Stephanie Doyle - Calculated Risk

Quinlan seemed to study her for a moment. Then he must have reached some internal conclusion. He circled the king-size bed, sat and took off his shoes, then lifted the comforter and joined her.

At no point did their bodies touch, but that didn’t do anything to ease the tension she could feel rippling along her nerve endings. It was too hard, she thought, not to remember the very last time they had shared a bed. Too hard not to remember everything that had happened after.

If the stiffness of his breathing was any indication, Quinlan was having a hard time forgetting, too. She was stunned that he didn’t have better control over showing it. Not that he said anything. Neither did she. But they both knew what the other was thinking.

Just block it from your mind, she told herself.

It was a technique that she’d been taught during her training, one that she’d embraced throughout the years. Sometimes as the only means of holding on to her sanity.

If she could block out the memories from her past, she could move forward with her life. If she could block out what her quirky brain sometimes wanted to process, she could pretend she was a normal person.

If she could block out the pain echoing faintly inside her heart at just lying next to him, she might be able to sleep.

Block it all out.

It had been the second thing she’d learned during phase two.

The first, of course, had been pain.

Twelve years ago

Sabrina danced on the balls of her feet, the gym mat underneath cushioning her weight, as she let her arms shake loose in front of her in preparation for the workout to come. Regardless of whatever else she was learning at Secret Agent U, fight training remained a constant in the curriculum. Two hours every day. Today she expected to be working with Kai, who was her kung fu master.

She’d already mastered karate and jujitsu, and a few other more obscure martial arts, but kung fu was her favorite. There was artistry in the movements that all the disciplines shared but that “the foo,” as she liked to call it, took to another level. The symmetry of the form, the elegant angles the body was required to simulate, all of it was a math freak’s physical dream come true.

Actually, for most math freaks, Carmen Electra was probably a physical dream come true, if the poster in Arnold’s classroom was any indication. The idea of the old man lusting after the woman half his age made Sabrina snicker. For all his genius he was still just a man.

A girl genius totally had the edge.

Sabrina removed her stylishly ripped T-shirt, the various holes giving it a cool look-and tossed it off the mat. That left her dressed in a pair of dark leggings and a white stretch tank top that was more than tight enough to contain what she liked to refer to as her respectably smallish-size breasts. The snug workout clothes gave her freedom of movement and bare feet gave her better traction and balance on the mat. All in all she was feeling pretty good today.

As a result, she decided she was going to kick Kai’s ass. If for no other reason than she wanted Kai to have to say, She kicked my ass, should Quinlan ask about her workout.

Not that she was all about trying to impress Q. Okay, maybe she’d shown off a little at the shooting range, but she couldn’t help it if she was a natural. Fighting, however, was something she’d had to learn just like everyone else who came through the program and she’d learned it well. She’d applied herself mentally and physically, until her instructors proclaimed her to be good. Good wasn’t great, but she was working on it.

That was all she wanted Quinlan to know. That she hadn’t been slacking in his absence. It was no big deal.

She heard the door open and was surprised to see Quinlan enter with another man-shorter and not nearly the physical specimen Q was-right behind him. She suspected that she wouldn’t be working out with Kai today.

Excellent! She’d show him herself what she’d learned. And if she knocked him on his butt a few times in the process, that would be gravy.

“Are you serious?” the smaller man asked Quinlan, as he stared openly at Sabrina. His face was a spasm of shock and disgust.

Instantly, she reached for her hair thinking it couldn’t look that bad since she’d pulled most of it into a ponytail. There were just a few loose curls around her face, but surely it wasn’t disgusting.

“Wait over there and say nothing,” Quinlan said, pointing to the wall closest to the door.

“She’s just a kid…” The man tried again, but stopped when Quinlan glared at him for a prolonged moment.

“Hey, pal,” Sabrina fired back. “I’m going to be eighteen in a few weeks. Cool it with the ‘kid’ talk.”

She couldn’t imagine why her age was giving the guy fits. Maybe he couldn’t imagine someone of her size taking on an opponent like Quinlan. But that was the beauty of the foo. If executed properly, it lessened the impact of size as a factor in fighting, giving smaller, quicker opponents a decent chance. Granted, Quinlan was probably equally skilled in the art. He’d been doing it for way longer than she had, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t hold her own.

Sabrina made a mental note to point out the fact-exactly how long he’d been doing it-as soon as she had him on his butt. It would be both a skill and an age jab.

Dressed in his typical workout outfit-dark loose cotton pants and a dark T-shirt-Quinlan stepped on to the mat.

“Just like old times.” Sabrina smiled, enjoying the anticipation of the sparring to come. She couldn’t wait to see the shock in his face when he realized how far she’d advanced in the past two years. Not that he would be likely to show it. But she would be able to see. It would be there in his eyes. He wouldn’t be able to hide it completely.

She lifted her chin in the direction of the man at the door who was looking at the two of them with a decidedly pinched expression on his face and his arms crossed over his chest. “Who’s the dweeb?”

“He’s observing.”

“What’s his problem?”

Quinlan didn’t turn around to check on him, but instead remained focused on her. “Are you ready?”

“Sure.” She lifted her arms in a ready position and didn’t wait for him to make the first move, but rather moved forward in an immediate attack. He blocked her first strike, but the second landed in his midsection with a little more force than a practice session warranted. She heard a brief whoosh of air, and smiled as she jogged back out of range.

“Sorry. Was that a little too quick for you old-”

The blow ripped across her face with stunning ferocity. It turned her head, and she could feel the blood welling in her mouth as the inside of her cheek was cut against her teeth.

“What in the hell?” she whispered. She wiped the blood from her mouth and tried to swallow the bile in her stomach caused by the sheer shock of what he’d done.

“Practice is over, Sabrina,” he told her, his voice monotone. “This is a new game. It’s called Submit. As soon as you say the word, we’re done. But know that you’ll be judged on how long you can continue to fight without saying it.”

She looked at his face and tried to understand what was happening, exactly what he was saying, but her mind was still coping with the fact that he’d hit her. He’d hit her. Hard.

“Are you ready?”

A chill ran through her body and she found herself wanting to call time-out. Time-out, like a kid would do in the middle of a kickball game when things weren’t going according to plan. But she wasn’t a kid. She was training to be an agent, a field-op. For an agent in the field engaged in physical contact with an opponent, time-out wasn’t an option.