“A little unoriginal, but not entirely a bad choice. Why that one?”
Kat began playing with the label on her bottle. She picked at the corner until she could pull it off in little strips. She’d withdrawn a little, like a turtle not completely hiding but not willing to keep its neck all the way out where it was vulnerable.
“Kat?”
“Because then no one could hurt me,” she answered softly. “If I didn’t want someone to touch me, I could make him stop.” Finally she lifted her head, and the rage and pain he saw in her eyes made the animal in him howl. “And then I’d make him pay.”
The steely resolve in her voice revealed a little girl who’d been mistreated in ways no one ever deserved. She’d had no way to fight back, no way to protect herself. It was no wonder she longed for superpowers. Unfortunately, even if superheroes existed, she clearly wasn’t one of them. So he’d have to make her the next best thing.
“Come on,” he said, pulling her to her feet.
“Why, what are we doing?”
“Giving you superpowers.”
“Oh, good,” she said wryly. “And to think, all this time all I had to do was ask.”
Aiden walked to a stack of thick blue mats and pulled them out one by one until he’d made a decent area for them to work in. Standing in the middle of the mats, he asked, “Ready?”
“For what?”
“Your first self-defense lesson.”
She hesitated. “Really? You could teach me that?”
“Yeah. You said you wanted superpowers, and being able to defend yourself against someone no matter what his size is as close to that as you can get. So, you ready?”
Wringing her hands together in front of her, she nodded.
“Then let’s get started.”
For the next two hours, Aiden worked with Kat on different techniques she could use for different situations. He’d only planned on teaching her one or two, but with every move she mastered, her inner strength and confidence grew right before his eyes. Her appetite for the knowledge of how to protect herself was voracious.
By the end, she knew all the weak points to strike on a person and how to throw him off-balance almost any way he grabbed her. Except for one way in particular he’d steered clear from, unsure how she’d react to being put in that position again so soon.
“This is great, Irish, thank you,” she said. “Anything else?”
He hesitated, weighing the options of making the suggestion or not. “You wanna know what to do if someone pins you from behind?”
Aiden swore he saw the moment her heart skipped, but she bounced back just as quickly, blinking hard a few times as though trying to clear the image of that night in her mind’s eye.
“Yes,” she said, her voice breaking slightly. Clearing her throat, she tried again. “Yes, I do.”
“Are you sure? There’s no pressure. We can do it some other time if you want.”
She shook her head. “No, I’d like to try it now.”
“All right. Come over here, then.”
Aiden crossed to the sidewall and waited for her to gather herself and do the same. Placing his hands on her upper arms, he gently moved her in front of him. Her body tensed and her chest rose and fell with shallow breaths.
“We’re going to take this nice and slow, kitten. You won’t retain anything I teach you until you learn to trust me and shake the panic reaction. To start, I’m going to put my hands right here.” He pressed them to the wall in front of her face. “Right where you can see them, okay?” She nodded. At least she wasn’t so far into her own fears that she couldn’t still hear him. “Good. Now, when you’re ready for me to do more, let me know.”
…
Kat focused on his strong hands wrapped in yards of black fabric and his long fingers marked black from grease stains and tattoo ink. Irish directed her to take slow, even breaths—in through her nose, out through her mouth. After a couple of minutes, she finally managed to regulate them, though she didn’t think it had anything to do with the deep breathing. It was—
“Atta girl, you’re doing fine. Nice and easy.”
—that. His voice. Low and raspy and right next to her ear. She’d bet he could melt butter using only the sound of his voice. The vibrations soaked into her skin and traveled in her blood stream to circulate through her body. A warm tingling bloomed deep in her center. She’d never felt anything like it before, but it felt so good and she wanted more. She wanted more of him.
“Okay,” she said with a slight quiver. “You can do more.” Please do more.