He’d already done so much in the first couple of hours: sprints with bungees attached to him, swinging a sledgehammer onto a gigantic tractor tire, and flipping said monstrous tire end over end for what seemed like an eternity.
With each exercise, his muscles flexed and rippled as he isolated them in different motions. They reminded her of the waves rolling and undulating toward the shores. His body was a beautiful machine and though he poured with sweat and his chest heaved with labored breaths, he never once slowed down or even complained when given a task. Instead, it seemed as if he pushed himself harder with each new session.
She’d found the grappling exercises fascinating. Two men trying to best each other with nothing but wrestling moves and submission holds. It wasn’t about strength but quick reactions and the ability to outmaneuver your opponent while watching for the moment he left himself open for that split second, allowing you to strike.
Jax had bested his training partner almost every time, and she heard some of the other guys talking about how his Brazilian jiu-jitsu was his greatest strength.
Now she watched him wrap each hand with over seven feet of three-inch-wide black fabric. Round and round he crisscrossed the wrap over his wrist and palm, making sure to weave them between his fingers and cover his knuckles at the top. Once he secured the Velcro ends and tested his handiwork by flexing and fisting his hands a few times, he grabbed his gloves and walked over to a large punching bag hanging from the ceiling.
For the next half hour, he pounded his fists into the bag. Sometimes he’d perform high kicks or spinning kicks—she didn’t know the technical terms for any of them—in combination with his punches. His hair was soaked and plastered to the edges of his face and his white sleeveless shirt could’ve won him first place in a wet T-shirt contest. Rawr.
“Maris!”
Jax looked across the room where Frank stood inside the cage. “Coach?”
“Come on in here and spar with Danny, will ya?”
An evil grin cocked up one side of Jax’s mouth. “My pleasure.”
Vanessa didn’t know the deal with him and “the kid,” as Jax called him earlier, but her Spidey Sense told her there wasn’t a lot of love lost between the two. She wondered how it worked when guys who didn’t particularly like each other had to fight nice.
“Well,” she said to herself, “we’re about to find out.” Dang it, she thought, settling back in her cozy chair. She really did wish she had popcorn.
Jackson stripped off his shirt, jogged up the few steps into the large octagonal cage, took his mouth guard from where it was tucked in his waistband—ew—and shoved it past his lips over his top teeth. Danny, like the rest of the guys she’d seen sparring in the cage, wore a padded helmet. Jackson donned no such thing.
“Hey,” she called out. “Where’s your headgear, Maris?”
He looked over his shoulder at her like a teenager upset with his mom for embarrassing him in front of his friends. “I’ll be fine, dear.” His endearment was laced with sarcasm. She narrowed her eyes at him and crossed her arms over her chest. She didn’t appreciate his tone, but fine. She got it. He was a big boy and could take care of himself.
She hoped Danny clocked him a good one.
A hulk of a guy—Corey, if she remembered correctly—squatted next to her, shooting a stream of water into his mouth and swallowing. “Don’t worry about Jax,” he told her with an easy smile. “Akana’s just a rookie. He doesn’t stand a chance hurting Jax in a sparring exercise. He’s just in there to defend and make the kid work.”
“Oh yeah? Then why does Danny look like he wants to exact a pound of Jackson’s flesh?”
Corey chuckled. “Probably because the entire gym witnessed you shooting him down, and it was pretty damn obvious who you shot him down for.”
Vanessa rolled her eyes and sighed. “Why are boys such cavemen?”
“Can’t help it,” he said, standing again. “It’s in our DNA.” With that said, he walked toward the cage and yelled, “That’s it, Maris, keep him on his toes!”
For the next twenty minutes or so, Vanessa watched in awe as time and time again Jackson blocked most of Danny’s strikes and thwarted almost all of the kid’s takedowns. The few punches Danny managed to connect only made Jackson offer a wide, plastic-filled smile as he bounced on the balls of his feet and gave him the universal sign of bring it on with his fingers.
When they ended up on the ground it didn’t take more than a minute for Jackson to work his way out of Danny’s hold and reverse the situation, landing Jax on top in the power position.
Corey was right. Jackson could definitely hold his own and then some. But what concerned Vanessa was the look in Danny’s eyes. With every passing minute, the frustration and anger grew more and more obvious, but a glance around the room showed she seemed to be the only one who noticed.