how to defend yourself, those shadows wouldn't seem so scary."
I had nothing to say to that. He was right, as usual. Maybe if I'd known how to fight off my attacker, he wouldn't have nearly choked me out in that public restroom. If I hadn't had my butterfly knife in my pocket... I shuddered to think how it all would have turned out.
"Fine," I agreed grudgingly. "But go easy on me, okay? I only appreciate the domineering bullshit if we're both naked and your back is bloody from my fingernails. Got it?" I was teasing, but the responding flare of heat in Kody's eyes made my heart race and my nipples harden.
"I mean, that can be arranged, too," he practically purred, dragging his teeth over his lower lip while stripping me naked with his eyes, "but for now, I'd honestly feel better if I knew you had some basic self-defensive skills."
Sometimes in life we made decisions and just had to roll with it. That was my excuse, and I was sticking with it.
"You sure?" I teased, playing with the hem of my T-shirt and raising it up enough that he could see the tiny panties I wore underneath.
Kody swiped a hand over his hair, making it stick up in all directions. "Damn, babe. You really don't want to train with me. My feelings are hardcore hurt over here."
I rolled my eyes. "No, they're not."
His responding grin was quick. "Well, luckily for you, I'm a have-my-cake-and-eat-it-too kinda guy. I am going to teach you a couple of basic self-defense moves, which we're going to build on every time you can't sleep and come creeping down here like a black cat." He prowled closer to me, stopping only when we were close enough that his sweatpants brushed my bare thighs. "And then I'm going to fuck you hard enough to wake this entire damn house up. Clear?"
I shivered with desire, letting the hungry grin curve my lips as I peered up into Kody's eyes. "Clear," I replied, my voice a husky groan of anticipation.
He held my gaze a long moment, then shook his head with an unsteady sort of laugh. "This was probably a terrible idea," he muttered to himself, putting a few feet of space between us. "How the fuck I'll make it through this without a raging hard-on, I have no idea."
Short answer? He didn't. But he also didn't let it distract him from his mission to teach me some basic self-defensive skills. Ways to break free from a larger man's grip and what to do if I was attacked from behind—again. Over and over, he simulated the same way I'd been grabbed in the diner, using that as a real life example of what might happen to teach me how to free myself.
It took more than a few tries before I stopped panicking on instinct as he grabbed me like that, but it was easy to relax when I reminded myself that it was Kody grabbing me. Kody... who I was more than comfortable being pinned down by.
"Come on, MK," he groaned after I found myself pinned to the mat for the hundredth time. I was face down with him pasted to my back, his hard length crushed against my ass. "You're fucking killing me. Learn this damn move so we can call it quits for the night."
"We could just call it quits now," I suggested, wriggling under him in a way that was far from subtle. Whatever, tact wasn't my strong suit.
He made a growling, frustrated sound, then pushed up off me. "And risk some creeper ending up in the position I was just in? Not a chance in hell, baby. Come on, you've almost got this. You just need to want to do some damage, or your attacker will always have the upper hand."
I grumbled but got back to my feet. "You should probably just piss me off or something. Say something douchey like Archer, and I'll happily knee you in the balls and run like hell."
Kody cringed and adjusted his hard cock in his sweatpants. "No thanks," he replied with a nervous laugh, "I still remember the noise Arch made when you nailed his nuts. No one is going to volunteer for that."
I chuckled at the memory. "Good times."
He just shook his head and swiped a hand over his hair. "You're vicious. No wonder Steele calls you Hellcat. Never heard a more appropriate pet name in my life."
I scoffed, grinning. "Nonsense, you hear me call Archer