Know Me Well

by Kait Nolan

  “All the more reason to get moving before you knot back up again.”

  She followed him over to the mats, pulling her arm in a cross body stretch that left her hovering at that threshold between pleasure and pain, until the muscle finally released. She shifted to the other arm, then bent at the waist to touch the floor, stretching out her back and hamstrings.

  Liam made some sound behind her.

  Spreading her legs slightly, she peered at him between her knees. “Did you say something?”

  “No. Just muttering to myself.”

  Was he redder than he had been a minute ago? Had he been checking out her ass?

  Straightening, Riley moved to the center of the mat. “Instruct me, oh Obi-wan.”

  He was all business as he came to join her. “Okay, to start, let’s review the release you tried on me.”

  His hand clapped down on her shoulder from behind. Riley grabbed his wrist, pulling him forward and ducking.

  “Stop.”

  She paused, his arm slung around her neck. The hand attached to the wrist she still held dangled dangerously close to her breast.

  “Do you know what you’re doing wrong?”

  “Um.”

  “Start again. Slower, this time.”

  Once again, she stepped back as she grabbed his wrist, pulling him forward, until that broad chest bumped into her back. And once again, she forgot what she was doing.

  “Trade places,” he ordered.

  So Riley grabbed him by the shoulder.

  He hunched down a bit, so as not to leave her dangling. “You’ve got this first bit right.” His grip around her wrist was firm, but not bruising as he tugged her forward. “What you’re forgetting is to step back with this foot—” He shifted his lead leg behind her. “—grab this hand between both of yours and then duck and twist, bringing your opponent’s arm up.” He followed through, and Riley found herself bent forward, her arm at an awkward angle behind her back. “And at that point, you grab the collar and drag backward, to the ground. Or you can take out a knee, whatever works. From here, you have complete control over your opponent’s body.” With careful motions, he proved his point “Got it?”

  Riley flushed. Stop thinking about his control over your body. “Yep.”

  He made her go through it several times slowly, correcting small motions, until he was satisfied she had the technique down from both sides. Then he let her do it at speed. He ended up on his knees, a fact which left Riley feeling more than a little satisfied.

  “Good job. Now let’s try a double shoulder grab.”

  It came back quickly as Liam put her through the paces. He was a patient, thorough teacher. They progressed through basic releases, into some simple throws. He’d picked up some new tricks in the years since they’d last done this, and Riley enjoyed proving she was a quick study. Was there anything more satisfying than successfully tossing a Marine on his ass?

  “Okay, so let’s say all that fails. Somebody gets you on the ground in a compromising position.”

  At his direction, Riley laid back flat on the mat. He pinioned her arms above her head, pinning the rest of her with his weight against her hips. And oh, yeah, there was definitely something that would be more satisfying than tossing him on his ass.

  Focus.

  But his pupils had blown wide and his breath quickened against her chest as he stared down at her. It became rapidly apparent that she wasn’t the only one having a hard time concentrating. Her core muscles tightened, everything in her wanting to grind her hips against the erection now pressing between her thighs.

  “Compromising position?” she prompted.

  “Right. What are you going to do?” His voice was rough and low.

  Struggling to think past the haze of lust, Riley considered her options. There was no getting her hands back from here. She had only one real alternative that she could see. Wrapping her legs around his waist, she squeezed him tighter against her center. Liam dropped his head and let out a strangled moan, and she took advantage of his distraction, shifting her hips and rolling until their position was reversed.

  Now what? Was there an actual protocol for when your sparring partner was sporting a hard on? It probably wasn’t licking his throat and begging him to strip you down to get to know every sweaty inch better.

  Liam yanked, and what leverage she had was lost. She collapsed on his chest with a whoosh. He rolled and then he was on top again, his breath hot against her throat.

  Oh please, yes.

  “Mistake number one. Never let somebody get this far.”

  Riley blinked up at his shoulder. Okay, so he was sticking to instructor mode. They were not going to acknowledge what was going on in his pants.

  “But if they do,” he continued, “you’re going to shrimp out of it.”

  “I’m going to what now?”

  He rolled off her, onto his own back, and Riley kept her eyes firmly on his chest as he demonstrated the technique. By the time they’d gone through the escape again, from every point at which she could stop an attacker, all the way to where they’d started, he’d managed to get himself under control. But he didn’t quite meet her eyes as he suggested they call it a day. It was a strange and fascinating thing to see Liam Montgomery embarrassed about something, and it left Riley wondering if Autumn wasn’t on to something after all. Was this about her? Or would he be just as turned on doing this kind of training with any woman?

  “Thanks for the refresher.” She gulped down water.

  “No problem. You remembered the original stuff pretty well, and picked up the new quickly.”

  “I could probably use some more practice. Some of those techniques I’m not going to remember in an hour. I’d feel better with some more drills.” Neutral face. Neutral face. Neutral face.

  “Sure. We can do that.”

  “Great.” They’d keep getting hot and sweaty together, and she’d put the theory to the test.

  ~*~

  Liam was finished with demolition on the apartment. Which was really too damned bad because he wasn’t anywhere near done working off his sexual frustration.

  He slapped the next two-by-four across the saw horses and measured, marking the cut, and lining up the blade of the miter saw.

  This whole just friends thing with Riley was going to kill him. Liam couldn’t decide whether to be insulted or envious that she found it so easy. He sure as hell didn’t. Thanks to their weekly training sessions, he knew exactly what all those curves felt like—heaven. Keeping his hands off her these last two weeks—off the mats anyway—as he plowed ahead on the apartment renovations had proved a helluva lot more difficult than he’d expected. That probably would’ve been made easier if he actually stayed out of the pharmacy, but despite his best intentions, he kept finding reasons to pop in and see her. Attraction aside, he genuinely liked Riley. Always had. And it was a pleasure to be at a point where their age gap no longer mattered.

  Or it would be if he could get other kinds of pleasure out of his mind.

  Liam carried the wood over to the new wall he was building and tested the fit. No dice. He was going to have to rip it for the tie-in to be neat. After a few more measurements, he took the stud over to the table saw, lined things up for the cut and turned on the saw.

  Why the hell had she worn that dress?

  All he’d been able to think about since their dinner was peeling her out of it and finding out what other surprises lay underneath. Which was so obviously not in the cards. He needed the image wiped from his brain. Instead, he found himself wondering if she was hiding something sexy under that lab coat she worked in every day.

  The saw whined and snarled, and the two-by-four jerked beneath Liam’s hand. The next thing he knew, he was seeing stars. The saw cut off.

  “Son of a bitch!”

  What the hell had happened? He picked up the two-by-four—now on the ground—and saw the knot on the bottom side. The knot he should’ve noticed before he ever tried to rip the damne
d thing. Goddamn it. He needed his head on the job, not on the woman he couldn’t have.

  Blood was dripping onto the floor from his thumb. Despite the mess, it didn’t look to be too bad. Because it was the only thing handy, he grabbed a sweat rag and wrapped it around his hand. There was no mirror to check the damage to his head—he hadn’t put a new one up in the bathroom yet. He could still see out of both eyes, so that was probably fine, too, but he wasn’t going to get any more work done until he dealt with this. Irritated, he headed downstairs and into the pharmacy.

  Riley was on the phone when he walked in. At the sight of him, her jaw dropped open. What the hell did you do? she mouthed. Into the phone she said, “Sure thing. Yeah, thanks. I have to go.”

  She hung up and pointed at him. “You, sit. I’ll deal with you in a minute.

  Ignoring her order, Liam strode toward the first aid aisle, while she dealt with the irritated woman at the counter. Riley spoke to her in a quiet voice, then the shredder whined.

  The customer shrieked. “That was mine!”

  Abandoning his search for Band-aids, Liam headed toward the front, ready to intervene if necessary. He didn’t catch Riley’s reply.

  “What am I supposed to do without my prescription?”

  “Sorry, Ms. Tomlinson. That’s a matter for you to take up with Dr. Campbell. You’re welcome to try the new Walgreens, when it opens.”

  “You can be sure that I will.” On a huff, the woman turned and stalked out.

  Before the door had fully shut, Riley hurried around the counter. “What did you do?”

  Embarrassed, Liam scowled at her. “Stop looking at me like I’ve whacked off a finger. I just need some gauze and tape.”

  “What you need is to sit down and let me look at it. Damn it, you’re bleeding all over my floor.” Riley herded him back behind the counter and into the office. “Sit.”

  Heaving a long suffering sigh, Liam sat on the desk. “The saw blade caught a knot on the bottom side of the wood. Yanked it right out of my hands.” Because I was thinking about getting you naked instead of focusing on what I was doing.

  With a moue of disapproval, she unwrapped his impromptu field dressing and examined the wounds “And apparently took a chunk of your thumb and several layers of skin with it. Not to mention gave yourself a nasty goose egg on your head.”

  Said goose egg was throbbing in time with his thumb.

  Riley shut the office door and retrieved the first aid kit from the cabinet behind it. They were, he realized, alone.

  “Where is everybody?”

  “Ruby had a dentist appointment, and Jessie went to pick up lunch.”

  Quick and efficient, she wadded up the bloody rag beneath his hand to catch drips and doused the thumb with peroxide. He took a moment to be thankful she hadn’t chosen the rubbing alcohol.

  “Does that kind of thing happen often?” he asked.

  “What kind of thing?”

  “People doctor shopping, trying to get more pain meds or whatever?”

  “Mmm, a fair bit. Since they clamped down on Sudafed, people shifted from meth to prescription pain meds. Mississippi has one of the worst abuse rates in the nation.”

  “How did you know?”

  “We’ve got an electronic database. Any time somebody comes in with a prescription for controlled substances, we run a check to find out when and where they last got them. If it’s too close together, we call the prescribing doc and verify. In this particular case, the doctor requested the prescription be shredded.” After the thumb stopped bubbling, she dabbed it clean with some sterile cotton and examined the wound, which still bled sluggishly.

  “You shouldn’t be alone here.”

  “I rarely am. But I’m completely fine, Liam. I know how to handle that kind of thing.”

  He could too easily imagine how such a situation could go south in a hurry, and he didn’t like the idea of her facing it by herself one bit. “I don’t like it.”

  Her mouth quirked, but she didn’t look away from what she was doing. “You don’t have to like it. It’s part of the job. Your mom’s dealt with it for years and never had any trouble. Neither have I. And there’s a panic button if anything goes sideways. And you’ve already made sure I’ve been getting a refresher on self defense.”

  Liam frowned. “I guess I never thought much about Mom having to deal with stuff like that. She never talked about it.”

  “Because it’s never been a problem. We’re fine. I don’t think you have any wood splinters in here. You could probably do with a stitch or two.”

  He’d already been over the security and it was solid, so he let the subject drop. “I’m not going to lose the entire afternoon of work just to get a couple of measly stitches.” This renovation was the first time he felt like he’d accomplished something since he came home. “Just slap a Band-aid or three on and be done with it.”

  She rolled her eyes. “You are such a man.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  “It was more commentary on your pig-headedness.” But she bandaged the thumb as requested.

  After taping off the gauze bandage on his thumb, Riley turned over his hand to examine the abraded knuckles. The sense of déjà vu swamped him as she paused, fingers curling gently to hold his. She’d done this before, that long ago night. Cleaned and bandaged his bruised and bloody knuckles. Her hands had trembled then. They’d both trembled then, in the wake of what he’d done to protect her.

  Riley traced a finger along the unabraded skin, and he knew she was remembering, too. Liam brought his free hand up to trap her hand between his and gently squeezed. Lifting her gaze to his, she offered a fleeting smile before resuming her ministrations with cool efficiency.

  “There.” She released him.

  “Thanks.”

  “Now, let’s take a look at your head.” Moving in close, she probed around the knot with light fingers.

  Liam hissed, though it was more from the feel of her body brushing his than from the pressure of her touch.

  “Sorry. It’s definitely going to bruise.” She stepped back. “But you didn’t break the skin, so that’s something.”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s it. Unless there’s some other injury you’re hiding. I know you’re not about to sit here with an ice pack, even though you should.”

  He pointed to his temple. “Mom would’ve kissed it.”

  Riley’s lips quirked. “The big bad Marine needs that kind of special attention?”

  Liam gave her his best puppy dog face.

  “Fine.” She laughed and cupped his face in both hands, tipping it down so she could reach.

  Her lips pressed his wounded temple, soft and smooth, and Liam closed his eyes with a sigh. Something inside him settled, even as his heart stumbled and sped up. He wanted to wrap his arms around her. Wanted to bury his face against her throat and lose himself in the scent and taste of her skin. He just plain wanted. But he curled his hands around the edge of the desk instead, accepting the small thing she offered without pushing for more than she wanted to give.

  When her lips brushed his, Liam froze. Had he been hit harder than he realized? Was he hallucinating now? But the pressure came again, her hand sliding around to cup his nape as she settled her mouth more firmly over his.

  “Well butter my butt and call me a biscuit.”

  Riley shot away from him as if she’d been electrocuted.

  “Mom. You’re back.”

  Chapter 7

  He didn’t kiss me back.

  Mortification burned through Riley so hot and fast, she wondered the floor didn’t collapse beneath her feet. Except, of course, it didn’t. Because that would mean the Universe was giving her some kind of an escape from this God-awful situation. She hadn’t earned enough good karma in this lifetime for that.

  Her mother stood in the open doorway, expression bright with curiosity as her gaze flickered between Riley and Liam. Riley didn’t meet her eyes, and she
sure as hell didn’t look at Liam.

  He slid off the desk. “Mrs. Gower. Welcome home.”

  “I think I should be saying that to you.” Sharilyn stepped forward to give him a quick hug. “I’m sorry I missed your party back in December. I know your mama’s so glad to have you home.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I’ve been steady working my way through her backlogged honey-do list. Speaking of, I should get back to it.”

  In her periphery, Riley saw him lift his bandaged hand in her direction.

  “Thanks for fixing me up.”

  She kept her eyes on the door frame and wrapped both arms around her middle. “Sure.”

  He hesitated for a moment, and Riley could feel him looking at her, but she simply couldn’t bear to look back and see the awkward or the embarrassment or the what the hell were you thinking, you crazy woman? After a couple of eternal beats, he nodded a polite goodbye to her mother, who stepped out of his way, and beat a hasty retreat. Riley watched him go, the big bad Marine she’d taken a chance on, who’d let her fall flat on her face. Because she’d listened to Autumn’s optimism and misread him.

  Her lip wanted to tremble. Aware of her mother’s attention, Riley bit the inside to keep it still.

  “I never thought I’d see the day you’d go for a military man.”

  Riley closed her eyes and counted to ten, waiting for the muscles in her back to loosen. They didn’t. “I’m not going for a military man, Mom.”

  “Then what was that?”

  “That was—” A mistake. An aberration. “—nothing.”

  “Uh huh.” Sharilyn crossed her arms, her lips twitching in amusement.

  “How did you get here, Mom?” Riley asked, determined to change the subject. “I expected you to call me to come pick you up from the bus station in Lawley.”

  “I didn’t take the bus.”

  Riley frowned. “Then how did you get home?”

  “I hitched a ride with a trucker.”

  “You did what?” Riley’s voice shot high with disbelief as she imagined all the worst iterations of that scenario, most of which ended with Sharilyn dead in a ditch and Riley left alone.