Craeg shoved him away and collapsed flat on his back, breathing hard, coughing, wiping blood out of his eyes.

“How much was it?” Rhage asked Butch.

“Fiver.”

“Damn, I thought my boy was going to do better than that.” Rhage shoved his hand into his pocket and took out a black wallet. Withdrawing a bill, he slapped it into Butch’s palm. “We’re going double or nothing the next time one starts.”

Paradise recoiled as they turned away and walked off like absolutely nothing had happened.

“Are you kidding me,” she said under her breath.

She wanted to call after them that Peyton was still passed out cold—no, wait. He was groaning and rolling over onto his back.

At least he was alive, she thought as she walked over to him.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” she demanded. “You want to get kicked out?”

Granted, that threat would have had more teeth if their two professors had been doing something more stern than betting on the damn fight.

The two males looked up at her with lolling stares. God, they looked as bad as they had the night before—maybe even worse. Hell, they were both going to have black eyes, and Craeg’s lip was split so deep, he probably needed stitches.

“I’m … fine,” Peyton mumbled before spitting blood.

“Yeah,” Craeg lisped. “Just fine.”

Which came out something like Jusssth phine.

“Tell me,” she barked, “how many fingers am I holding up.”

Putting out her middle one, she gave the pair of jackholes a chance to focus on the fact that she was flipping them both off. And then she marched away to find somebody in a nurse’s uniform … doctor’s scrubs …

Goddamn janitor’s uniform.

God knew the corridor was going to need to be cleaned up—and anyone with a broom could start with the two wastes of space that had made the mess.

Chapter Sixteen

Twenty-five minutes, two stitches in his lower lip, and a snatch-and-grab First Meal later, and Craeg was front and center in the gym with the other six members of his class. Well, not front and not in the center of the lineup—he was more off to the side and back a little.

He was also weaving on his feet.

The last thing his body had needed was another full-on, high-contact, knuckle-cracker of a fistfight, but he wasn’t going to back down from class. And as for Peyton, Paradise’s so called “not boyfriend?” Uh-huh. Riiiiiiight.

Fucker.

Him, not her.

The good news was that as bad off as he himself was, Peyton wasn’t even able to stand. He’d been wheeled in on a stretcher like a piece of meat.

Wheeled in.

Who won that one, bitch?

Oh, and neither of them had been kicked out. Apparently, short of betting on the outcome, the Brothers weren’t going to get involved—

One of the doors to the gym was punched open, and this time, as the Brothers Butch and Rhage came in, they were dressed in the same loose-fitting cotton pants and shirt that everyone else was.

The Brother Butch didn’t waste any time as they came to a halt in front of the group. “So, in light of all the Mayweather/Pacquiao going down, we’re gonna start with hand-to-hand combat instead of book learning.”

“Please note,” Rhage said with a smile, “that your unis are white.”

“It’s because OxiClean is wicked good on bloodstains, but we’re prepared to use Clorox if we have to.”

Craeg swallowed a curse. Just what he needed.

“We’re going to pair you up,” Butch continued, “and get an assessment of how much you know. Since one of you is already on the horizontal, no one has to worry about fighting Hollywood over here.”

“Personally, I’m about to cry over that,” Rhage said. “So let’s put Novo with Boone—Axe, you take Anslam. That leaves Craeg and Paradise.”

“Hold up,” Craeg said. “I can’t … I won’t do that.”

“Hit her? Why? ’Cause you can’t lift your arms up? Not my problem.”

Craeg leaned in and dropped his voice. “I won’t hit her.”

Rhage shrugged. “Fine, you can get your ass kicked again.”

Butch cut in. “Actually, he won that fight, remember. And I got your five bucks to prove it.”

“Only because golden boy over here knocked his own self out.”

“A loss is a loss.” Butch refocused on Craeg. “But my brother is right. You either defend yourself or go back for more of Doc Jane’s thread. Your choice.”

With that, they were told to spread out into different quadrants of the enormous gym, and Peyton was wheeled off to the side.

Craeg watched the others go, trying to think of a way out of this. Funny, when he’d told her way back when that she should enter the program to learn self-defense, he hadn’t considered that he was the one she’d have to be defending herself against.

Even in a “classroom” situation.

“Well,” Paradise said as she came up to him. “Are we going to do this?”

“I’ll wait until one of the males is finished.”

“You’re serious.”

He looked down at her from his much greater height. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You didn’t beat Peyton with ease,” she muttered. “That took, like, half an hour.”

“You’re actually comparing yourself to a full-grown adult male. Who I put on a stretcher.”

“Oh, you’re right. That wouldn’t be fair. Because compared to the two of you, I’m a goddamn genius.”

As she put her hands on her hips and glared at him, he wondered what in the hell else was he going to say to her? He didn’t want to spout the real truth—which had everything to do with the fact that he could still remember what her soft skin felt like … could still picture how small her ankle had been compared to his palm … could imagine so many things he wanted to do to her, absolutely none of which involved violence of any kind.

Absolutely all of which included contact with his fingertips, his lips … his tongue.

Craeg crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m not going to fight you.”

“So if I swing at you, you’re going to do nothing.”

He cocked a brow. “I’m not worried about getting knocked out.”

“Oh, really.”

“No. Your lesser endurance aside, you’re not going—”

The next thing that came out of his mouth was a high-pitched scream that left everyone in the gym ripping around to see what the hell had happened.

And he might have told them—but he was too busy covering his nuts with both hands and bending at the waist.

She had kneed him in the groin.

In the groin. With her knee.

“What the fuck!” he sputtered. “Why did you do that?”

She seemed as surprised as everyone else. But she recovered fast—by clamping a hold on either side of his head, bringing up that knee again, and nailing him so hard in the face, he saw more stars than a human Christmas tree had lights.

As he let out another howl and lurched off balance, she locked both of her hands together, extended her arms, and swung around in a tight circle like she was throwing a discus—catching him in the temple with enough force to knock his legs right out from under him.

Boom! Down he went to the blue mats.

Everyone came running as she stood over him, braced for whatever came at her—while he made out with the floor.

Shoving his palms into the mats, he hefted his upper body to the vertical and looked at her. “You really want me to do this.”

“You haven’t done anything yet,” somebody cracked.

“Tell me,” another one chimed in. “Do you take a piss sitting down?”

“He does now,” came a reply.

Paradise just tracked every move he made, each twitch and breath and shift of his eyes. But she had no idea what she was doing. He could tell by the way her hands were trembling, and the fact that her ribs were pumping way too hard for the physical activity she’d just done.

She was also ever so slightly aroused.

Okay, that was straight-up trouble. The scent of her sex triggered the very male part of him—and made him want her to run just so he could chase her and catch her and get her underneath him to take her hard. He wanted her nails scratching his back as she came … and her fangs bared right before she took a vein at his throat.