Page 49 of Drawn Together

“You’re the one who wanted me to teach you, and I’m going to do it my way.”

“Well… I don’t want you to teach me anymore, thanks.”

I got back in bed, but Sebastian wrapped his arm aroundme and started to squeeze my neck, leaving me breathless. His other arm wound tightly around my hips, completely disabling me. I couldn’t move a muscle; I couldn’t even open my mouth.

“Come on… What would you do if this were happening for real?”

He lessened his grip slightly so that I could breathe, but without letting me go. I tried to think about how to escape this idiot but felt utterly powerless. I made a move to kick him in the balls, but he pressed me into the mattress and got on top of me so that I was unable to do anything to free myself from him, and I started to get pissed.

“What would you do?” he whispered next to my ear.

As sexy as the situation might have seemed, it was not at all.

“Any guy,any, could pin you like this, in this position, in a snap of a finger. I’m much stronger than a normal guy, and that’s why I’m giving you a chance to free yourself,” he went on, still right in my ear, very serious. “You should know how to get rid of anyone who tries to touch you unwanted, Marfil, and believe me, as beautiful as you are, there will be plenty of guys who will want to try it.”

“Let me go, Sebastian,” I said into the mattress.

“No,” he replied, pressing his hand into my back. “Think, what would you do?”

I thought, trying hard to find a way to get him off me, but I couldn’t. It was impossible.

“Scream… I would scream!” I answered after a few seconds, pulling air into my lungs.

“Like a little princess?” He was making fun of me.

He’d totally lost it, taking this self-defense lesson way too seriously.

Then I thought of something. He hadn’t yet registered it, or maybe he had, but the hand he wasn’t using to pin my wristsbehind my back was resting on the mattress right beside my face.

Without hesitating for a second, and taking that lesson just as seriously as he was, I lunged my face at his hand and bit down, hard. My unexpected attack, and the pain I suppose it caused, proved effective. I felt his grip loosen a little, then I started thrashing around like a madwoman, rolling under his body.

Somehow, I managed to scramble away and stand up. Just as I was about to lift my leg to kick him in the balls, he moved quickly, dodging my kick. With his good hand, the one I hadn’t bitten, he gripped my ankle and pulled, causing me to lose my balance and fall back down, this time against his chest instead of the mattress.

I was furious; I didn’t want him to pin me again. I hadn’t liked feeling so defenseless, completely at his mercy, so I quickly moved out of the way when he tried to grab me around the waist. The problem was that he was even quicker, and I found myself, once again, lying against the mattress with him straddling my stomach. I went limp and surrendered, panting hard, as if I’d been running for an hour.

He rubbed the hand I’d bitten and frowned slightly as if in pain, although I thought I saw a certain glint of admiration in his brown eyes.

“You have no idea what you’re doing, zero technique, but you were savage, you hurt me. We can call it quits for today.” He stood up, and after throwing me a quick glance over his shoulder, he left my room.

My chest rose and fell… I lay there, analyzing what had happened. His teaching method was far from subtle. But he hadn’t so much as flinched, and I was still out of breath from the way the weight of his body had paralyzed me in the blink of an eye.

And then I remembered he’d called me beautiful, but why had he pronounced the word as if it was the worst insult he’d ever voiced aloud?

Unable to get back to sleep, I put on my bathrobe and went out into the living room. I couldn’t say exactly what kind of mood I was in, but it hadn’t been the best of mornings. Sebastian, on the other hand, was calmly reading the newspaper and drinking coffee. I saw he’d made me my milk with honey and had placed it on the counter in front of him.

Was this some kind of peace offering?

I sat down and waited for him to say something.

He didn’t.

“Sebastian, I understand you must get bored being my bodyguard and everything, that you need a little more action in your life, something that makes you feel like Rambo or G.I. Joe or whomever you aspire to be, but I’d appreciate it if you didn’t use me for your training sessions, okay? I understand that I was the one who asked you to teach me some self-defense techniques, but waking up at five o’clock in the morning with a glass of cold water in my face did not figure, at all, into my vision.” He looked up from the newspaper and rested his eyes on me. “I don’t like feeling trapped, so from now on, I’d like the lessons to be a little more… gentle, if you don’t mind. I know that word doesn’t exist in your vocabulary, but—”

He laughed, interrupting my speech, and I set down the cup of milk before it even had a chance to touch my lips.

“Gentle?” he exclaimed, rolling his eyes. “Marfil, this isn’t a fucking fairy tale. It’s not a game. I’m not trying to show you a good time or help you feel self-actualized. If I’m going to teach you at all, it’s so that, if you really need to defend yourself on your own someday, you’ll be able to, understand? It was your idea, and it was a good one. As your bodyguard, I should’ve thought of it myself. You were right; you need to learn to defendyourself, because you should never forget that your life is in danger.”

I stared blankly at him, without any clever rebuttal for what he’d just said.