Page 59 of At Her Pleasure
“Sure enough. Kick ass, honey.” He winked before he left the ring. Even those who’d seen her hit Matt were now viewing this as an impromptu sporting event.
Like seeing a Domme with extreme tastes, who only did private sessions, play publicly. The last time Cyn had done that—a favor for Vera—the session had gone well, but her interaction with the audience hadn’t. She wondered how Progeny’s management had responded when Mick informed them she was doing a public CNC session.
Except now Mick assumed she was backing out. Asshole. Management was probably happy to hear it, however.
“Cyn.” Ros put a hand on her arm. Cyn’s skin shuddered, rejecting the contact. A warning sign. Cyn made herself stay still, but she could tell Ros had felt it.
“It’s okay,” Cyn told her. “I’m okay. I just finally got him to agree to spar with me. Hey, if I get my ass kicked, then you can say I told you so.”
“That’s not my issue, and you know it.”
Cyn shook her head and broke eye contact. “I’m in control. Leave it.”
Ros wasn’t buying it, but she didn’t say anything else. She respected her women. Or maybe she trusted Matt not to kick the crap out of her accounts VP.
That wasn’t going to happen. Because Cyn was going to win this. She was going to kick the crap out of him. She wasn’t after balance, or purging, or whatever. She just wanted a fight that would be hard to win, so she could prove to herself she could win it. She could win the unwinnable.
She’d proven she could do that. No matter what other fights she’d lost, and who’d she’d lost during them.
“Bet on him if you want,” she said shortly. Having no one who expected her to win made her fight all the harder. It always had.
Fuck you, fuck the world.
She’d forgotten how close that reaction could be, just waiting in the wings. But this was a reminder she could handle it, if and when and how it ever happened. She was going to shove away the sick, angry feeling, by fighting a man who lived his life on the top of the pyramid.
Sure.
“Cyn.”
She had to tone down the hostility when she shot a look Ros’s way, but her boss met it with a steady look. “Good luck. Watch your left. You still leave it open too much.”
That was all, but it shifted Cyn’s view the degrees she needed, easing that wrong feeling. She wasn’t the same person she’d been when she believed it was me-against-the-world. And Ros wasn’t the world. If she’d chosen to bet against Cyn, it would have felt bad. Like how Mick not telling her things about himself had made her feel.
Left out, separate. Not worthy of trust and respect.
Matt turned toward her, punching the gloves together. This was sparring, not a match, so no bell, no points system. They’d stop when they’d had enough.
Except when it came to fighting, she never had enough.
As they began to circle, calls of encouragement spouted from the audience, though there were no obvious preferences. The members liked a good fight, and since many of them practiced the same fight styles, this was a chance to learn from serious opponents.
She threw the first kick, and Matt blocked, the two of them twisting around one another and dancing back. For the next couple moments, that was the way it went, testing.
No surprise, Matt didn’t throw any punches above the neck. Just like Mick. Damn men. But she expected that to change as they really got into it. When a fight became more intense, who the opponent was disappeared into counters, outcomes. Action, reaction. Competition took over, fighters digging into the arsenal of skills required to win.
Mixed martial arts had developed into a sport with protocols and rules to pull it away from its gladiator blood sport roots. At its heart, it was street fighting. Which was probably why it had appealed to her.
Warm up over. Cyn waded in, and the fight ramped up. As she danced, kicked and punched, she landed a few good shots, but fuck, Matt was astoundingly quick on his feet for such a big man. No wasted energy, and he used the split seconds between exchanged blows to decide on the next one. He never stopped tracking her moves, learning to anticipate her. She’d studied his fighting style, but she realized this also wasn’t the first time he’d studied hers.
Business rivals said it was “possible” for Matt Kensington to be surprised or outmaneuvered, but the person might never know it. He could move ahead of the mistake and calculate the best next steps, never letting emotion dilute his progress or cloud his end goal.
She went for a blitz attack. She had age, quickness, more MMA skills and better flexibility on her side, but they were narrow margins.
As she’d anticipated, the more they got into the fight, the more insular the world became. It pushed out everything. People shouting and cheering, Ros’s hard-to-read expression, Grizzly’s concerned one. It was just her and Matt in the clouds. Cyn was surfing the red haze, a fighter’s fury locked with resolve, narrowing her world to one thing. Winning. Telling the world she would never be beaten, that no matter how it had broken her heart and torn her soul apart, she’d put them back together and they were better off that way.
Perfect stuff wasn’t strong.
There. She’d found a split second that was all hers, and made contact under his guard. The kick hit his ribs, and she followed it with a hook to his jaw, the same spot she’d hit on the stairs. Pain flashed through his gaze, but it didn’t slow his reaction. He caught her around the middle on the follow-through, lifted and brought her to the mat. The impact shuddered through her bones.