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Bedded by Her Bodyguard(28)



He shrugged. “I love what I do.”

“It shows.”

The respect and admiration in her gaze made his heart gallop in a ragged rhythm. He wasn’t used to this—caring so damn much about what one person thought of him—but he did. Her opinion meant everything.

With that consideration in mind, when they finally beat traffic and arrived at the hotel, he slid his arm around her waist and slipped into an empty conference room on the main floor. He needed to teach her a few moves to use with the knife he bought her. He’d rather show her a different set of moves horizontally, but this wasn’t the time to get all hot and bothered with her.

Confusion stamped on her face, she blinked up at him. “What are we doing here? I thought we had no time—”

“There’s always time to make you feel safe.”

“What do you mean…? Oh.” Her eyes rounded. “The knife.”

“Exactly.” He shed his coat, tossing it onto the back of a conference chair, and she did the same with hers.

Retrieving the knife and its sheath from his coat, he handed it to her. She held it away from her and peered at it warily.

“That’s your first problem.”

“What?”

“A weapon, especially a knife, is an extension of your body, of your physical being. It isn’t something to fear but an aspect to master.”

She drew it a little closer. “It feels foreign. Kind of brutal.”

“It should. May I?”

When she placed it in his outstretched palm, he unsheathed the blade and, stepping to the side, made a few arcs, turns and jabs like a choreographed scene from his favorite Bruce Lee film.

She paled. “Oh, my.”

“Don’t be intimidated. I’ve had some practice.” Okay, a little more than some, but he didn’t want the learning curve to seem too daunting.

With a tight swallow she said, “You could be one of the bodyguards we hire out to protect people.

He laughed. “Trust me, I’m better at sales than I am with knives.”

“I don’t know about that.” She seemed to regard him in a new light. “You could slice someone to ribbons before they ever saw it coming.”

He nodded. “That’s the point. The element of surprise is the most powerful weapon. Better than muscles or fists or bullets. You want to know enough to be dangerous, to catch someone off guard.” He gazed at her steadily. “I want you to act out with me what those men did to you in your hotel room. Show me how they grabbed you.”

A cloud of fear shadowed her face. “Isaac, I don’t feel comfortable—”

“I’ll make it easy.” He knelt on the floor holding the knife. “You’re the aggressor. Show me how they held you.”

The reenactment was as unappealing for him as it was for her, but still necessary. He watched her overcome her fears, stepping into the role he’d assigned her. “The big guy held me from behind, like this.”

With him kneeling, the position helped her petite body achieve a similar dynamic to some hulking brute. She wrapped her arm around his neck in a chokehold and clamped her other hand over his mouth.

While he hated that she’d gone through this herself, this provided an excellent teaching ground. He jerked his head to the side toward her elbow. “Turning your head takes the pressure off your windpipe. You need to get as much oxygen to your brain as possible to keep your mind sharp.”

Slowly he moved his elbow backward toward her midriff, without any forceful contact. “I just gave myself breathing room, at the same time knocking the wind from your chest.” Then he spun on his knees and aimed the sheathed knife at her solar plexus, his palm against the butt of the hilt, demonstrating how to shove the knife in and up. “Using those three moves, you could’ve sent your attacker to the hospital. Possibly to the morgue.”

She turned a little green. “I can’t even stand the thought of hurting someone. Let alone holding his life in my hands.”

“You lived through the ordeal, thank God, but that luck may not happen twice.” He lifted a shoulder, not to be cavalier but to prove a point. “When the stakes are life and death, I assume you want to end up on the living end of that equation.”

She nodded.

“Let’s try it again,” he suggested. “You practice the moves I showed you against me.”

“Isaac…”

“Life and death, sweetheart. You can do this.”

With a sigh, she accepted the sheathed knife from him. After twenty minutes of continuous practice, she seemed comfortable with the knife in her hand and how to use it if necessary. “Nice work. I wouldn’t want to meet you in a dark alley.” He hoped she heard the sincerity in his tone. “This belongs to you now,” he said, handing her the knife.