by Emilia Finn
“They’re both working the hours, Smalls. They’re trying to get information on this one group of folks who are doing bad things, but this is a small town, so it’s not like people don’t know who they are. It’s not easy for cops to get information around here. And my daughter’s boyfriend,” she looks to me and scowls, “is being somewhat of a prick on that front. His job is to prosecute, which means he puts the pressure on our local PD to make arrests.”
“Brenten is putting pressure on Daddy?” I ask. “That’s…” I glower. “Not cool.”
“I think it’s Brenten’s boss, but still, the pressure remains the same, they’re giving information to the press and adding heat to this already hot situation. Add in that Oz and X are already known around here, so the people they want information from pucker their buttholes as soon as they walk into a room, and basically, no one is getting much work done.”
“And yet, they’re working far too many hours.”
She nods. “At this point, it might be best if X brings outside cops in. Someone nobody knows, so they can maybe get some answers before people start dying. Daddy’s tired, honey. And he has to head out again tonight, so I’m going to do dinner for him first, chill out, try to help him relax.”
“Which means I’m on class duty,” I surmise. “What are you doing with Lachlan?”
Mom looks to Evie and flashes a guilty smile. “Ben already invited him to your house for the night. You don’t mind, do you?”
“Of course not.” Evie gives up on whatever bastard yoga she’s trying to do, and instead sits tall on her knees. “Totally fine. He can hang with Wes while I try the multiple orgasms thing.”
“Gross.” Mom waves us off and turns toward the exit. “I have class at six, babe. One hour.”
“Yeah, I got it. I’ll teach them something awesome. They won’t even notice you’re not there.”
I walk a lap in front of my class of twenty and feel that swell of pride in my chest for something my mom created.
She was an abused wife, hurt and afraid, but even in her fear, she was brave enough to stand up and declare a space designed only to empower women. My mom was terrified to let a man touch her, and yet, she created a class that would teach other women how to ward off an attacker.
In this gym, we learn how to fight competition-style. Rules, respect, drawing blood, but standing down if our opponent can’t fight back. But in this room, this one room tucked away inside a world-famous gym, we teach women how to disable a potential abuser, and we do it without giving a single damn about rules. In here, we learn how to make men bleed, how to make them scream and cry for their moms, we learn how to dismember certain testicular parts of their bodies, and we do it without remorse. Because we in here know there are men in this world who love nothing more than to hurt women all for the sake of feeling like the stronger half of a pairing.
If they make us cry, we make them cry. If they make us bleed, we return the favor, but with a little extra salt to rub into the wounds.
When this class was brand new, it was my mom, a couple new students, and that original girl posse Mom spoke of. Her friends – Evie’s mom and aunts – were fillers, bodies in the door so that the class wouldn’t be empty. But that was unnecessary after the first class or two. The real students flocked, a need was met, and after the risks my mom and this gym took to start something new, everything worked out so well that years have passed since, and the class remains strong.
“Tonight,” I begin, speaking loud enough that everyone can hear, “we’re going to be working on something a little different. My mom often teaches you guys how to remain standing, and how to escape a situation before a man has his hooks in you. But I want to teach you something for when you’re already on the ground.”
I hate that some women swallow their nerves. Some gazes turn fidgety.
“Sometimes we can’t run fast enough,” I continue. “Sometimes a man grabs on before we can get away, and when he does that, his next logical step is to…?”
A woman – a girl, actually, a couple years younger than me – raises her hand. “Get us flat. Onto the ground,” she croaks, “a bed, a couch.”
“Right.” I smile for her, for her bravery, and make my way across the training room in yoga pants and a snug tank top. “You’ve all met Fred, right?”
I grab the body-shaped boxing bag as he lays slumped against the wall, and drag him across the mats. He’s heavy – about forty pounds – he’s been beat to shit for several decades, and his poor leg has been torn open and re-taped so often that I’m not sure where bag ends and tape begins.
I drag Fred to a space in front of all the women, and drop him so he flops to the mats with a muffled thump. “Fred is a baaaad man.” I shake my voice and try to add a little extra silliness to help some of my more skittish students. “Somehow, despite the fact his legs are two feet long, and he has no fingers or toes, he’s grabbed on to me, tossed me to the ground,” I kneel on the ground beside the boxing bag, lay on my back, and go to work dragging his hefty weight over my chest. “And now he’s on me,” I grunt above the din of nervously chattering students. “He’s gonna use his weight to—”
I stop when Fred’s weight is gone, and in his place are a pair of denim eyes and a chin that draws attention everywhere he goes.
I remain laying on the ground, my knees high – open – and my heart pounding. “Um…”
“He’s not a jitsu doll,” William Quinn murmurs. “He’s just a boxing bag.”
“He’s sufficient for what I’m trying to teach. Why are you interrupting my class?”
William’s lips twitch, just the tiniest, almost unnoticeable movement in the top right corner, but then he lowers to his knees so he’s between my legs, and my heart screeches to a stop.
It’s inappropriate! It’s much too friendly. This is insane! If this was a date, and we were naked, this is the position we’d be in just moments before having sex. But because we’re in a gym, in front of two dozen women, somehow it’s supposed to be less salacious.
“William…”
He awards me with a full grin, and inches closer so the tops of his thighs touch the bottoms of mine. “I was sent in here to help you run this class. So here I am… here.”
“You were sent in?” My throat is dry, my voice scratchy. “By whom?”
“Evie Kincaid told me to vamoose.” His snicker is a direct contrast to his deep, commanding voice. “Those were her words. I was sparring in the cage, and she told me to beat it. She said I was needed in here, and hell, I can’t say I’m all that sad with what I found when I got here.”
“William…” I shake my head and swallow down a painful lump of nerves. “She probably meant a different room. Or maybe she meant for you to walk around my class and help them get their technique right.”
“And I’ll do that,” he counters with an infuriating smile. “But first, you must get your technique right… right?”
I narrow my eyes to slits.
He remains exactly in place. He even rests his hands on my thighs, because I guess that’s okay since it’s Jiu jitsu and we’re inside a gym. Then he turns just his torso and smiles for my class. “So, your attacker has already caught you, right? That motherfucker already slammed you to the floor, which means he’s already signed his death warrant. Anything you do to him beyond this point is fair game.”
He points to one of my students. “You’re scared, your breath is racing, your head might be swimming because he slammed you down. He’s heavier than you, and he’s got surprise on his side. What’s a man likely to do in this position? How would he hold a woman down?”
“He would… um…” She clears her throat. “Maybe hold her hands above her head?”
“Good.” William takes the lead on my class, grabs my hands, and pushes them to the mats high above my head. He’s not gentle, and when I hiss at the pinching pain in my wrists, he has to bite his grin or risk dying. “This is a good example, and it’s definitely something a man might do to gai
n the upper hand. What would a woman do to—”
But instead of me waiting for him to ask, I bridge my hips, arrow them out from beneath him, and since his weight is already toppled forward to hold my hands, the fact he’s so much heavier than me works in my favor. I toss him off balance, scoot out from beneath his body, slam him to his back, and then I scramble to take guard and drop down onto his hips.
I poise my elbow above his face, and glare into his eyes. “Don’t grab me again, you bastard. I didn’t ask you to come into this classroom.”
My breath comes fast.
His breath comes fast.
And tragically, I suspect half of my class’ breaths come fast, because I’m sitting on William Quinn’s hardened dick after a show of dominance – from us both – and now my face is just inches from his.
“Very good, Olivia.”
I hate how he enunciates each syllable in my name. Ohhh-liv-ee-yah. He drags it out, caresses it with his tongue, and scrambles my brain when he smiles and makes his chin dimple flash.
With barely any effort, he lifts his hips, flips me to my back, and takes guard to reset us, but instead of him being between my legs, this time, he’s on me. His dick touches my stomach, his ass on my pelvis, his hand on my ribs, but his hand is so large that it wraps all the way around my side so his thumb comes suspiciously close to my breast.
When he knows that he commands me, he looks back to my class. “How else would a man subdue his unwilling captive in this position?”
Another student, a woman in her early thirties, raises her hand. “Maybe he would grab her throat.”
My eyes snap to William’s, my heart races and throbs. “Don’t you dare.”
He smiles and gives an ‘it’s not my fault’ shrug of his shoulders. Then he presses a hand to my throat, so gentle, so kind, but at the same time, his fingers and thumb wrap all the way around until my breath stops.
To my class, he looks like he’s doing just as they suggested, but from my vantage, I see his eyes just inches from mine, the tip of his nose, I feel the soft flutter of his breath on my dry lips. And in my mind, I scream a thousand questions.
Why did you leave? Why did you ghost this whole time? Why didn’t you want to stay here, when everyone said you wouldn’t get in trouble for killing that man? And why the hell won’t you say sorry for walking away without a single backward glance?
He wraps his hand around my throat, but hidden beneath my hair, he strokes his thumb over my racing pulse and smiles so I have no choice but to catalogue each and every change of expression; the slight crinkling around his eyes after thirty years of smiling in the sun. The way his nose wrinkles, the fanned lines that crease the bottom of his cheek.
This is a man who has smiled enough in his life for those moments to leave their mark.
Of course, I know of his story. I know the life he and his sister led. The hunger, the running and hiding, the stress. But despite that, this man has smile lines, and knowing that helps ease some of the worry I’ve held on to since I watched him and his sister race out of town that first time.
“Tell me, Olivia,” he purrs in a deep, throaty murmur. “How might a woman remove my hand from around her throat?” His blue eyes sparkle with fun, then he leans closer and whispers, “Or maybe she doesn’t want me to remove it at all?”
Just like last time, the way his chest is held high off of me, the way he has to lean forward to brace his weight, means his center of gravity is off. And everyone knows that in a fight on the ground, your balance is essential.
William’s arm is straight, his elbow locked into position, so instead of speaking, I work through the lust trying to cloud my thinking, reach up with both hands, slam my open palm against the inside of his elbow, and buckle his arm. When he folds forward, I use his weight and momentum, lift my hips, and repeat my move from earlier.
I end up on top again, my left hand on his throat, my right hand cocked back, my fist closed and ready to do a little damage to his face. But this time, I remain sitting on his cock, because it’s hard, this is training – I’m not cheating on Brenten – and I’m not ready to force that distance.
“We buckle his arm,” I tell my class with a rasp in my voice. “He was using it to brace himself, therefore, take out his supporting column, you collapse the structure.”
“You feel nice sitting up there. Nice and soft in all the right ways.” He grins. “I always wondered.”
William’s voice is just a whisper, but it’s as effective as a bucket of ice water.
I bound off him like he was made of electricity, turn away, and leave him lying on the ground while I step to my class. “Grab a partner,” I choke past the nerves in my throat, “start on the ground, and take it in turns. Collapse the structure, roll, and reverse your positions. If you have to be on the ground with your enemy, you make damn sure you’re the one on top.”
The second my class pairs off and chatters amongst themselves, I turn to cuss William out and send him on his way, but my plans come to a screeching halt when, instead of seeing him on the floor, where I expected him to still be, I slam into his chest, and stumble back with a squeak.
He grabs my arms and holds me so securely that my toes are the only part of my body that touch the floor. “Careful, Olivia.” His voice is like a hug from a lumberjack. A caress from a bear. “I’d feel bad if you fell and bruised your ass because of me.”
“Get out of my class.” I squirm to break free of his steely hold.
It’s not my fault that only ten percent of me wants to get away. It’s that traitorous ninety percent that says we can chill for a little longer. That it’s okay, since I knew Will before I knew Brenten, and that yes, we had an effing moment.
“This is inappropriate,” I grunt out, “and if one of the guys comes in here, there’s going to be hell to pay.”
He swallows, slowly, mesmerizing, so his Adam’s apple bobs, and my eyes are drawn to the scratchy stubble that coats his throat. “What if I told you I wasn’t afraid of the guys?” He folds his neck and comes just a little closer. “What if I told you I want the beatdown? It would be worth it.”
My brain swims and makes it hard for me to focus. “Leave my class,” I demand on a quiet murmur. Not very commanding, so I add, “Now.”
He has a death wish. Or maybe he just knows that ninety percent of me is rebelling against the noisy ten, because he brings his hand up over my chest, he spiders the tips of his fingers over my collarbone, then he wraps his hand around my throat and holds on just tight enough to let me know he’s in control. “Do you remember that dinner we had a few years back? The dinner at the Kincaid estate?”
I try to shake my head, but William controls my moves. “I have dinner with the Kincaids several times every single week. They’re my family.”
He smiles. It’s a little like an action movie, the final, pivotal scene, where the hero is in an open battlefield, bombs are exploding behind him, but for that one scene, he’s walking amongst the chaos, slow, controlled, commanding. Similarly, my class train around us, they grunt and roll and giggle when they get something right. And in the middle of the chaos, here we stand, and Will holds my throat like it’s a perfectly acceptable thing to do to someone in public.
“I know you remember,” he hums. “I’ve only had dinner with them once, so I know you recall the night I speak of.”
I remain quiet and deny him the one thing he wants. “No.”
“Yes.” He smiles. “I sat across the table and watched you the entire time we ate.” He licks his lips and draws my eyes down. “I remember exactly the top you wore. The pants. The shoes. I remember the necklace that you played with all night long, and the way you twirled your hair around your finger.” He strokes his thumb along my neck. “You were awfully fidgety for a girl who seems so regal and perfect.”
“I wasn’t fidgeting, and I’m not perfect.”
“That was two lies in one sentence.” He remains exactly where he is, his hand exactly where it is, but he
turns his head and barks out, “Swap partners, try it again.” Then he comes back to me. “You were fidgety and nervous, you rubbed your thighs together a fuckin’ lot, and each time, I caught you looking back…”
“If I looked, it was because you were staring, and that is rude in most circles.”
He scoffs. “I don’t abide by those odd social rules where someone says I can’t look at something I consider beautiful. I mean, that rule is counterintuitive. Would you not stare at a rose if it was beautiful?”
“I’m not a flower in a garden, William. I’m a human, a woman, and those rules were created so women like me wouldn’t feel like prey in an open field amongst predators.”
“A predator…” He mulls over the word. Considers it. Checks it to see how it feels on his tongue. “I guess one could say I’m a predator. You’re my prey.” He leans a little closer. “If that’s the game you want to play, then run.” His breath hits my tongue. “Run, Olivia. You have a single second to get away, then I’ll chase.”
“I have a boyfriend.” I’m such a coward. “I’m not interested in your games.”
“What about my bed? No games, no bullshit, just the satisfying feeling you get after a rough fuck.” He squeezes my throat, and chuckles when my breath comes out on a squeak. “If your boyfriend was any kind of man, then you wouldn’t be wet right now.”
“Wet?” My eyes flare wide. “No, I—”
“And I assure you, if I was your man, and I found another guy this close to you, he wouldn’t live to tell the tale.”
“And me?” I lift a challenging brow. “What would you do to me for humiliating you in such a way?”
“Frankly, I’m tempted to take you home, tear your panties off, and remind you why you started things with me. You’d hurt for a few days,” he grins, “but it’s the best kind of hurt.”
“You’re an animal,” I rasp out. I’m aiming for disgusted, but mostly I manage breathy. “Hurting women is the most unattractive personality trait I can think of. The one thing that is a complete deal-breaker for me, and you lead with it?”