“Because you keep looking at me like I’m something you need to protect.” She stands, brushes off her leggings. “And I think you should know I’m not. Not really.”
The air between us shifts. She’s given me something—not forgiveness, not absolution, but recognition. And I’ve given her nothing back.
“We should continue training,” I say.
“Should we?”
But she backs up, gives me space to breathe. “What’s next in self-defense school? More grabbing? More pressing against each other and pretending it’s professional?”
The bitter joke doesn’t hide the hurt underneath. She offered understanding and I gave her nothing back.
“Ground defense,” I say, because I’m an idiot who can’t stop pushing toward disaster. “If you end up on the ground.”
“This requires me to pin you,” I say, and my voice sounds like gravel.
She lies back on the floor, looking up at me with those honey eyes. “So pin me.”
Christ.
I kneel beside her, trying to remember this is training. “I’m going to hold your wrists down. Your job is to escape. Use your hips to bridge, create space…”
“Just do it.”
I move over her, take her wrists in my hands, press them to the floor above her head. My body covers hers, not quite touching but close enough to feel her heat, to inhale every breath she exhales.
She’s completely still beneath me. Not fighting. Not trying to escape. Just looking at me with parted lips, chest rising and falling in rhythm with mine.
“You’re supposed to be escaping,” I manage.
“Am I?”
Her back arches slightly, bringing our bodies into contact. The motion is deliberate, unmistakable. Her lips part further, aninvitation written in the curve of her mouth, the way her tongue darts out to wet them.
“Marisol.”
Just her name, but she must hear everything I can’t say because her eyes darken, pupils dilating.
“I know what you want,” she whispers. “I want it too.”
My grip on her wrists tightens. She doesn’t protest. If anything, she arches more, pressing up against me, and I’m about to break. About to close the distance between our mouths and find out if she tastes as good as I remember, if she’ll make those sounds again when I…
I release her wrists and push away so fast she gasps. I’m on my feet, backing toward the door, and my hands are shaking. Actually shaking, something that hasn’t happened since Afghanistan, since the dust and blood and decisions that still wake me at night.
“That’s enough for today,” I say.
She’s still on the floor, looking up at me with confusion and hurt. “Nico…”
“You did well.”
“We weren’t finished…”
“We’re finished.”
I turn and walk away because if I stay another second, I’ll go back. I’ll pin her wrists for real this time, find out what sounds she makes when the monster gets what it wants.
Behind me, I hear her sit up. Hear her breathing. Hear her not following.
The shaking in my hands intensifies.
