Page 19 of Cruz

Cruz is literally throwing so much heat that as I get close to him, I can feel it radiating off of him. I can smell his skin too, whatever shampoo and soap he used in the shower and for shaving.

His hand snaps out before I can blink and lands loosely around my throat. I startle at how fast it was, but also because I can feel the callouses on his palms brush up against my tender skin. Fuck. Now is really the wrong time to learn that I might have a choking fetish.

“So,” Liam says. “If someone decides they’re going to choke you out, this is how you can get out of the hold. I wouldn’t worry about fighting back. I would try and break their hold and run. Is that right, Cruz?”

“In this case, yes. Running would be best.”

His words shouldn’t hit me like a gust of warm air and like a gift on Christmas morning.

I make the mistake of looking into Cruz’s face. It’s perfectly neutral, but his eyes are darker than they normally are. His pupils are big and black. What does that mean? Does he enjoy this? Probably. It’s sort of his job.

“We should probably get you some mace or a taser, Mom. Or, you know the car keys through the knuckles thing, right?”

“I’m not carrying mace or a taser,” I protest.

“Right. Well… if you all you have is your body, then you can go for the throat.” Liam says, pointing at Cruz’s thick neck. “The eyes. The soft spots, like pits, groin, sides, backs of the knees. Those all hurt too. Most guys will see a kick to the balls coming, so I wouldn’t try for it first, or unless you have a clear shot.”

I wouldn’t call any parts of Cruz soft.

Bring your arms up and bend them. Swing them down hard and fast on his.” Liam grasps my hands and tugs them up in the air. He stands behind me and helps me make the motion. As soon as my arms make contact, Cruz releases me.

He goes for another hold, and then another, and another. The lesson is basically bullshit because I can’t focus on anything other than the way Cruz’s body moves. He looks like a masterpiece, all his muscles coiling and bunching under his skin. He’s perfect without being tanned or flawless. He has some scars here and there. Some small, others not, but nothing that looks like it came close to killing him.

My skin prickles and heat rushes through me every single time Cruz gets close enough to get a hold of me. It all culminates when he trades places with Liam at my back and wraps his arms around me. I kick back like I saw Liam do, hitting Cruz in the shin, even though I was aiming for his knee. I’m in sneakers, but I still try and stop on his foot.

“If all that fails,” Liam’s voice comes from somewhere behind Cruz and me, “this is where a flip could work. If you pitch forward enough to catch him off balance, his momentum will go with you. You just have to throw him of in the first place. If you can, curl your foot around the back of his leg. Yes! Just like that!”

Cruz is too good at this. There’s no way I’d be able to move him in real life, but maybe he doesn’t like being pressed flat against me any more than I like it.

That’s a straight up lie, you like it a lot.

When I trip Cruz, I lean forward with all my strength. He bellows and throws himself over my shoulder. He sails through the air as gracefully as any circus performer. He makes the landing look like a hard fall, going down on his back, but when he looks up at me, he’s grinning.

Even with my yoga workouts and spending days on my feet in the café, I’m breathing hard. My mistake was clearly doing this in a sweater. I should have shed it, but I liked having the extra layer around me. If Cruz’s hands landed on any more of my bare skin, I would probably have combusted on the spot by now. As it is, I’m tingling all over, chilled and shivery in some places and overheated in others.

Cruz literally hasn’t even broken a sweat.

Liam starts clapping loudly for me. “That was amazing! Good job, Mom! You taught that asshole not to mug you.”

“Is that what we were going for? Mugging?”

“We can try kidnapping scenarios next. We could zip tie your hands, and then tape them, and teach you how to break them.”

Oh. My. Good. God.

Liam’s eyes are so burning and urgent that I have no choice but to agree. This is important to him. He wants to know that I’m safe, not just with Cruz, but that I can take care of myself.

“That sounds violent. To my wrists.”

Liam frowns. “You’ll be okay. We won’t hurt you. You can watch me go first again, if you want.”

“It’s okay. I can—uh, I’ll be fine. I trust you.” I’m not sure about Cruz, but my son? Liam’s face breaks into a huge grin. I think he needed to hear me. I don’t need to tell him to stop apologizing. I need him to know that just because he made one mistake, it’s not going to ruin a lifetime of me putting my faith in him. I might not understand, and maybe I never will, but that doesn’t mean that our relationship is shattered.

Liam produces duct tape and zip ties from the shelf on the far side. Do they have them here as tools, or because they practice this kind of thing often? I can’t imagine that anyone trying to kidnap a man the size of any one of the men that I met this morning, would bother with anything less than chains. Maybe they’d slip up behind them and poke a needle into their neck, or get them with the chloroform rag like you always see in movies. But yeah. Definitely not tape and little plastic ties.

“If someone duct tapes your mouth shut, all you have to do is drool all over the tape and it’ll fall right off,” Liam says. He pulls out a long zip tie from the package. It’s much thicker than I thought it would be. Good to know they’re going to use industrial strength for this. My heartrate kicks up another few frantic beats. “Can you hold your wrists together? Like this?” Liam demonstrates. “We’ll do in front of you first, and then we can teach you how to break them if your hands are zip tied behind your back.”

“Wow. Here I thought I was going to get off easy,” I scoff. “You’re sure this won’t hurt?”