NINE #2
She assessed her in a glance. “Your weight’s too far back.” She crouched slightly in demonstration. “You want it centered, low. Pretend you’re about to sit in a chair that isn’t there.” She adjusted Stina’s shoulders and tilted her hips forward a few degrees. “There. Feel the difference?”
Stina rolled her shoulders, testing the position. “Yes, actually.”
The next try, Stina’s position needed another tweak. Caryssa patiently walked her through it. She’d never taught anyone a physical move before, but it turned out she was pretty good at it.
Stina broke Younger’s grip cleanly on her third attempt, twisting free with a startled gasp of triumph.
“That’s it!” Caryssa cried, delighted with her friend’s quick progress.
Stina beamed at her. “I can’t believe how easy that was.”
“It’s all in the technique.”
“All right.” Younger threw Caryssa a smile. “Your turn.”
She leveled him with a serious look, aware of Rivers crossing the mat in slow strides to circle behind her.
“Everyone runs through it once.” Younger beckoned her forward.
Caryssa stepped within reach of him. He slowly curled his fingers around her wrist. How cute that he thought her a beginner. Maybe he thought she knocked Townie on his ass by luck.
She met Younger’s gaze. Then moved.
She didn’t rotate her wrist the way he anticipated.
She shifted her weight and caught his ankle with the same easy sweep of her leg she used on Townie. With a whoosh, the man who outweighed her by at least a hundred pounds went down on the mat, flat on his back, before he could register what happened.
Stina shrieked with laughter. “That was incredible!” She lunged toward Caryssa, palm up for a high-five.
With a chuckle, Caryssa slapped it, grinning wider than she had…in years.
She walked over to Younger, extending a hand to help him up, but he rolled to his feet with quick agility.
The whole room was laughing at his expense while shooting Caryssa looks of newfound respect.
Then the guys made it into a comedy act. Younger bounced up to Rorke on the balls of his feet, and Rorke bobbed over to him like a giddy teenage girl. They high-fived each other and let out simultaneous squeals.
Caryssa folded over, shaking with laughter. “That sound that has no business coming out of SEALs.”
Cannon walked into the gym and stopped at the edge of the mat, arms folded and legs braced as he surveyed chaos he hadn’t authorized. “What’s going on here?”
“You missed it. Younger just got taken down by a girl.” Reid’s tone was both teasing and filled with a ring of pride. He slanted a look at her that sent a wave of heat scorching through her whole body but settled disconcertingly low in her stomach.
“This is what happens when Daddy leaves the room for five minutes.” Rome’s comment had them all in stitches again.
Shaking his head, Cannon held up both hands to quiet them, though he was smiling too. When the laughter died down, he turned to Caryssa. “Where’d you learn those moves?”
She kept her tone light even though the memories underneath it weren’t.
“After I thought Reid died…I trained in everything I could. Cryptology first—when Cipher went public, I wanted to be ready in case I ever got a shot at working the case. Then target practice, martial arts and self-defense.” She gestured to the mat.
“I never wanted to rely on someone else to save me.”
Reid inched close enough that her skin prickled from his body heat. “Oh, Ryss,” he murmured.
The old nickname hit somewhere she wasn’t prepared to defend. She blinked hard against the sudden sting behind her eyes.
Reid saw it. Without a word, he stepped in front of her.
“My turn.” He rolled his shoulders.
She stared up at him, grateful for the intervention. But as she caught the looks around the gym, pride slipped in alongside the emotion.
She’d lost so much. Somehow, she’d still built a woman worth being proud of.
She squared up to her lover. “You sure? I’d hate to embarrass you in front of your team.”
His mouth curved in that delicious, bad-boy smile that made her stomach flutter nonstop on their first date. “I’m not going easy on you.”
He wasn’t lying. The second he reached for her, she felt the difference between Reid’s grip and Younger’s. He wasn’t going slow or taking it easy on her. She actually had to work for it, and her body came alive at the challenge.
They went at it for several rounds, both of them breathing hard, the room fading into the background. He caught her wrist and she twisted free, catching him off balance. She nearly had him down but he recovered, hooking an arm around her waist and using her own momentum to spin her instead.
They ended up chest to chest, his hand locked around her wrist and her hand flat against his chest. Neither of them moved to break away.
They stared into each other’s eyes for a heartbeat that felt endless but only lasted milliseconds.
Then the words she never meant to say slipped out in a murmur just loud enough for his ears. “Don’t back down just because you love me.”
The gleam in his eyes sharpened.
He’d caught it. Of course he had.
Younger called out for round three, and she and Reid broke apart. The noise of the room flooded back in, but electricity still hummed beneath her skin. And the sweet, needy weight of desire sat low in her belly, a promise neither of them had finished making.