Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 60921 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 305(@200wpm)___ 244(@250wpm)___ 203(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 60921 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 305(@200wpm)___ 244(@250wpm)___ 203(@300wpm)
Nothing comes out.
His hands hover like he’s still processing being reversed.
A slow grin crawls across my face. “You okay there, tough guy?”
He blinks. “Where did you learn that level of technique?”
“Juno dragged me to a women’s Krav Maga studio two years ago. I stayed. It helped with the… anxiety. Feeling like the world’s always bigger than me.” I shrug. “Figured if I’m going to hack bad guys from my couch, I should probably know how to break at least one of their knees if they ever found me.”
His gaze softens in a way that makes heat crawl up my neck.
“Okay,” he says slowly. “Again.”
We go through it a few more times. He grabs, I break, over and over until it feels like a dance. My muscles warm, my body humming with the familiar rhythm. It feels good—remembering I’m not just a brain in a hoodie. I’m a body that can do things too.
“Now you,” I say when he starts to look less stunned. “Turn around.”
He raises a brow. “You want to grab me from behind?”
“Don’t make it weird.”
“It’s already weird.”
“Knight.”
He sighs but turns. His back is broad, the fabric of his shirt pulled tight over his shoulders. I step in close, loop my arms around his torso, and lock my hands.
“Now,” I say, “you get to be the prey.”
He snorts. “Never going to happen.”
“Commit to the bit,” I scold. “Okay. First problem—you’re taller, stronger, center of gravity higher. You can drop your weight, but you’ve also got options for leverage.”
He shifts experimentally.
“Try this,” I suggest. “Step behind my leg with yours, pivot, and use that momentum to throw me instead of just shrugging me off.”
He does.
Too well.
One second I’m behind him, the next my world tilts. He twists, grabs my arm, and I end up on the floor, back hitting the rug, Knight braced above me to keep from crashing his full weight down.
We both freeze.
His hand is on my shoulder.
His other is planted beside my head.
His knee is between my thighs, not touching anything it shouldn’t, but not… not touching either.
Our breath mingles.
His eyes are wide, pupils blown.
My heart is doing drum solos.
We stay there for one long, electric second.
Then another.
Then another.
“Good.” My voice sounds a little strangled. “That’s… good leverage.”
He blinks, like he forgot what we were doing.
“Oh. Uh. Yeah.” He shifts his weight, careful now, pushing himself back onto his feet. Then he offers me a hand.
I take it.
His palm is warm and callused, fingers wrapping all the way around my smaller ones.
He hauls me up like I weigh nothing.
We’re close again when I’m standing. Too close. Our bodies nearly bump. My front brushes his chest. For a half-second, we’re just… there.
“You okay?” he asks quietly, searching my face.
I swallow. “Define okay.”
His mouth twitches. “Dizzy?”
“A little.”
“From hitting the floor?”
“Sure,” I lie.
His hand lingers on my arm a beat longer than it needs to.
Then he steps back, pulling in a breath like he’s reeling himself in on a line.
“Show me more,” he says. “What else did you learn?”
We spend the next half hour trading techniques. I show him how to break a chokehold, how to use an attacker’s forward momentum against them, how to throw a knee that will drop a guy twice my size.
He corrects my stance, adjusts my balance, points out gaps a real fight would exploit.
We sweat.
We laugh.
At one point, I try to demonstrate a spinning elbow and nearly whack the lamp. He yanks me out of the way at the last second, arm around my waist, and we both stumble into the couch in a heap of limbs and breathless cursing.
“See?” I gasp, half-laughing, half sprawled across him. “Deadly.”
“Yeah,” he says, looking down at me with something like awe and something like you’re going to kill me one of these days, “that’s one word for it.”
We untangle.
Eventually, our bodies remember we have personal space. We end up standing side by side again, hands on hips, catching our breath.
“You’re good,” he says finally. “Better than I thought.”
I bump his shoulder with mine. “Is that a compliment from the great Knight Hayes?”
“Don’t let it go to your head.”
“Too late.”
His smile fades into something more serious.
“When they come,” he says, no question in it, “use this. Don’t hesitate. Don’t be nice. You hear me?”
I nod.
“I mean it, Lark. If someone breaks the door down, you don’t worry about whether they’re going to shoot me or you or both. You break something vital and you run.”
I sober.
The playfulness drains, leaving behind the steely core I keep for the worst days.
“I can do that,” I say quietly.
“I know you can.” He studies me. “I just… needed to see it for myself.”
I tilt my head. “You feel better now?”
“A little.”
“Good.” I nudge him with my hip. “Now we go back to stalking our stalker.”
He groans. “You’re insufferable.”
“You adore me.”
His gaze lingers on my face, my mouth, my messy hair.