Running Blind Read online

  And yet—she didn’t think she had it in her to shoot an unconscious man. From behind, maybe, depending on the circumstances, but she couldn’t come up with a situation that would fit. If she were free to move around, and had a weapon, why would Brad turn his back on her? If he didn’t know she was there and she came up behind him … but if he didn’t know she was there, then all she had to do was simply leave, sneak away. She wanted Brad to pay for what he’d done to Jina, but she wanted the law to work and put him away for the rest of his life. She didn’t see herself as an executioner, and that was what Zeke wanted her to work through. If she couldn’t do something, then she shouldn’t waste time planning how she would do it; she should move on to what she could do.

  “I couldn’t shoot him from behind or if he was unconscious,” she said slowly, still feeling her way through her own thoughts. “Maybe I’m stupid, or weak, but I just couldn’t. I’m not saying I couldn’t shoot him if I had to, just that I couldn’t do it under those circumstances.”

  Zeke didn’t argue with her, just nodded. “Knowing your own limits doesn’t make you stupid or weak, it makes you smart. He’s a cop, which means he’s done strength training, he had to pass firearms testing, and he’s been trained to fight. You aren’t going to get the better of him in a straight-up fight. But forget about him specifically; let’s work on some basic stuff so you won’t panic if you’re caught by surprise.”

  Not panicking was a good start, as far as she was concerned. When Zeke had startled her that day in the bedroom, she’d been so frightened she’d actually disconnected from herself, and that hadn’t been a good feeling at all. If that had been Brad instead of Zeke, the ending would have been bad, because she’d been totally ineffective. Anything Zeke could teach her, no matter how small, could be enormously important.

  “Have you had any training?” she asked as she hitched her sweatpants up on her hips. They were a little loose in the waist because they were old and the elastic was weak, and they kept sliding down.

  “You mean martial arts, stuff like that?” He shrugged. “No. I was a hell-raiser when I was a kid and got into a lot of fights, plus my dad taught me some things. And when we graduated from high school, one of my cousins went into law enforcement, so of course he had to show me all the stuff he learned. The main thing is to forget about fighting by the rules. You can’t hesitate. If you get cornered, you have to fight hard, and you have to fight dirty.”

  “So show me how to fight dirty.” Her initial eagerness had faded, to be replaced by determination.

  So, for almost two hours, he did. The first thing he got out of the way was how to kick a man in the balls—not with her foot, and not at a distance. Instead she was supposed to grab the guy by the shirt and haul him in close, which was usually the last thing the guy was expecting and knocked him off balance, then hold him there while she repeatedly hammered his crotch with her knee. She was careful not to actually hammer him, and he was extra careful not to get hammered, but she got the idea. Grabbing a guy instead of trying to get away was a twist she hadn’t expected, so she could see how the move would work.

  He taught her how to gouge an eye (thumb) and hit the larynx (knuckles or the edge of her hand). The thought of gouging someone in the eye grossed her out, until she imagined it was Brad’s eye, and that took care of any squeamishness. Zeke didn’t think she’d be able to crush anyone’s larynx except by accident, but she could still make her target choke, which would let her get away.

  He also taught her that her legs were her strongest muscles, and how to use them if she got knocked down, how to lie on her side and kick for the knees and groin. The whole idea of everything he showed her was to disable her attacker enough to let her get away. She wasn’t strong enough or expert enough to take on anyone in a physical fight and expect to win, so simply running was the best outcome for her.

  There were a few holds he showed her how to break, and if someone caught her from behind how to bend down, grab the guy’s ankle, and jerk upward so the attacker landed on his ass. The physical exercise was more demanding than she’d expected, and soon they were both sweating. At first she paid rapt attention through the demonstrations and practice repetitions, but the physical reality of such tutoring was a lot of touching, of feeling Zeke’s arms around her in his mock attacks, and the hard, muscled length of his body against her. The soft fabric of his pants didn’t do anything to hide the thickening erection that pushed against her bottom, or her crotch, depending on the position of the move he was showing her.

  Concentrating became harder and harder, right along with his penis, and finally she stopped even trying. Leaning back against him, she gripped his thick wrists and closed her eyes. “I think I’ve lost my motivation.”

  “Is that so?” His tone was low and rough. His arms tightened around her, pulling her more snugly against him, and one big hand slid under the edge of her T-shirt to flatten on the smooth flesh of her stomach. He rested it there a moment, rubbing his fingertips lightly on her skin, then slicked his hand downward, sliding it under her loose waistband. His thumb circled her navel, then with two deliberate moves he had her pants sliding down her legs to pool around her knees. “Looks like your motivation isn’t all you’re losing.”

  He bent his head and his mouth moved slow and hot over the side of her neck, and just like that she was ready for him, her heartbeat thundering, her breath panting out fast and deep. She lifted one arm and curved it back, resting her hand on the back of his neck, feeling the heat pouring off his body, the hard pads of muscle even there. Her posture offered up her breasts and he took them, covering them with his rough palms, catching her upright nipples between his fingers and gently, at first, pulling them even tighter. Then his fingers tightened and the pulling wasn’t quite so gentle, and she didn’t care. Hot prickles of sensation speared from her nipples straight to her vagina, to her entire body. Every muscle in her tightened, clamping down, and she gave a hoarse cry at her emptiness.

  Either her cry was a signal or he’d zoomed from zero to a hundred the same way she had. Swiftly he turned her, clamped his hands on her waist, and boosted her over his shoulder. Dizzily she clung to him as he took the stairs up to his bedroom and deposited her on the bed. He stripped her pants and underwear the rest of the way off, tugged her shirt over her head and tossed it aside. While he was doing that she was fighting his clothes, trying to get his shirt up and off, his pants down and off, or at least enough that she could get her hands on him.

  He didn’t give her a chance, sliding between her legs and reaching down between them to guide his penis into place at her opening. Carlin took a deep breath and stilled, her eyes almost shut, holding herself ready for that hot, penetrating slide of flesh into her. It came, not slow as he sometimes did, but deep and a little rough. There it was, the magic of feeling him enter her, the stretching of her body around him, the heat and clinging and something else, something more, something exciting and precious and terrifying.

  And afterward, when she was limp from coming, when every muscle was shaking with fatigue and all she wanted to do was curl up in his arms and not move again until she had to get up and cook breakfast, she had to force herself to crawl out of his arms, out of the warm, tangled covers, and search for her clothes.

  “Sleep here tonight,” he said, the iron in his tone telling her he didn’t like it one bit that she refused to spend the night with him, and that he wasn’t getting resigned to sleeping alone.

  “No, I can’t,” she said, though she could have cried from the depth of her longing to do just what he wanted. “It’s too dangerous.” Then she hurried out of the room before she began crying, and he realized she wasn’t talking about the danger of some of the hands maybe seeing them together. She’d checked that the doors were locked so that wasn’t going to happen. The real danger was to herself, and she was way, way too late to stop it.

  THE DAYS TICKED past. All in all, Carlin felt ridiculously content. She was happy to stay indoors when it was so