Chapter 10 #2
I nodded toward his butt. I hardly even noticed the limp anymore, but he could be putting on a show for all I knew.
“I can’t fight an injured man. I’ll feel bad when I clock you.”
“Let’s worry about that when it actually happens.
” He gave another slow, reckless kind of smile.
The kind of smile that reached his eyes.
I became alarmed at the hairs rising on my skin and the sudden speed of my heart rate.
I typically liked men who were sweet and friendly.
I didn’t do the broody and the slightly condescending.
Though, I was discovering that…at times…
they could also hold a certain kind of…allure.
I was going to lose this exchange. One pale and slightly frumpy hermit didn’t go up against a tall badge with muscles and win. But the amusement in his eyes sent sparks of delusion firing off into my brain.
“Fine,” I said, stretching my arm muscles. “Let’s do this.”
“Okay. Show me what you’ve got.”
Though it wasn’t at all what he was asking for, I dug into my pocket and pulled out the thing that had brought me an unrealistic amount of comfort the past few months.
I didn’t need karate when I could just push a button.
It was my safety net, and even though it was slightly ridiculous, I held the keychain out in front of me like he should have been scared.
The whole itty-bitty vial fit snugly between my thumb and forefinger.
“Well, you haven’t seen me use this thing yet.”
He squinted. “What is that?”
“Mace.” I ceremoniously flipped the lid off with my thumb, my eyes never leaving his. “If you were actually an attacker, you’d be on the ground, rendered helpless right now.”
“Do you always hold it backward?”
“What?” I glanced down at the can for only a split second, but it was too late. The can of Mace had been knocked from my hand, and he was now a mere inch away, a light grip on my wrist, and towering over me.
“Hey!” I began to say before my senses heightened at his chest in my space and his fingers touching my skin.
I breathed deeply through my nose, attempting to center myself.
Leroy’s presence, though rarely physical, was dominating and terrifying.
Tate being so physically in my space was terrifying in another kind of way. I felt the distinction immediately.
“It wasn’t facing the wrong way,” I said.
“No,” he said. “Unless you know what you’re doing, it’s more likely that a can of Mace will end up being used on you.”
“Well, if you had played fair, I would have won.”
In a smile I could only describe as…devastating, he leaned closer, his face inches from mine. “No. You wouldn’t have.”
We were standing too close, him trying to intimidate me and doing a great job of it, and me trying to make it seem like I wasn’t intimidated and doing a terrible job of it.
But it was the tantalizing scent of his woodsy cologne that was…
too close. Apparently, Mace wasn’t the only thing here that could render a person helpless.
As if he suddenly realized how we were standing, Tate took a step back, and my lungs could once again take in air.
“Alright,” he said. “Let’s try something else. I’m going to get in your face for a bit. I’ll probably grab you around your waist and try to pull you against me. Try to keep your fantasies under wraps. This is police business. I want to see what your natural instincts are. You good with that?”
It was the “grab you” part of his sentence that slightly staggered me, but I mumbled a quick, “Yeah.”
Before I could think or blink or try to prepare myself, he was in my face, looming over me.
Startled, I took a step back. He followed.
I attempted to push him away (he didn’t budge) before I turned to run, which was a joke because his arms became a vise grip around my waist, trapping me against his body in seconds.
“Do you have natural instincts?” he asked, dropping me back down on the ground.
I took a step away from him and straightened my clothes, my breathing more erratic than it should have been. “You caught me off guard.”
“I told you I was coming.”
“Fine,” I said, bending my legs and holding my hands up in a fighter mode I’d seen on TV. “I’m ready now.”
This time, I tried to fake a left before breaking toward the right, really hoping the laps I used to jog when I was a cheerleader still held up ten years later.
They did not.
He fell for none of my tricks. I put up more of a fight with elbows and claws, but once again, I found myself trapped against his stomach, my arms detained by his. He began walking backward, carrying me effortlessly.
“Put your legs down,” he instructed sharply in my ear. “Find the ground and dig. Stop kindly allowing me to drag you off to my car.”
The curse word leaving my lips became muffled as I twisted and grunted, using all my strength in an attempt to find the ground. He only yanked my body up higher, making the endeavor impossible. Finally, he stopped and loosened his hold, and I wriggled out of his embrace.
“What happened to you?” he asked, his words a splash of cold water to the face.
“One more time,” I insisted.
Tate held out his arms in a ‘come and get me’ gesture, which was the opposite of how we’d been playing. I definitely wasn’t comfortable going on the offensive, but I couldn’t cry off now.
So I did the worst move imaginable. Like I was a teenager in a girls’ locker room about to start a fight, I moved in closer and gave him a shove. The moment my hands found his chest, he had me.
“What are you doing?” he asked, his voice a bit softer now, his eyes on mine. “Where’s your fight?”
I tried to pull away as the hot sting of embarrassment blazed on my skin, but he held me tight.
“Olivia.”
Still nothing.
He shook me gently, his arms around me tight. “Olivia.”
“If I fight you, this all becomes real.”
He pulled back to look at me. “What?”
I still couldn’t look directly at him. I hated the weakness in myself, and I was now sharing it with him.
“Olivia, talk to me.” He started to grab my arm, but I pulled it out of his grip.
“If you teach me to fight, then this all becomes real. This isn’t just for fun on a Friday night or something good to know just in case.
He might actually come after me, and I might actually have to defend myself, and that thought terrifies me.
I want to bury my head in the sand and pretend it doesn’t exist.”
As soon as I’d said the words, shame bubbled up inside of me.
It was that main-character energy thing.
I didn’t have it. I was too scared to be the main character.
I was the sidekick who was always questioning the hero and too scared to help.
Avoidance and compliance had kept me safe and sane.
Letting go of that made me feel like I’d stepped out onto a tightrope without a safety net to catch me.
He was staring at me, tender heat blazing in his blue eyes. His voice was soft when he spoke, and it was all I could do to keep from curling into him.
“Liv, I wish I could take this from you. I want to take it from you. I want to rip this guy limb from limb. And I’m hoping I get to one day soon.
But you pretending that it might not come down to a moment like this scares me.
We have to account for human error.” A shadow flashed across his face for a moment, so quick I might have missed it if we hadn’t been so close.
He cleared his throat. “I might not be there when you face him, and I need you as prepared as you can be if that happens.”
I nodded, resigning myself to my fate, and was about to pull away when he stopped me.
“There’s a fighter inside of you, Rawlins. And she’s been waiting her whole life to punch me. We’ve just got to give her a reason to.”
A corner of my mouth lifted, but I held strong. He went in for more, softer, gentler, and with a sweetness I could wrap myself up in.
“But it's probably hard because I’m always so sweet. A perfect gentleman.”
He succeeded in making me smile, which was what he was after, but he wasn’t quite done with the speech that was slowly giving me strength.
“I understand why you’ve hid from the world,” Tate began softly, a strange mixture of fire and sympathy blazing in his eyes. “You did what you had to do to survive. Self-preservation is a very real thing. But now it’s time to take a stand.”
My eyes slowly lifted to meet his.
“He’s taken so much from you. Let’s take it back.”
Plot Twist Scene change:
Cue the beginning of a cool self-defense training montage.