Trusting Jake by Casey Hagen

Author:Casey Hagen [Hagen, Casey]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Aces Press, LLC
Published: 2018-11-13T06:00:00+00:00

Chapter 8

Jake and Destiny worked night after night with Josie there to keep things comfortable, although, after the first night with Josie, Destiny seemed to settle into working with him even if Josie wasn’t right in the room with them.

He focused on teaching her to dodge hits since she showed unparalleled skill at delivering powerful blows. To start, he stuck Josie in the ring with her, boxing gloves on both of their hands and boxing helmets secured.

The first night, out of a hundred attempts, Josie landed about forty.

Destiny dropped her gloved hands to her hips, her chin to her chest, and blew out a breath. “Are you disappointed?” she asked with a wince.

“Never,” he said, lifting her chin with his finger. “Care to guess what my percentages were when I first started?”

She bit her lip and remained silent, her luminescent blue eyes watching him.

“Seventy-four percent of the hits got through,” he said. “You’re doing great. Take ten, get a drink, and we’re going to do a few exercises to see if we can trim you down to thirty percent before the end of the night.”

She did everything he told her for the next three hours. By the time they walked out at almost one in the morning, she’d knocked her number down to twenty-six percent.

Four nights later, their last night in the gym before they moved to Diamond’s commercial space, she had it down to twelve percent.

Still too much. At least for his own comfort. Any trainer would have been celebrating the seemingly impossible success under ordinary circumstances.

But any hit landing anywhere on her body, had Jake’s gut in knots and the blood boiling under his skin.

All it took was one. One hard enough hit could take a person out permanently. Carter would know that. Leaving Jake with nothing other than the sick hope that Carter liked to play. Where was the fun in taking Destiny out in one shot when he could slowly break her down and torture her before dealing the final blow?

Every day, before he put in his hours at Lou’s, he poured over Carter Pierce’s record again and again. He studied the man’s pictures, including the ones from Facebook Tex had pulled for them.

The guy was big, but Jake was a whole lot bigger. Not that it mattered. Destiny wouldn’t let him step in for her.

Not that she could stop him. At least not physically.

But the idea of disappointing her or breaking her trust cut him to the core, and as much as it cost him to stand to the side while she faced her demons, he’d do it.

That acceptance took a toll on him in ways he never intended for her to know. He struggled for sleep. Nightmares plagued him every time he closed his eyes. The cries in his mind belonged to his mother, but it was Destiny that he saw, raw and bleeding.

He sure as hell had every intention of trying to get her to at least accept his team as witness to whatever might go down.

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