her leg with his other arm, hooking his elbow under her knee and pulling it high. Pulling her off balance.
Christ, he was fast. Squirming only toppled her back against his chest, and her only play there was the back of her head against his nose.
So she took it.
"Fuck." He released her and stumbled back, his hiss of pain turning into a laugh. "That hurt, sweetheart."
"You should have stopped me," she chided, uncomfortable with the flutter of worry in her stomach. She turned to examine his face, but he was smiling through the thin trickle of blood trailing from one nostril.
"I deserved it," he said simply.
"Yeah, a little." Her skin still prickled with awareness, the heightened sense of focus that always came with a fight. She could feel his phantom warmth at her back, the memory of his chest, pressed tight against her, and she hated how much she missed that. Clenching her fingers, she buried confusion under action and lunged at him.
Not a graceful attack, and he defended easily, spilling her to the mat beneath him. "You have to take time to think," he whispered, his lips against her ear.
The prickling changed to tingles, and she rasped in a hoarse breath. She didn't like being under him--not when it meant she'd lost--but she didn't hate it as much as she should have. The stinging of her pride was balanced by a deeper satisfaction at his skill.
She'd learn from Bren. She'd get better. And, in the meantime, nothing would touch her because he was magnificently dangerous.
She had to swallow twice to make her voice sound natural. "Speed's the only advantage I have. I need to learn to think faster."
"Couldn't hurt." He shifted his weight and rose on his knees. "But you're being hard on yourself. Fighting me isn't really fair."
"That's why I want to do it." She missed more than some vague impression of warmth this time. She missed the solid weight of him, the feeling of being surrounded on all sides. "I need to learn."
"And I'll teach you. You know that, right?"
She wet her lips, unsure what he was asking. There was suddenly no safe place to rest her gaze, not with him still straddling her hips and her own disobedient body beginning to take a keen interest in his. "You are teaching me. It's helping."
He climbed to his feet. "It's not just fighting. It's understanding when you have to, and when you don't."
"I guess. You have weird rules here. Do any of the other women fight at all?"
He brushed that aside with a shake of his head. "I mean who you might have to fight. You're treating all this like an immediate mission goal. Like you're in danger here." A quick nod indicated the cavernous warehouse around them. "Here on the compound."
There was no safe answer to that. The people here were his friends, his brothers. For all the wary respect in their eyes when they watched him, there was also affection. That was as foreign to her as the idea of women having each other's backs because of some crazy devotion to the idea of sisterhood. So she shrugged and stared at his boots. "I guess."
He watched her intently. "Those lessons are important to learn, too."
"I can't--" She clenched her hands until her ragged nails bit into her palms. "He told me it was safe to stop fighting."
"Trent." There was no doubt in Bren's voice, no question.
At least she wouldn't have to say his name. "He didn't lie, not really. It was safe to stop fighting. He just never bothered to tell me how much worse it would be when he got bored of keeping me safe."
Bren closed both hands around hers and tugged her to her feet. "Tomorrow," he whispered. "Same time. We'll fight harder."
No words urging her to trust, or chiding her for not being able to. Just an offer, the only one that could possibly help. Her heart lurched into her throat, and she spent an endless forever standing there, trembling with the urge to lean in. It wouldn't be hard. Just one step. Only one.
If she did, she could steal a little more of that warmth. Maybe he'd wrap his arms around her. She'd seen him hug others, the back-slapping hugs between the men, the softer, lingering hugs for the women. His arms were thick with hard muscles and solid flesh. He'd had them around her enough times in practice, but never like this. Just two people, standing oh so close, trading warmth and