He steps out of his pants and I’m trying really hard not to watch him too intensely, but it’s becoming increasingly difficult.

“Come here,” he says, standing before me in nothing but his tight black boxer briefs which are doing very little to hide the hard bulge growing behind the fabric.

I swallow nervously, though why I’m nervous all of a sudden, I have no idea, and I walk toward him. A twinge spasms between my legs, and I’m not sure why of that, either. It’s as if my subconscious mind is more aware of what’s about to happen than my conscious one. Either that, or my mind is just running away from me with thoughts of what I only wish would happen.

I look at him curiously, tilting my head gently to one side.

“I’m not sure what this is between us,” he says carefully, “but I am sure that I don’t want it to stop. Whatever it is.”

“I feel the same way.”

A little confused about where this is heading, I tilt my head to the other side and ask, “Is something wrong?”

He shakes his head subtly. “No, nothing’s wrong.”

“Well…if you’re worried I’m going to fall in love with you and cling on to your every move, you don’t have to worry.”

“You’re not in love with me?” he asks and it seems like nothing more than a simple inquiry.

“No, I don’t love you, Victor.”

He nods, completely accepting it. “Good. Because I’m not in love with you, either.”

I don’t think either of us truly knows what the word means in this kind of situation. We both display the same accepting, yet somehow confused expressions.

“But…I uh…,” I clasp my fingers together behind my back and look down at the tile floor, moving my foot about as if I were shuffling my toes nervously in sand. I stop and look him in the eyes. “But I uh would maybe…appreciate it if you didn’t sleep with anyone else. I…well, I don’t think I’d like that much.”

“I agree,” he says with another solid nod. “I think if I caught you with another man, I would have to kill him.”

I nod a few times, as casually as he had.

“Definitely,” I say in return. “The same goes for you.”

“Agreed.”

There’s an awkward bout of silence between us and I glance over at the king-sized bed with tall cherry wood posts at all four corners, just feet away.

I look back at Victor as he approaches me. I lift my arms above me when his fingers slide behind the ends of my shirt and he pulls it off.

“I would also like to say that I don’t mind if you cling to my every move.” He fits his fingers behind the elastic of my panties. “For the record.”

“Really?”

He crouches down before me as he slides my panties over my hips and down my legs. He stays there, looking up at me, his head level with my bellybutton.

“Yes,” he answers. “Of course, you can’t be getting in my way when I’m trying to do a job.”

“Yes, of course,” I say and my skin reacts to his lips kissing the area just above my pelvic bone. “I-I would never get in the way of your job,” the words shudder from my lips. My hands begin to shake when he lowers himself between my legs, spreading my lips below with the pads of his thumbs.

I move my legs apart just a little, enough to give him access.

“But no leaving me in someplace far away while you travel everywhere to fulfill contracts,” I say, my fingers curling within the top of his hair, my breathing uneven and rapid. “I don’t want to be a stay-at-home wife, y’know what I mean?”

A sharp gasp pierces the air around my mouth when the tip of his tongue flicks across my clit. I nearly wilt right here and now, the muscles in my thighs deteriorating with every passing second.

“Yes, I am quite aware of the concept,” he says and then licks me again, dragging his tongue between my wet petals. I throw my head back and grasp his hair tighter, winding it within my fingers. “You’ll go wherever I go. So I can keep an eye on you.”

“An eye on me. Of course.” It was a poor attempt at a response. All I can think about is his head between my legs and that hot, prickling sensation turning my insides into mush.

Victor hoists me up with my ass planted firmly within both of his hands, my thighs wrapped around his head from the front and he licks me furiously for a moment before tossing me onto the bed on my back.

With my thighs pushed toward me, his mouth falls between my legs and my eyes roll into the back of my head as he sends me into oblivion.

Sarai

Training begins two days later, but it doesn’t start off the way I expected it to. I don’t know what I expected really, but it certainly wasn’t this.

“What are we doing here?” I ask as we pull into the parking lot of a physical fitness and martial arts studio an hour away in Santa Fe.

“Krav Maga,” he says and I just look at him as though he were speaking to me in another language. He shuts the car door and we walk toward the front of the building. “I won’t be able to devote one hundred percent of my time teaching you. So, three days a week I’m going to bring you here for some training. You can learn a lot in Krav Maga in a short time. And it focuses on self-defense—”

“What?” I stop on the sidewalk just before we get to the front door. “I’m not a damsel in distress who just got robbed in a dark parking garage, Victor. I don’t need self-defense classes. I need to learn how to kill.”

“Killing is the easy part,” he says matter-of-factly. He opens the glass door, gesturing me inside ahead of him. “Getting to that point without getting yourself killed in the process is the hard part.”

I scoff. “So, you want me to learn how to kick a guy in the nuts? Trust me, I’m already perfectly capable of doing that.”

A faint grin appears at the corners of his delicious lips.

Just then, a tall dark-haired man with rolling muscles walks toward us through the vast room. Tall windows are set along the top of the wall, letting in the sunlight. Two separate groups of people are training in a turn-by-turn sequence, standing around in a half-circle atop an enormous black mat spread across a large section of the floor.

The man with bulging arms underneath a black t-shirt offers his hand to Victor. “How long has it been? Three? Four years?”

Victor shakes his hand firmly.

“About four, I believe.”

The man looks at me momentarily and then Victor introduces us.

“Spencer, this is Izabel. Izabel, Spencer.”

“A pleasure,” Spencer says, holding out his hand.

Reluctantly, I shake it. They know each other? I’m not sure I like that or not. I suddenly feel like I’m being set up. I smile squeamishly up at the tall, good-natured brute.

Victor turns to me and says, “There’s no one better to train you in self-defense than Spencer. You’re in good hands.”

Spencer smiles so big I feel like if it were any bigger he might bite my head clean off my neck. He stands with his heavily-muscled arms down in front of him, his hands folded. The thick, ropy veins running along his hands and up his darkly-tanned arms reminds me of a body builder, but he’s not quite as big as one. He’s just bigger than me, making him more intimidating.

I put up a finger at Spencer. “Will you excuse us for a minute?”

“Of course,” he says.

I catch the quick grin he gives Victor.

I grab Victor by the hand and pull him off to the side. In the background I hear the constant sound of bodies being thrown down on top of that black mat and the voice of an instructor harping repetitive commands and making the students ‘do it again’.

“Victor, I think this is a waste of time. I don’t understand why you brought me here.” I cross my arms. “I want you to teach me these things, not some random guy the shape of a bus.” I look over my shoulder, hoping Spencer didn’t hear that, even though I made sure to keep it at a whisper.