Love 2.0 by Lee Kilraine

Author:Lee Kilraine [Kilraine, Lee]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington
Published: 2017-02-15T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

The next afternoon Mira and Kaz held a self-defense session in the gym in his basement. The space was small; Kaz used it mostly for meditation, but it would give them some one-on-one time to work without Barbara interrupting them like a heat-seeking missile.

“Tell me when you’re ready.”

Kaz was ready and she was so not.

“Let’s try this again. Come on, Mira, you’ve got to be more aggressive. No more going through the motions. You won’t hurt me, but you need to know the effort you have to exert to escape or hurt your attacker.”

She huffed air from her lungs and rested her hands on her hips. “I’m trying; it’s just I freeze up every time I feel your arms clamp tight—like I can’t breathe—and then I can’t remember the next movement.”

Kaz nodded. “Okay. I won’t grab as tight for the next few while you get the motions down. Once you’ve got them, they’ll become a muscle memory and you won’t even have to think consciously—your body will simply react instinctively. Let’s go.”

Her body tensed up as his arm whipped around her from behind. She tried to envision each step he’d taught her. Grab his wrist with her left hand. High elbow into his throat. Spin and aim her knee into his nuts. Palm of the hand strikes hard into his nose. Grab wrist, elbow to throat, knee to nuts, fist to nose.

“Dammit. I missed the elbow and it threw the rest off.”

“Again.”

“Wrist, throat, nuts, nose. Sort of.”

“Not even close. Again.”

“Wrist, throat, nuts, nose. Aha!”

“Getting warmer. Again.”

“Wrist, throat, nuts, nose. Yikes, sorry!”

“I’m wearing a cup. Again. Dammit, Mira. I’m coming hard this time.”

He did. Oh, Dios, this time his arm wrapped up firm against her neck. His hard body, arms corded with lean muscle, closed around her like steel, as suffocating as a straitjacket. His leg swiped her legs out from under her and suddenly she was lying trapped under him. Vulnerable. Exposed. A weak and easy target. She panicked. A memory, seared into her soul but well-hidden and long-buried bubbled up from a deep, dark place and the air in her lungs seized and sputtered.

Her hands scraped and scratched at his arms frantically. Wild to be free of the fear that wrapped tight around her throat and choked her. She saw them. Her parents. Her mother, tears streaked across her cheeks, the bruises around her throat left by the father she’d worshipped her whole life. The sound of her mother gasping for breath . . . begging for her husband to stop . . . begging to let her live.

“Stop! Oh, Dios, stop! Please . . . stop.”

The hands on her shoulders pulled back immediately. His heavy weight rolled off her body and then Kaz was lying next to her on the mat. His gaze raking her face, shifting over her face and down her body to see where he’d hurt her.

He ran his hands up and down her body to check what had happened. His big, strong hands, big like her father’s yet so different.

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