Page 50 of Drawn Together

“We can train a little bit every day. I’ll teach you some tricks to help you feel safer.”

“According to you, I have zero technique…” My eyes darted involuntarily to his right hand, where I’d bitten him as hard as I could. I smiled. “Can I see what I did to you?”

Sebastian set down his cup of coffee and frowned. “You look so pleased to see you’ve hurt me,” he said, removing the bloodstained gauze he’d wrapped around his hand to cover the wound.

“Shit!” I exclaimed, ignoring his comment. “I really am a savage. Does it hurt?”

“No.”

“What a shame.” I brought the mug to my lips and grinned against the edge of it, unable to help myself.

“Before I forget, I’ll teach you something else. Come here,” he said, gesturing for me to move closer to him.

I did so almost grudgingly. I’d had enough for one day.

He pulled me a little closer, positioning me between his legs. After steadying me, he slid his hand up to my neck and moved my hair over to my right shoulder. “This point right here,” he said, carefully touching me in a spot between my neck and my clavicle, “is called the carotid sinus. If you press down hard for thirty seconds, the person will pass out. It won’t last long, but it might give you time to escape if someone is trying to hurt you.”

He didn’t immediately remove his fingers. Instead, he began to trace circles on my skin, causing every single one of my hairs to stand on end.

If he noticed, he acted like he hadn’t.

“You just have to press it? Simple as that?” I said, trying to speak normally, trying to act like his proximity and body contact didn’t affect me.

“It’s not so simple. The person will generally resist, but the first thing is for you to know how to determine the exact location. Give me your hand,” he said.

I held it out to him, and he placed it on his shoulder. Then, he guided my thumb to the spot where the carotid sinus was located, and I pushed down gently. His pulse beat right underneath my finger. I could feel the blood racing to his brain… or wherever it was going.

Had he noticed my pulse accelerating, too?

I traced two circles on his skin, admiring the cut of his jaw-line, wishing I could put my mouth, and not my fingers, there. I wanted to bite him, hard, to feel his pulse under my tongue.

Sebastian stood up, interrupting whatever was happening between us in that moment.

“Turn around. I’m going to show you a tae kwon do move that you can use to knock someone out,” he said.

I remained rooted to the spot. “What makes you think I’m going to let you use a tae kwon do move on me?”

Sebastian smiled, dimples on full display. “I won’t hurt you… I promise.”

I looked him in the eye and knew he was telling the truth. He spun me around, and I felt him move closer. Just like in the bedroom, he wrapped his arm around my neck and simultaneously looped his other arm around, quickly trapping me in a lethal armlock. I had seen similar choke holds in movies, and whenever someone did it, the person would resist until they fell unconscious on the floor.

“You wrap this arm around their neck and put your weight on the other to apply pressure. Do you understand?”

What I understood was that his chest was making contactwith my body. It’s not like it was some romantic embrace, but I was hypnotized by the scent of him.

“These are called pressure points, and when you press them, it causes indescribable pain or momentary loss of consciousness.”

I could show him my pressure points… and what would happen if he knew how to press them.

He released me, and I turned around to look at him.

“Now you do me.”

I couldn’t help but think of the double meaning of those words.

“On the couch or in the bedroom?”

Sebastian didn’t even blink. I, of course, thought it was hilarious.