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“Hey, Ellery,” I greeted her when her eyes came to mine. “You’re back.”
“I am,” she confirmed. “Avalon told me about all of the classes, and I didn’t want to waste any time, so I figured it was best to come right back this morning.”
And then there was her mouth. I’d never seen a more perfectly shaped pair of lips in all my life. I had to fight every urge inside me not to stare at her mouth whenever she spoke and appear unaffected when I had to respond.
“Well, I’m happy to see that you’re enjoying it enough that you wanted to join us again so soon,” I told her.
She shrugged. “It wasn’t as though I had enough of a grasp on the material to practice after I left last night.”
My lips twitched just thinking about her going home to practice what she learned. Of course, that led me to thinking about who she might have there to help her practice.
Fuck. What was wrong with me?
I needed to stop this.
“I know it was your first time yesterday, so you shouldn’t feel bad about that,” I started. “But if you get to the end of class today and you’ve got any questions about anything before you leave, please ask.”
On the surface, it might have seemed like I was merely just trying to be helpful and make sure that she had a solid understanding of the material we were teaching. Technically, I was doing that.
But there was no question that I was also urging her to ask questions because I just wanted to talk to her. And I knew that wasn’t a wise idea, because I’d spent the better part of my day yesterday in the moments of downtime, thinking about her.
There was no reason for it.
I didn’t know anything about her.
Granted, there had been occasions where I’d thought about someone who’d come in for training after they’d left, but generally, that happened in situations where the women had come in so beaten down and broken by their current or former relationships. The way I’d thought about those women—mostly hoping they were going to find the strength within themselves to continue coming to classes, so they could find the courage to leave those relationships behind them—was completely different than the way I’d thought about Ellery.
Part of that was because she hadn’t exactly come in and shared her story. She didn’t have the same fearful or nervous nature about her. Of course, that didn’t necessarily mean that she hadn’t experienced some sort of trauma. Some people were just better at hiding it than others. Since I didn’t know what she’d been through, if anything, I knew that wasn’t why she was on my mind.
Unfortunately, the other part of the reason I’d had her in my thoughts was a mystery. I had no explanation. There was not even an inkling as to why I couldn’t get her out of my head.
“I’m definitely going to do that, because I really want to be able to practice after I leave,” she shared.
And then there was that.
For some reason, having her reassurance that she was going to come up and ask for help at the end of the class was such a relief to me. While I couldn’t say what the reason for that was, I knew what it wasn’t. The relief I felt wasn’t the result of knowing she’d ask for clarification on the skills she was being taught, so that she’d be able to use them if it was ever necessary.
Sure, I wanted her to know how to defend herself, but this wasn’t that.
This was something else.
“I don’t have anything scheduled immediately after class, so I’m all yours,” I told her.
“That sounds great. Thank you, Kane.”
“No problem,” I insisted.
There was a brief moment of hesitation before she said, “Well, I should probably put my things down and grab a spot before class starts.”
With a downward jerk of my chin, I replied, “Sure. We’ll be getting started in a minute or two.”
Ellery held my gaze for just a moment longer. Then she turned and moved to set her things down. I spun around and moved in the opposite direction. But I couldn’t miss the look on Jake’s face when I did.
Ignoring his look, I got myself ready for class. Before I knew it, we were in the thick of it. Jake and I were working together to not only demonstrate self-defense techniques, but we were also offering words of wisdom. One of the most important things we taught all of our students—men and women alike—was the concept of situational awareness. It was important that they utilized the lessons we taught about it in their everyday life. Some people might have thought that we were being paranoid, but that wasn’t ever the case. The way I saw it, nobody could ever take their safety too seriously.
Class seemed to fly by in the blink of an eye, and I had a feeling it was because I spent a good chunk of that time glancing over at Ellery. Just as I’d done with several other students, I’d spoken to Ellery throughout the class. I wasn’t having a conversation with any of them, though. I merely offered words of praise or encouragement. Or, in some cases, I stuck to correcting their techniques and answering questions they might have had.
By the time class ended, I had no choice but to put in superhuman effort not to look in Ellery’s direction. I wanted her to come to me without her thinking that I was expecting it to happen.
