Her pulse flutters wildly against my fingers, and her hair smells likemyshampoo, and that shouldn’t make my grip tighten against her waist, but it does.
“What do you do now?” I ask, and my mouth is too close to her ear.
“I don’t know.”
“Think. Someone grabs you from behind. What’s your first move?”
“Scream?”
“And if no one’s around?”
She’s quiet. Her throat bobs beneath my palm.
“Your hands aren’t pinned,” I say.
I let go of her waist and drag my touch up her side, and then down her arm, until I’m hovering over her knuckles. She sucks in a breath, and something low in my stomach tightens as I guide us up together. “Find my fingers.”
She reaches, wrapping around my pinky and ring finger where they rest against her throat.
“Good. Now peel them back. Hard.”
She does, bending them backward, and I grit against the pain, letting her feel how even a small amount of leverage can drop someone twice her size.
“Don’t stop. Use your whole body.”
She wrenches my hand to the side, rotating her torso, and I let her take me down, guiding the fall. My knee hits the matfirst, and she follows through, still gripping my fingers, forcing my arm into an angle behind me. The pressure is sloppy, but it works.
For a second, neither of us moves. She’s standing over me, breathing hard, flushed all the way down her neck, eyes lit up with a look I’ve never seen on her before.
My heart stutters at the sight.
“Now what?” I ask from the ground.
“I run?”
“You run. Don’t stay to finish the fight. Create distance and get out.” I push to my feet, rolling my wrist. “Not bad, Half-Pint.”
She beams. “I just put you on the ground. I think it’s better than ‘not bad.’”
“Iletyou put me on the ground.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone. Must be embarrassing, getting taken down by someone half your size.”
“You talk a lot of shit.” I grin. “Let’s go again. This time I won’t make it easy.”
“Sadist.”
“You keep saying that.”
Cavall lifts his head from where he’s been dozing near the water, decides we’re fine, and drops back down with a sigh.
We go another forty minutes. By the end, we’re both drenched in sweat, the midmorning sun beating through the trees. The waterfall roars behind us, mist drifting over the alcove.
Genevieve stands at the edge of the mat, hands on her hips. “God, it’s hot for October.”
“So cool off.”
She looks at me, then at the water. “Seriously?”
