“Tighter arc. You’re not swinging a sword. This is close-quarters.”
She tried again. Better. The blade passed within inches of my ribs, and the focus in her eyes shifted from frustrated to predatory. She was a fast learner.
“Good.” I caught her wrist again on the third pass and held it. Our faces were close, our breath mingling, the dagger angled between us. “Now. What do you do if your attacker is bigger than you and takes your weapon?”
“Cry?”
I gave her a look of disbelief and she laughed.
“You let him take it.” I plucked the dagger from her grip and held it up. “Because while he’s focused on the blade, you’re focused on the body.” I pressed the handle back into her palm and closed her fingers around it.
“The dagger is a distraction.”
She stared at me. The late afternoon light caught the copper in her roots, and her lips parted, and I was close enough to count the flecks of blue in her brown eye.
I stepped back before I did anything I couldn’t take back.
“Now. Hand-to-hand.”
I moved behind her and adjusted her elbow. My fingers pressed against the inside of her arm, guiding the angle, and her skin was warm under my touch. She went still and I could smell the change in her scent.
“When someone grabs you.” I stepped into her space. Wrapped my hand around her wrist, loose enough that she could break free. “Don’t pull away. Pull into them. Use their momentum.”
She tried. Her body twisted, and for a second the move almost worked, but my weight was too much and she ended up pressed against my chest instead, breathing hard, her back to my front.
I didn’t step back immediately. Couldn’t. The curve of her ass pressed against my thighs in a way that made my vision blur.
“Again,” I managed.
We ran the drill six more times.
Each repetition brought more contact. Her hands gripping my forearms. My palm on her hip, correcting her pivot. The brush of her hair against my jaw when she ducked under my arm.
Every point of contact sent electricity racing through my nerve endings, and by the fifth round, my self-control existed in name only.
“Now the flip,” I said. “If someone pins you, this is how you get free.”
I showed her the leverage point. The hip rotation and the way to use an attacker’s weight against them.
She tried and failed. Tried again, failed harder. Her frustration mounted visibly, flushing her cheeks and making her jaw set.
On the fourth attempt, Mira changed tactics.
Instead of the technique, she leaned up on her toes. Her hand curled around my bicep, fingers digging into the muscle, and her mouth found my ear. Close enough that her lips grazed the skin.
“You know,” she breathed, “I’ve been thinking about dragging my tongue down your neck since you pinned me the first time.”
Every rational thought in my head caught fire.
Her lips brushed my earlobe, breath warm as her fingers traced the curve of my bicep with deliberate slowness. My blood rushedsouth and my grip on her wrist went slack. My brain produced a single coherent word.
Fuck.
Mira hooked her leg behind my knee, dropped her weight, and used the half-second of destruction to wrench me off balance. My back hit the ground and air punched out of my lungs.
Before I could process what had happened, she was on top of me, straddling my hips, palms planted on my chest.
“I win.”
