Wounded Angel (The Earth Angels)

by Gail, Stacy

  “Looks good.” She glanced up over the rim of her glasses. “You don’t have your new man-mountain client scheduled for this afternoon, do you?”

  “His name happens to be Nate da Luca, not man-mountain, and he’s scheduled for tomorrow morning at eight.” As if Phoebe didn’t already know.

  “Uh-huh. Then why is he showing up now?”

  “What?” Startled, Ella glanced over her shoulder as Nate sauntered in like he owned the place, black sweatpants and a black and red Georgia Bulldogs sweatshirt peeking out from under a long duster, a gym bag slung over his shoulder. He caught sight of her and came to a sudden stop, as if he didn’t have the capacity to simultaneously see her and walk. A light sparked in his somber dark eyes, and he focused on her with a single-minded intensity that made her feel like the only other person in the world.

  Without warning, her throat snapped shut. She pressed a hand against the disturbance and was swamped with an irrational relief that the shirt she wore was still adequately covering her. There were just some men who could make a woman feel like she was wearing nothing but a blush, and Nate was one of them. Hell, who was she kidding? He was probably their reigning king.

  “Mr. da Luca.” Apparently oblivious that Nate and Ella had fallen into a spontaneous staring match, Phoebe beckoned him to join them at the desk. “What a surprise. If you’re here for Jacob’s kickboxing class, you’re a bit early. It doesn’t start until five this evening.”

  “Yeah, I know.” He nodded at Phoebe but his attention swerved back to Ella as if he had an all-important need to keep an eye on her. “I’m sore from yesterday’s workout with Ella, so I thought I’d warm up with the class that comes before it.”

  “That would be my class.” Ella forced herself to speak, because the simple ability to string words together was slipping away beneath that mesmerizing attention. Any minute now she’d be nothing more than a babbling mess. “But I can’t imagine you’d be interested in it.”

  “Oh?” He stood next to her at the reception desk, close enough to absorb all the surrounding oxygen and make normal breathing a joke. “If you’re teaching it, I’m interested.”

  The words sparked a warm flush in her neck that crawled all the way up to her face. “It’s a self-defense class. Not exactly a problem for a big guy like you.”

  “If it’ll warm up my creaking muscles, I don’t mind if you don’t.”

  “The class is made up of mostly women,” Phoebe interjected, and her disapproving tone made Ella glance at her. “Why don’t you warm up on an elliptical or treadmill instead?”

  “He’ll be fine in my class, Phoebe, and having him there could actually be a benefit for my students.” Jaw knotted and determined to prove that nothing—not even the testosterone-laden likes of Nate da Luca—could get to her, Ella stiffened her spine. “I hope you’re ready for this, Nate. I can’t wait to show you my specialty.”

  Chapter Five

  “The only rule you must remember is this—survive. When it comes to survival, it’s not about playing fair, or being civil. A lifetime of polite, well-mannered conditioning has got to go out the window, but that’s okay. You have permission to act like a savage. That permission was given to you by the very person who’s decided to ignore society’s rules himself—your attacker.”

  Ella looked around the packed room. Thirty women of various ages and walks of life stared back at her, unsmiling and on edge. Their disquiet at being pushed out of their comfort zone was palpable. Nate and the only other man in the class were also listening intently, with the other man looking downright delicate by comparison.

  Nate. In a room dominated by the gentler sex, the sheer force of his masculinity knocked Ella sideways. She had to give him props; when confronted with a class where he was as out of place as a gorilla at a tea party, he didn’t so much as hesitate. If anything, he seemed happy to be there.

  Not for the world would she admit she was happy he was there as well.

  “Last week we discussed making as much noise as possible by screaming out the word fire at the top of your voice, as people will respond more readily to a common threat than a cry for help. We also focused on how to attack the body’s points of vulnerability—the eyes, nose, throat, groin, instep and the knee. If properly done, hitting even one of these targets will incapacitate your attacker long enough for you to get away. But this still leaves one area unexplored—an assault that comes from behind. Would you know what to do then?”

  An uncertain rumble buzzed around the room.

  “If I could have everyone pick a partner, and Nate, if you’d come up to the front with me, please. We’re going to do a walk-through on the step-by-step process of how to get out alive.” Careful not to meet Nate’s eyes as she put him on display, Ella had her assistant pair up with a person who didn’t have a partner. But no matter how hard she tried to focus on her job, some strange internal Nate-radar kept her attuned to him as he joined her on the blue mat at the front of the room. God, he was huge. Huge like a Visigoth defeating the Romans. A cautious woman would keep her distance in case he decided to conquer her as well.

  Her pulse fluttered, but since she could feel it in the secret place between her thighs she knew her response had nothing to do with fear. The sensation was undeniable, and at last she could admit to herself it was why she’d fought so hard to keep Nate as a client. It was pure, raw attraction; a stop-the-presses, whoa-Nelly kind of attraction that still dumbfounded her as much as it swamped her with inexpressible relief. For two years she hadn’t felt even an inkling of feminine interest in the male of the species. In the back of her mind she’d begun to fear that what she’d suffered had killed the part of her that made it possible to feel anything other than battle-ready wariness around others. But obviously there was no need to worry. She just hadn’t run across Nate, a man who could no doubt make women from eighteen to eighty eat out of the palm of his hand.

  Not that she was interested in eating out of his hand. But damn, it was getting harder to ignore the growing desire to lick him like an ice cream cone.

  His expression was surprisingly solemn as he came to a stop a respectable two feet away from her, his hands behind his back in a nonthreatening stance. “Your wish is my command.”

  “You don’t say.” She couldn’t help but smile as insane possibilities flooded her mind, none of them professional and some potentially illegal in a few states. She could hardly be blamed for it; with him looming over her, she felt downright petite. The fluorescent lighting threaded blue-black highlights in the unruly waves of his thick hair, and the citrusy-clean scent of the soap and cologne he used was enough to make her want to lean in and breathe him in. She took pleasure in how the muscles bulged and shifted with his every move, and the comfortable way he held himself—not posing to show off a physique any bodybuilder would have been proud of but rather with a natural, loose-limbed grace. Who knew confidence could be so sexy?

  Sexy...

  Ella’s smile faltered as that single, hitherto-lost word from her vocabulary made a bold comeback. Well, well. She really had come a long way.

  It took a monumental effort to turn her attention to the awaiting class. “Just like when we were kids playing Let’s Pretend, the first step is to decide who’s going to play the bad guy first. Don’t worry about taking that role on, as we’re going to be switching off several times throughout today’s class. Since this is my class I’m going to take the decision out of Nate’s hands, and designate him as Creepy Bad Guy. Sound good, Nate?”

  “Not really.” When the class laughed, apparently as under his spell as she was, he turned to the room and spread his hands wide, a beseeching pose that showed off his magnificent deltoids and biceps. “Can anyone come up with ano
ther label that’s more appealing?”

  “Hero material?”

  “Swoon-worthy?”

  “I like centerfold, myself.”

  “Creepy Bad Guy’s going to have to do.” With her class threatening to derail—in part because she was drooling over him as if he were earth’s last piece of cheesecake—Ella put on her stern face. “Take a second to sort out who’s going to be the victim and who’s going to be the aggressor. And as for you...” She turned her steely gaze to Nate, who straightened up, soldierlike.

  “Yes ma’am?”

  Heaven save her from that pseudo-innocent look. She stifled a sigh and lowered her voice so that only he would hear her. “Silly me. And here I was, fretting about putting you on display.”

  He leaned down so he could look her right in the eyes, and she was grateful he couldn’t hear the sudden drum roll of her heart. “No worries, Ella. You can do whatever you want with me.”

  The drum roll became a twenty-one-gun salute. She knew exactly what she wanted to do. Push him up against the mirrored wall behind him, perhaps turn him around so he could watch the slow, deliberate slide of her hands down the sculpted terrain of his chest, past the barrel-thick ladder of his rib cage to the flat, undoubtedly ridged plane of his abdomen. The need to feel skin against skin would be irresistible, and she would slip her hands under the hem of his shirt to press against the warmth of his taut stomach. Then she would let her fingers invade under the waistband of his shorts and thrill at finding his sex stiff and ready as she wrapped her fingers around him, stroking him until he cried out...

  “Ella? You okay?”

  Searing heat stung her cheeks and scorched the crevice between her thighs. Quickly she dropped her gaze before she completely lost her mind and made the fantasy a reality. Wow. So that was what happened when she went without acknowledging the male of the species for a couple of years. Who knew she was a prime candidate for raging nymphomania?

  “Sorry. My mind was...” In your pants. “Elsewhere.” She couldn’t even think about meeting his black-magic gaze as she tried to find the emergency brake on her lost control. “What I’d like for you to do now is play the role of attacker to the hilt.”

  “Can’t you play Creepy Bad Guy first?”

  “Somehow I don’t think anyone’s going to buy that.”

  “I’ll try to look helpless.”

  “Even if you were in a coma you wouldn’t look helpless. Now behave yourself and put your arms around me.”

  A predatory expression struck like lightning across his face. “Now we’re talking.”

  “From the back, like an attacker,” she expanded before he could get too excited. Or she could get too dazzled by that hefty dose of male appreciation. “I’m sure you can figure it out.”

  “I’ll just loosely circle you with my arms and make it look like I mean business.”

  “Not good enough. These people need to have a dose of reality, so do your worst. Act like you want to tear me apart, like I’m nothing more than weak meat to you.”

  The light that had brought his eyes to life vanished with an ominous chill. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m a big guy. I don’t want to hurt or scare you, so I think you’d better pick someone—”

  “I picked you, so follow the instructions before I kick your butt out of my class.” The look she threw at him felt hot enough to scorch. What was it about her that made everyone think she should be treated like a delicate flower? “All right, class. Try to imagine what it would be like. A person comes up from behind and grabs you like they’ve got a world of nasty growing inside of them, and all they want to do is take it out on you.” When he didn’t move, she tried to cover with a smile while talking out of the side of her mouth. “Step closer.”

  He did, reluctantly. “At this juncture I would like to file a formal complaint. I am not a happy camper.”

  “Duly noted. All right,” she said, raising her voice so everyone in the room could hear her. “Just as we learned in the frontal-attack class, the main goal for us now is not to beat the opponent into submission—this isn’t a boxing match where you have to knock your opponent out in order to win the prize. Your only goal is to incapacitate your attacker and get away. And just like we learned in the last class, the points of attack that you should focus on are the eyes, nose, throat, groin, the instep and knees. Is everyone ready?”

  Behind her, she heard a glum sigh. “No.”

  “The person behind you attacks, using what we commonly call the bear-hug hold to drag you to a place where they wish to control you. Now is the best opportunity you’ll have to save your life.” She again glanced over her shoulder when nothing happened. “Do it.”

  Nate gave her what might have been the dirtiest look in the history of dirty looks. Then with another sigh any martyr would have envied, he moved like lightning to clamp massive arms around her. In that instant, when sheer brawn surrounded her, a wave of alarm slammed into her with the force of a brass-knuckled punch. It bubbled up from that malignant place where she kept all the nightmares that weren’t really nightmares, and spread through her system like a paralyzing poison. Just like it did the first time around, when she was nothing but a...

  A victim.

  No.

  The force of his hold was so strong it lifted her off her feet, a position that would send anyone into panic-mode. Off the feet meant no control of where the body went. Or at least that was what it meant if the brain drowned in that deadly, trapped-animal kind of fear. With a strength of will honed by countless hours of Jacob-driven practice, Ella forced herself to focus on the body pressed against hers, calculated the general area of where his knee was, and sent her heel rocketing back.

  The connection wasn’t as solid as she would have liked, bouncing off the kneecap to the outside of his knee, but his grunt and the loosening of his arms to instinctively distance himself from the source of discomfort was all she needed to drop, crouch back into his personal space and aim a nasty chop to his Adam’s apple. At the last second she pulled back, the hardened outer blade of her hand barely grazing his neck before she spun out of his hold completely and yelled, “Fire!”

  It had taken less than five seconds, yet the demonstration was enough to make the class burst into spontaneous applause. And it would have made her smile if she hadn’t seen Nate’s micro-grimace and flex his knee.

  Oh, crap.

  In a heartbeat she signaled to her assistant to join them up at the front. What a great instructor she was. Come to her for training and be crippled in one simple class. She’d be lucky if he didn’t sue.

  “If attacked from behind, it’s best to target the knees and feet before running for your life, screaming fire all the while. Go ahead and give it a try, taking turns as you go.” With a quick rundown of instructions for the assistant, she glanced over at Nate. “Follow me.”

  * * *

  Nate wasn’t sure what Ella had in store for him when she led him down a hallway outside the main gym, but when he saw the telltale red cross on the door she pushed through, he decided to offer up a faint limp. Sure, she had a kick that would have made a normal man cry for mercy, but he was made of sterner stuff. There was no need to tell her that, though, not as long as it got them a little alone time. Alone time meant he could question her without interruption and maybe lure her rare, sun-from-the-clouds smile out of hiding. Or maybe even breathe in the lavender and rosemary scent of her hair...

  He caught his wayward thought and corralled it before it went too far. If Ella was who he thought she was, ideas like that were a definite no-no. If she truly was his target, that put her as off-limits as any woman could possibly be. Life had been too much for her; the last thing she needed was some strange guy who got off on sniffing her hair.

  “Go ahead and hop up on that exam table.”

  Nate brought his attention back
to the small room while Ella closed the door behind them. It was about as big as a walk-in closet with white walls and the painfully bright lighting of several bare fluorescent tubes overhead, and smelled vaguely of the cleaners he associated with hospitals. A portable version of a doctor’s exam table waited at the far wall, with a folded-up wheelchair leaning against it. A multi-drawer red cart sat by the opposite wall next to a sink where Ella was washing her hands as if she was about to go into surgery.

  Or, if she was a nurse.

  “It’s really not that big a deal.” But he limped in a pitiable way as he moved to the table. Hopping up wasn’t required. All he had to do was settle back onto it like it was no more than a barstool. “There’s no need to go to so much fuss, you know. You didn’t kick me that hard.”

  “Yes I did, but that’s your fault, not mine.”

  He blinked as she dug into the cart and came up with gloves for herself and a rolled-up, self-adhering elastic bandage for him. So much for trying to ease her conscience. “Excuse me?”

  “You picked me up.”

  “So?”

  “So, I wasn’t expecting that.”

  “I thought you said for me to give it my all or you’d kick my butt out of class.”

  “All I wanted from you was a demonstration of a hold like a bear hug.” She turned to him as she removed the bandage from its package. “I believe my exact words were for you to put your arms around me. Not once did I say, ‘Toss me up into the air as if I’m a three year old.’”

  “I didn’t want to do it in the first place, so I wasn’t exactly hanging on your every word.” And he hadn’t wanted to do it. Making like a nightmare that might lurk in this woman’s past rated on his Things To Do list just below setting his hair on fire.

  Her huffy sigh carried a world of straining patience. “For purposes of teaching the basics of how to deal with an attack from behind, I needed a partner to act out the part, step-by-step. When you decided to improvise and show off how muscly you are with that hard body of yours, I hit the fast-forward button on the defensive moves and reacted instinctively. The result—no one really learned anything while I get to wrap up your knee like a mummy.”