Groin.
Groin.
See?
“If you can hit the groin, of course go for it.”
Okay, so maybe he was saying it differently than she was, it sounded sexy coming from him. Katrina shook her head. “Got it. Groin if possible.”
“Show me how you make a fist.”
She fisted her hand and he reached out and adjusted her thumb. “Like this. So you don’t break a finger. Now hit me as hard as you can.” He pointed to his stomach.
“Finally,” she joked. Then she hesitated.
“What’s wrong?”
“I don’t actually want to hit you,” she confessed.
Jas’s lips twitched. “I promise, you won’t hurt me.”
“Ugh.”
“Try it.”
It was a halfhearted punch at best, like rapping her knuckles against a brick wall.
“Punching can hurt someone, but not if they’re braced for it.” He tapped her fist until she opened it, and arranged her fingers into a claw. “You know what really hurts? These puppies.” He touched her nails. “Scratch, claw. Go for the eyes for maximum impact.” He took a step closer. “Think of the other sharp parts of your body. You want to use them on the vulnerable parts of the attacker’s body.”
“Nothing on me is that sharp.”
He took a second to reply. “Your knee. Your elbow.” He placed his hand on her elbow.
Zings. Zings aplenty. Enough zings to power a nuclear plant.
Oh no, oh no, oh no.
It’s your elbow. The unsexiest part of any body.
And yet.
His hand was warm and callused, the snags on his skin catching her softer flesh. She had a brief fantasy of those hands rubbing their way down the rest of her body. Her naked body.
“Katrina?”
His voice came from far away, like it was being filtered through Vaseline. “Got it. Eyes. Sharp parts of my body. Softer parts of theirs. Claws first.”
“Or weapons. You have your pepper spray, right?”
After her kidnapping, when she’d been especially jumpy, Jas had given her a few pepper spray containers to keep around, and then refreshed them with new ones every couple of years.
The spray was the only kind of weapon she felt equipped to carry. Guns and knives scared her. When she’d asked Jas to move to California and be her main security, he’d quietly explained he wasn’t capable of handling firearms, and only carried a Taser.
She hadn’t needed him to elaborate. She wasn’t naïve, and it didn’t take a huge leap of imagination to understand why a wounded vet might shy away from guns. It hadn’t been a deal breaker for her. She trusted him to protect her with every resource at his disposal. “The last ones you gave me just expired.”
Jas frowned. “Why didn’t you say something? I’ll get you new ones.”
She rubbed her nose, mildly embarrassed by imparting new evidence of her nerdiness. “I actually made a batch a couple weeks ago.”
