Chapter Twenty Four
Alex moved first.
Her body uncoiled with explosive precision, closing the distance between them in a blink. Her hand arced toward Ren's hip, fingers splayed for maximum surface area.
However, Ren twisted. His spine curving like a reed in a storm.
Alex's fingertips grazed the fabric of his slacks but found no purchase. Ren flowed backward, creating space with an elegance that made Alex's eyes narrow.
"Fast," Alex admitted, repositioning. "But can you keep it up?"
"With that much weight on your chest and ass weighing you down. I think I can."
"You talk too much."
Alex pressed forward again, this time abandoning finesse for sheer overwhelming pressure.
A flurry of strikes aimed not at his face or chest but at his flanks, his hips, the vulnerable territory where victory lay.
Ren deflected each attempt with open palms, redirecting her momentum rather than meeting it head-on. Their movements became a strange dance.
Sweat began to bead at Alex's temple. Her breathing remained controlled, but frustration flickered behind her eyes. Every combination she threw, he read. Every angle she created, he anticipated.
"You're stalling," Alex accused between exchanges. "Fucking fight."
"You as a Hunter should know better than anyone the importance of waiting for the right moment."
"I don't need your lecture, Esper!"
Alex feinted high, dropped low. Her hand swept toward the back of Ren's thigh in a move that should have been impossible to avoid at this range.
However, Ren jumped.
A full vertical leap that carried him over her extended arm like a gymnast clearing a vault. He landed behind her, the shift in position so sudden that Alex's momentum carried her forward an extra step before she could correct.
The opening was microscopic. A fraction of a second where her flank was exposed and her balance was committed.
Ren's palm cut through the air with the force of a swinging plank and connected with her right buttock in a thunderous CRACK that echoed off the mirrored walls like a gunshot. The sound was so loud and sharp that Alex's body jolted forward a full step from the sheer kinetic impact.
Alex froze, her eyes wide and watering involuntarily from the sudden, searing sting that bloomed across her posterior. She felt the heat of the impact radiate through her entire right side.
"Oops," Ren said, his voice carrying the same casual tone as earlier. "I swear there was a mosquito or I wouldn't have hit so hard."
The sound that escaped Alex's throat was a strangled choke that morphed into a growl of rage at the fresh humiliation.
Alex whirled around, her face turned into a tomato, her left hand instinctively flying back to cover the spot that felt like it had just been branded. "You—!"
"Seriously! It was a very large one," Ren finished, pointing vaguely toward the ceiling. "You should really talk to building management about the infestation."
Alex Vance, heiress of the Vance Empire, S-rank Hunter, woman who had stared down abyssal horrors without flinching, stood in the center of a private gym with one hand cradling her backside, her mouth opening and closing like a landed fish.
The moment passed.
"One," she said, her voice dropping to a register that promised a long stay in the hospital. "One slap. That's all you get, Esper. Now, I'm going to slap your butt so hard you hear your sit bones cracked."
Alex attacked.
She came at Ren like a storm given human form, her speed ratcheting up to levels that made her earlier efforts look like warm-up stretches. Her hands became blurs, seeking not just his flanks but every square inch of territory below his waistline.
Ren's eyes widened fractionally. 'Ah. She was holding back.'
He deflected three strikes in rapid succession, sidestepped a fourth, and nearly lost his balance avoiding a fifth that came within a hair's breadth of his left cheek. Alex pressed her advantage, herding him toward the corner where the mirrored walls met.
"You're running out of room, Mr. Nine Inches." Her smile was sharp enough to cut glass. "Nowhere to jump this time."
She lunged.
Ren dropped.
His body folded at the knees, sinking straight down like a stone in water. Alex's grasping hand passed through the space where his hip had been an instant before. Her momentum carried her forward, and Ren's hand shot up from his crouched position.
But Alex had learned.
She twisted in mid-lunge, her free hand snapping down to intercept his rising palm. Their fingers tangled briefly as the stalemate lasted half a breath.
Then Alex's other hand, the one she'd committed to the lunge, swung around with every ounce of force her S-rank body could muster.
It connected solidly with Ren's posterior in a brutal THWACK that outdid his earlier effort in both volume and sheer concussive force.
The impact was so hard it sent a visible ripple through the fabric of his slacks and made Ren's teeth clack together.
"Wow," Alex breathed, her face inches from his, their tangled hands the only thing keeping them from colliding completely. She relished the way his eyes twitched from the stinging pain. "What a soft butt. Feels like I just spanked a cloud. Do you moisturize?"
Ren's composure cracked. Just a fraction. A twitch at the corner of his eye that Alex caught and savored like fine wine. He subtly shifted his weight off the leg on the side she'd just hit.
"Moisturize?" Ren repeated. "Men don't moisturize their asses."
He quickly straightened to defend his manly honour, rolling his shoulders as if working out a minor kink.
"Liar. That butt is so soft. It must have a butt-care routine!"
"The way you're talking about it. Are you sure it's not you that follows the routine?"
"So what if I do? Women must take care of their body, Mr Esper."
"I assume your exes must be very happy smacking it in bed, Miss Vance."
Alex's confident smirk faltered. "You— Focus on the duel!"
"I am focused." Ren's stance shifted. Subtle. Almost imperceptible. His weight distributed differently, his center of gravity lowering by a fraction. "Are you?"
The question hung in the air between them.
Alex didn't answer with words. She came at him again, faster than before, her determination etched into every line of her body.
This was the final exchange. They both knew it. The next successful slap would end the duel, determine the wishes, decide the questions.
She threw everything she had into the assault. She was a whirlwind of intent, each movement designed to create an opening, exploit a weakness, claim victory.
Ren met her strike for strike.
Their arms blurred, deflections and counters flowing into each other like water over rocks. The sound of their movements filled the padded room as Alex pushed her body to its limits.
Then she saw her chance.
A slight overextension on Ren's part. His left arm drifting a centimeter too wide after deflecting her right hook. Her left hand was already in motion, arcing toward the exposed flank with victory singing in her veins.
Ren's right hand materialized from nowhere.
His palm swung in a flat arc, a blur of motion that ended with a sickeningly loud SMACK on her left cheek that sounded like a car door slamming shut.
The impact lifted Alex onto her tiptoes for a split second, the shockwave traveling up her spine. This time, she couldn't hold back a sharp yelp of genuine pain.
Time stopped.
Alex looked down at the hand that was still pressed firmly against her assaulted left buttock. Then up at Ren's face. Then back down at the hand. She could already feel the heat of what would surely be a magnificent hand-shaped bruise forming.
"That's two," Ren said quietly. He paused, then added, "Also, another mosquito. Not my fault, Vancey~"
The silence that followed was deafening.
"Take your hand off my ass, Esper. Now."