by Rhyll Biest
‘So, the first thing to think about is how much force you need to use. At the low force end you have things like avoidance of blows and kicks, in the middle you have things like escorts, and at the high force end you have various holds—floor and wall holds—and softening techniques like the foot stomp.’
‘What’s an escort?’
‘Why don’t I show you?’ He clapped his hands and the pairs that had been practising foot stomps turned to look his way. ‘We’re going to practise some escorts.’
Great, that’s what she got for asking questions.
‘Most of you will remember the escorts demonstrated so far for directing someone, usually to remove them from the presence of others they might harm. The simplest escorts are the Midsection Clothing Control and the Hip Control. Slightly more advanced are the One person using one arm, and the One person, crossed arm technique. Let’s practice the One person, One arm technique.’
He’s going to touch me again. A rustle of lust.
‘Kat.’
‘Yes?’
‘I’m afraid I’m going to have to remove you from the building.’
Ding! Ding! Ding! Alarm shrieked within so she did what she did best, feinted with aggression. ‘The fuck you will.’
‘I’m sorry to do this, ma’am.’
And then reality of his size, his physical presence, was bearing down on her.
Am I allowed to run away?
But all that happened was that his fingers gently circled her wrist, while his other hand rested on her elbow. Like they were on a date and he’d asked her to dance. A little air returned to the room, muting the screaming tinnitus in her ears.
‘Remember, this is a low force technique.’ His voice vibrated in her ears, tickled her nerves. ‘When intrusiveness increases, so does the risk of injury and other complicating factors to those involved. So we should use only the least intrusive intervention necessary to keep people safe and only use more intrusive interventions as needed to keep the situation safe.’ He looked at her, gave her a wink. ‘Come along, Miss Daily, no more throwing your knickers at the fire department, those men have a job to do.’
Oh. My. God. Smiles from those watching added to the heat toasting her cheeks. She opened her mouth to deliver a scathing reply but before she could speak Belovuk was propelling her towards the door by wrist and elbow. She stopped after only a few steps because he did.
‘Struggle,’ he told her.
‘What?’
‘Resist.’
‘No way.’
He gave her a look.
The group craned their heads to hear. ‘Oh, fine.’ She flailed. ‘Dirty, filthy copper, my love for the fire department is true.’
He grinned before slipping the hand at her elbow inside her arm, pulling her elbow tight to his chest so that her upper arm was trapped between his chest and the pincer of his forearm and bicep. ‘Now that’s she’s turned aggressive I’ve escalated the amount of control I’m exerting over her, and the closer her arm is against me, the harder it is for her to hit me. And I’ve still got her wrist so I can lead her wherever it is she needs to go.’ He demonstrated leading her for a few steps before letting go.
Free once more she rubbed her arm. She had to admit, it was an effective hold. ‘How’s that technique going to work for me if you’re twice my size?’
‘Try it.’ He glanced at the group. ‘Everyone give it a go.’
She looked him up and down, repressed the urge to tighten her ponytail.
He eyed her shoulders. ‘Careful, you’re signalling. Your shoulders are hunched and I can tell you’re looking to grab me.’
‘I am looking to grab you, how do I hide that?’ His own posture was one hundred percent relaxed but she wasn’t built like Godzilla like he was.
‘Remember to check your own body language and your focus. Instead of thinking about whether the other person is going to hurt you, try to focus on looking at the person’s eyes so that they know they already have your attention and don’t need to do anything more to get it.’ His gaze focused one hundred percent on her, giving the impression he was listening with his entire body.
It wasn’t a comfortable feeling. ‘Is eye contact always a good idea? Couldn’t it be seen as threatening?’
‘The other person can break eye contact if they want to. So as long as it’s culturally appropriate, and the person isn’t having a violent psychotic episode, it’s okay.’
She grimaced. ‘I was kind of hoping to avoid dealing with any violent psychotic episodes.’
‘Where’s your sense of fun, Daily?’
There it was, that sense of humour that liked to lurk, to leap out from a dark corner and mug her when she least expected it, totally disarming her.
It took her several heartbeats to adjust. ‘Sorry, but violent psychotic episodes don’t do it for me. However, I will keep in mind that it’s your thing and promise to give you a call if I encounter any.’
‘Good girl.’ One side of his mouth twitched in his version of a smile.
Good girl. Why did those words have such an impact on her? The logical part of her brain saw them for what they were, a mere throwaway comment, and yet the part of her still so desperate for male approval wagged its tail.
And as for the way the cotton of his t-shirt strained taut across his chest when he turned to address the rest of the group, well, that was definitely tail-wagging material.
I don’t want this, she told her body, but it didn’t listen.
‘I’m waiting, Daily. Just pretend I farm puppies.’
‘Don’t joke about that.’ She took a wrist and rested her other hand on his elbow.
He raised an eyebrow at her. What are you gonna do now? It challenged.
Holy human eyeballs in a jam jar. ‘Your puppy farming days are over, scumbag.’ She led him for only a few steps before he dug his heels in.
She glided the hand at his elbow inside his arm, pulled his elbow tight to her chest, trapping it between her chest, forearm and bicep. Okay, now his arm was pressed against her boobs, but he wouldn’t notice that, right?
A glance at the pewter gaze fixed on hers told her he had noticed. Oh, yeah, most definitely. She led him a few steps just to show him who was boss and felt the tight ball of frustration in her chest ease.
He tapped on her restraining hand with two fingers. ‘Okay, let go now.’
She kind of didn’t want to.
‘Daily.’
Fine. She freed him. ‘That worked pretty well but I don’t know that in real life you’d just stand there like a gentleman and allow me to take you by the wrist and elbow.’
‘The idea is that you apply the escort before the other person gets too agitated.’
He took a step past her and captured her arm. Just like that. When she tried to take her limb back, she found she couldn’t. Worse yet, his grip on her arm brought her perilously close to his unreasonably big, taut body.
She schooled her features into a neutral expression. ‘What do you call this technique?’
‘Foreplay.’
She locked gazes with him. Oh, how he loved to rattle her cage.
Stacey hollered. ‘Hey, Luka, I can’t make Nick move. Am I doing something wrong?’
Belovuk glanced over at Stacey before his gaze settled back on Kat. ‘Saved by the Stace.’
Indeed.
She scampered away, happy to half-heartedly practice the escort with several strangers until Belovuk claimed the attention of the group once more.
‘Okay, now I’m going to demonstrate a prone hold which, while it’s not something most of you will ever use, is fun to practise.’
He had an odd definition of fun. Thankfully he didn’t use her to demonstrate the prone hold since her cheek throbbed just at the sight of one of her fellow trainees having his face mashed into a mat. She was not above using her bruise as an excuse to get out of being used as a human mop and watched from the sidelines as Stacey and others got hammered.
Following tha
t, the class moved on to avoidance manoeuvres.
By the end of the session, which included returning the mats to their pile, she was red-faced, sweaty, her scalp prickling with heat. And she wasn’t sure how she was going to wash her sweat-soaked hair with arms transformed into two limp sausages dangling from her shoulders.
Belovuk, addressing the class, looked as fresh as the just-woken Stumpy. ‘Take a couple of seconds to think about what you learned today.’
The others closed their eyes or looked at the floor or ceiling but Kat didn’t need to look anywhere to discover what she’d learned. Her body still thrummed like she’d been making out and the truth loomed before her like a burning billboard. Turned out that being restrained and manhandled by a giant cop, or this particular one at least, was the most effective aphrodisiac ever. Who knew?
And what was she going to do about it?
About Belovuk, with his innate and professional drive to serve and protect.
That sort of trait would make most ladies swoon, but not her. She knew better. That shit was dangerous.
As the class said their goodbyes she limped over to Stumpy, her body destroyed. ‘I’m not sure if I can carry you home, mate. You might need to carry me.’
Stumpy wagged his tail.
Belovuk appeared behind her. ‘Want a lift?’
Do the sensible thing and keep her distance, or take the offer? Though how much distance was there between them now that she’d straddled him on a gym mat and he’d pinned her more times than she could count? Though her singing nerves suggested her body had kept count, along with detailed notes on each instance. ‘I don’t want to put you to any trouble.’ Or get myself into any.
‘It’s no trouble to give you a ride.’
And I bet it’d be a really good one. ‘Okay, thanks then.’ What was there, really, to be so worried about? So long as she didn’t marry him, screw him or move in with him—she was okay.
And it was kind of him to offer a lift home after … well, after she’d lied to him about being engaged. She still felt shitty about that.
He bent and picked up Stumpy with an ease that shamed her achy, trembling biceps. ‘You did well today.’
‘I did?’ Don’t you dare say ‘for a girl’.
‘You’re small and wiry, and that makes it hard to get a grip on you.’ His gaze rested on her ponytail. ‘Except for that nice big handle there.’
Feeling defensive she raised a hand to her ponytail, flipped it over her shoulder to stare at its length. ‘I don’t want to cut it.’
‘I’m not saying you should.’ He handed Stumpy to her so she could rest him in the sling. ‘But a hair bun would offer less to grab hold of.’
A bun? That wouldn’t be too much of a compromise. She twirled the end around her hand, lifted it to the back of her head, experimenting. Getting the weight of her hair away from her neck certainly felt cooler.
Belovuk’s glance lingered on her nape. ‘Come on, let’s go before someone tries to rope us into joining choir practice.’
Alarmed, she hurried after him, Stumpy bouncing in his sling, and reflected that the stuff she’d just learned was going to come in handy. She could already picture herself foot stomping Sharon or the deadbeat dad.
As she buckled her seatbelt, another stab of guilt pierced her.
Enjoy your lift, liar, Galenka whispered.
Shit biscuits and turd macarons.
She was going to have to do that thing she desperately didn’t want to do. Pressure built beneath her ears as if airbags had deployed inside her skull.
Belovuk buckled his seatbelt and reversed before exiting the school grounds.
‘I have a small confession to make.’ Stumpy squirmed in sympathy with her stomach.
Belovuk’s eyes were on the road. ‘Uh-huh, what’s that?’
‘Well—’ she rubbed her once-broken arm, ‘—when I said I was engaged to someone that wasn’t entirely true.’
He glanced at her. ‘Sorry?’
‘Well, I was engaged once.’ A long time ago, before she’d worked out how many issues she still had—too many for a relationship. ‘But we broke it off.’
‘Oh.’
He sounded nonplussed.
‘Not because we …’ He cast her a sideways look.
‘No! No, nothing to do with that. I just wanted to let you know so that you didn’t feel bad about the kiss.’ And the dry humping.
‘I see.’ He frowned, whether at the red traffic light or her, she wasn’t sure.
‘Are you angry?’ Stupid question.
‘Angry?’ He looked surprised. ‘No.’
He wasn’t? ‘Really?’
‘I’m sure you had your reasons.’
Her nasal passages stung, not because his words were a low blow but because they stank of truth. She was an emotional fuck-up, that was her reason. Her stomach wrestled with the question of whether to tell him more.
He braked for a stop sign. Shot a glance her way. ‘I do have a question for you, though.’
She smoothed Stumpy’s ears, pretended to ignore Belovuk’s intense focus on her. ‘Ask away.’
‘I hope I’m not out of line here, but while we were practising de-escalation I couldn’t help noticing …’
Oh, shit biscuits. He was going to mention it, that moment when she’d held him in a choke hold and her nipples—little opportunists that they were—had stood so firmly to attention they’d probably left divots in his back.
She couldn’t swallow, not now that a three-piece luggage set was obstructing her throat.
A glance at the door handle brought her to her senses. Opening the door and leaping from the car while it was doing sixty clicks per hour was too extreme a reaction to his question. Instead she focused on his hands resting on the steering wheel, the scarred knuckles, the muscular forearms that had rested around her neck less than an hour ago, so heavy, sinister and hot.
‘Kat?’
Throat dry, she swallowed. ‘Noticing what?’
He turned into her driveway. ‘That you seemed to like what we were doing.’
Telling the truth meant the possibility of hot, steamy sex, while denying the truth meant the possibility of avoiding a big mistake. Her heart wavered between the two choices, like a dog caught between two bones. Stumpy wriggled against her.
He glanced at her as he parked. ‘Just tell me if I’m delusional.’
Should she lie? ‘I don’t know. Maybe.’
He looked away. ‘Okay. Sorry I read things wrong.’
The truth tumbled out of her. ‘Look, I’m not good with relationships. I’ll fuck things up and you’ll get pissed off at me and I can’t risk that because I need to be able to rely on you.’
***
He sucked in a deep breath. ‘What makes you think this,’ he pointed between the two of them, ‘would ever interfere with that?’
Her expression socked him right in the gut.
‘Because this never lasts, and once it’s over, neither of us will be in the mood to look at the other.’
He stilled. ‘You think I’d ignore a call for back-up because we weren’t a thing anymore?’ What sort of shit did she think he was?
‘No, the problem is that I wouldn’t call you in the first place.’
He cocked his head. ‘That’s nuts.’ Fuck, he shouldn’t have said that.
She stared at the dashboard. ‘Correct.’
He scrambled to do better. ‘Sorry, what I mean is that people have to rely on one another in a country town. Nick, Stacey and I, we help each other out all the time.’
‘Yeah, but I bet you’re not sleeping with Nick.’
‘Well, now and then he gives me a come-hither look but he’s not really my type.’
Her lips twitched.
‘And he certainly doesn’t have your curves.’ His fingers curled at the memory of her hips under his hands and he leaned in her direction without meaning to.
She raised a hand. ‘Stop. If you knew …’
‘If
I knew what?’
‘How badly I fuck up relationships.’
He raised an eyebrow. ‘History is not always determined to repeat itself.’
She shook her head. ‘I know myself too well.’
Damn, she was hard on herself. He knew what that was like. She looked so downcast he wanted to kiss her until she forgot her own name. But she’d made it clear that she didn’t want that.
She opened the car door, poised to flee.
‘Take care of yourself. And Stumpy.’ He rubbed the puppy’s head with his knuckles and smiled as the little guy squirmed with delight. If only he could get a similar response from his owner.
‘Thanks for the lift. And the training. It was really good.’
Her voice sounded awkward and small and once more he just wanted to hug her, but knew where that might lead. ‘Regular training is best. You should keep coming.’
‘I’ll think about it.’ She opened the door and was out of the car before finishing the sentence.
Okay, perhaps a little more encouragement would be required there. Later. When she wasn’t so bruised and weary. The shiner on her cheek, already turning an attractive shade of green and blue, bugged him. ‘Take care. Be careful out there when you’re on the job.’
She sighed. ‘You had to get that in there, didn’t you?’
‘Because I care what happens to you.’
She withdrew at once, both physically and mentally. Her eyes shuttered, her expression shut down. She opened her mouth to speak, closed it again.
‘What is it?’
‘You know, you told me you’re sure Grinder was involved in Mark’s death, and yet he’s still walking around town a free man. Why haven’t you done something about him?’
He studied her. That was one hell of a change of topic. And the suggestion that he was letting the matter slide rather than doing his duty, stung like peroxide sprinkled on a gaping stab wound. ‘There’s the small matter of lack of evidence.’ He narrowed his eyes. ‘Or were you suggesting that I should arrange an impromptu lynching?’
She shrugged. ‘He’s hardly a saint. Couldn’t you find some way to drive him out of town?’
He frowned. Where was this coming from? ‘You’ve been watching too many westerns. If I were to threaten and harass Grinder or his friends they would probably feel the need to lawyer up and, or, retaliate, and things would escalate from there. One of the strongest triggers of aggression is when a person perceives he’s being treated unfairly or without respect. I don’t want to create a biker war in Walgarra, or a vendetta against the local police.’