there, her lips puffy and swollen and pink, which made it incredibly difficult to keep myself from pushing her back up against the door and kissing her again.

Instead, I opened the door. The snow I’d expected earlier had apparently been falling for a while. There was a thick blanket of the stuff all over my car that I’d have to clear off before I could leave.

“Let me grab my coat,” Cadence said. “I’ll help.”

I started the car and put the defrost on high to help things along. With the two of us working, it didn’t take us too long to clear the snow away. At least it was still soft and not packed down like it would be by morning. When I took the scraper from her, I couldn’t resist drawing her in for another kiss—one that warmed me up in no time.

Breaking away from her wasn’t easy. “Go back inside and lock the door. Get warm.”

“I am warm,” she said. “With you.”

I pecked her on her nose. It was as cold as the snow. “Liar.”

She grinned and ducked her head against my chest, drawing me into an embrace. “’Night,” she said.

“’Night.”

But she didn’t move.

“You need to go in, you know.”

“I do. But it feels too good to be standing here like this. With you.”

I forced myself to nudge her toward the door. When she got to the top of the porch, she turned around and waved at me. Then I got in the car and waited until she was inside and the porch light went out before backing out of the driveway.

Moments later, as I turned from their street to another, I could have sworn I saw a man sitting in a car that wasn’t running. Just sitting there. Not doing anything.

Once I was past it, I glanced in my rearview mirror. The street lights illuminated it enough that I could tell there wasn’t anyone in that car.

Must have been my imagination.

MY HEAD HAD
never been filled with such a jumble of things at once. I was scared out of my mind about Guy and what he might do, excited and a little nervous about the relationship I was building with Levi, energized by the progress Anthony and I were making, fulfilled from being able to put my skills and training to use in order to teach Sophie, and gutted that I’d come between my brother and sister-in-law—even if they seemed to be getting back on track now. On top of all that, I missed Mom and my sisters like crazy, and I felt like an absolute idiot for not speaking up about everything that had been happening with Guy, going back for years, when he’d first started treating me like garbage.

Yeah, I’d been young and stupid. Maybe I still was. But that didn’t mean I had to stay that way.

Cam took me to the gym up at the Storm’s practice facility with him early the morning after my first lesson with Sophie. Well, technically it had been the first lesson with Sophie and Levi, but I’d promised Levi my lips were sealed about that, at least when it came to being around his teammates. Yep, one more secret to keep from my brother, but at least this one didn’t have anything to do with my safety. Those days were over.

The team had to be at the Moda Center for morning skate at ten, but Cam said there was no time like the present to work on self-defense, especially since the team was leaving for a road trip in a couple of days. “I used to work with Dana Zellinger on this stuff,” he said, tossing me some sparring gloves before putting those boxing pad target things on his hands. “You can start working with me, and maybe take some kickboxing or Krav Maga classes when we’re out on the road.”

“Krav Maga?” I asked.

“It’s a kind of self-defense they started up in Israel, I think. For their special forces guys. It’s what they’re encouraging women who’ve been victims of assault to learn to take care of themselves.”

That didn’t sound like the worst idea in the world. I nodded and focused in on the instruction he was giving me. We’d been at it for about twenty minutes when he got frustrated with me. I was becoming frustrated with myself, too, come to think of it.

“Harder, Cadence. You’ve got to put all your force behind it. Try to hurt me.”

“I am putting all my force into it.” I huffed, and it blew my hair out of my face. I stripped the gloves off and adjusted my ponytail holder, mainly to buy some time to catch my breath. Cam had been working me hard, and none of this was familiar to me.

“No, you’re not.”

“Maybe you’ve forgotten, but I’m all of five foot nothing and maybe a hundred pounds soaking wet. I seriously doubt I can do anything that will hurt you.”

“Get him with an uppercut under his jaw,” said someone with a deep voice. “While he’s distracted, knee him in the nuts. That’ll hurt him.”

I spun around to see who it was.

Chris Hammond winked at me. “It’ll work every time.”

“But I don’t want to kick my brother in the…” I couldn’t even finish the thought. That was just plain wrong. It was on par with thinking about Cam and Sara’s sex life. It belonged squarely in the do-not-go-there department.

“That much is clear enough.” He came in closer, letting the door swing closed behind him. “Right now, he’s not your brother. He’s the son of a bitch who’s trying to attack you. So you distract him with an uppercut, knee him in the nuts, and then you escape.”

“But…”

“Here.” He reached for the hand targets Cam had been using and put them on himself once my brother relinquished them. “Do it to me instead.”

“I don’t think I can do that.”

“You can,” Cam said. “If you hurt him, Hammer and I can sort it out later.” He waited a moment, then crossed his arms. “Pretend he’s Guy.”

“But he’s not Guy.” It was a great idea, in theory. I wasn’t sure how great it was in actuality. I didn’t think I could ever do the things they wanted me to do to anyone. Maybe not even the real Guy.

“Oh, I’m not?” Hammer lunged toward me, tossing the targets away. He grabbed at my waist with one arm and put the other hand over my mouth.

My brain went straight to panic mode. I screamed for Cam to help, but my voice was smothered in Hammer’s hand. In seconds, he was dragging me across the room, no matter how much I flailed.

I kicked anything I could connect with, preferably something soft. But Cam still didn’t come to my rescue. Was this a test? Were they trying to prove something to me? Must be. My brother wouldn’t allow anyone to attack me while he was standing by and watching. I tried to calm down enough to remember what he’d told me to do. Distract him with something and then kick him in the nuts.

With the way he was holding me, I couldn’t punch him under the jaw like he’d suggested, but I could sure as hell bite his hand. So I did. Hard.

Hammer shouted and ripped his hand away from me.

As soon as possible, I twisted around and kneed him.

He released me, holding both hands to his groin as he stepped back. I collapsed to the floor, thoroughly spent and sucking in air.

But then he laughed, and he winked at me again. “See? I knew you could do it.”

Cam came over and helped me to my feet. “You okay?”

I nodded, trying to reassure him. But then I thought better of it and punched him as hard as I could in the stomach.

“Oof! What was that for?”

“Heavy-handed tactics,” I said, and Hammer only laughed harder.

“At least we know she can do it,” Hammer said, as I stalked out of the gym.

“
YOU SHOULD’VE PUNCHED
him in the nose,” Anthony said later, when I filled him in about everything that had happened since yesterday’s non-practice. Ellen had a family emergency to see to, so we were on our own today. Whether we’d been partners for long or not, the two of us both knew exactly what we needed to work on, so it wasn’t the end of the world for us to have a practice without our coach every now and then.

The bigger problem for the two of us was simply staying on task.

Now was a prime example of that. We should be working on our combined spins or our split twist. Instead, we were shooting the breeze. Yes, I needed to be sure he stayed abreast of the situation, but that didn’t mean we should waste our ice time.

Yet that was exactly what we were doing.

“My arms are too short,” I explained. “I can’t reach Cam’s nose to punch him there.”

He grinned at me. “Good point.” Then he skated over next to me and stretched my right arm as high as it would go.

“What are you doing?” I demanded.

“Measuring to be sure you can’t reach mine.”

I punched him in the belly with my free hand, for good measure, although not hard enough to do any damage.

He laughed and skated away, so I’d have to chase him if I wanted to cause him any true pain. He was as bad as Cam, only in his own way.

“You need to hit harder,” he called out over his shoulder.

“You need to work on your abs,” I shot back. “They’re soft.”

Anthony chuckled. “Your man wasn’t there to help with the lessons?”

I couldn’t stop myself from blushing. Good thing he wasn’t looking. “What do you mean,
my man
?” I started skating until we were doing spirals across from each other.

He automatically mimicked my posture, trying to match me. Yes, we were talking and teasing each other. That didn’t mean practice was over, especially since we’d completely bailed out yesterday.

“Levi Babcock,” he said, dry as ever. “Who else would I be talking about?”

“He was probably sleeping. It was earlier than the butt crack of dawn.” I intentionally avoided saying anything about whether he was my man or not, or how it made me feel. Since I hadn’t sorted out my thoughts on the matter, I definitely didn’t need to be talking to Anthony about it. Or anyone else. No one but maybe Levi.

“Was he up late with you last night? Is that why you’re blushing?”

Now I blushed even harder, which didn’t help matters any.

“Give me details. I need to know everything so I can fill Jesse in later. He’ll eat this up.”

“There’s nothing for him to eat up.”

“There is. You said he stayed after the cops left. Was he still there for dinner? Maybe you played footsie under the table?”

“Footsie?” I rolled my eyes. “What, are we twelve?”

“So it was better than footsie. Please tell me you made out.”

“I’m not telling you anything.” But the fierce heat in my cheeks was probably all he needed to know.

“Mm hmm,” he said.

The longer we were out there, the closer together we moved on the ice. In no time, we were touching again. Anthony took me into a hold, and we started spinning, gradually shifting positions to experiment with what worked well for the ways we each moved.

I lifted a foot, stretched my head and arms back, and let Anthony’s momentum spin me at high speed.

“For as tiny as you are, you get some incredible extension like that,” he said. “You’re like a cat. Weird spine or something. How do you do that?”