Page 130 of The Clinch
For Leo.
His camp. His ring. His people. The whole place arranged around sharpening him into something dangerous.
Eden walks in like she belongs here, which, annoyingly, she probably does. She drops the shopping bags near the entrance and lifts a hand to one of the trainers before he can look alarmed.
“We’re not staying long.”
He acknowledges me, then nods to the ring. “Ray’s in a mood.”
“When is he not?” Eden asks.
There’s an almost smile tugging at his mouth. “Fair.”
We move farther in. And then I see him.
Leo is in the ring, gloves up, headgear on, stripped down to black shorts and a gray sleeveless training top gone dark with sweat. The ropes frame him, and then he moves, and the picture stops being a man and turns into speed.
I’ve seen him shirtless. Naked. In bed. In the shower. Leaning in a doorway with that lazy, dangerous stillness he wears when he’s relaxed.
This is not that man. This one is harder. Sharper. Burned down to essentials. Nothing about him reads domestic.
He looks forged.
Watching him like this, I understand all over again that I never stood the slightest chance.
A big man in his fifties spots us and tips his chin at Eden. Then he gives me one quick, assessing look before going back to Leo.
“That’s Ray,” Eden murmurs. “Though I’m sure the judgment gave him away.”
Leo’s sparring partner comes in fast with a three-punch combination, and I know exactly what I’m looking at. I spent too many hours watching Travis train not to. I know the shapes. The rhythm. The language of it. But Travis’s camps never felt like this—never this stripped down, this precise.
Leo slips the first shot, catches the second on his glove, pivots before the third can land, then answers with a short, vicious hook to the body that does something immediate and deeply unhelpful to me.
He’s a walking lapse in judgment.
Beside me, Eden makes a soft, smug noise. “I told you. You can thank me tomorrow.”
“Shut up.”
She folds her arms, visibly delighted. “This is porn for you.”
I keep my eyes on the ring. “I’m trying to be respectful.”
“Sure you are.”
Leo moves again, fast enough that my brain tracks the shape before it tracks the details. Jab. Slip. Shoulder turn. Reset. Everything controlled. Everything brutal. Even his restraint looks violent.
And Eden knows exactly what she’s done.
“You’re drooling,” she murmurs.
“Can you blame me?”
Eden glances sideways at me. “You need some water?”
“You should bill me for this.”
She grins and hands me a bottle. “I absolutely should.”
