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“Lucy made me go with her to self-defense classes. She insisted that us girls needed to know how to protect ourselves. I even did some Jiu Jitsu and kickboxing.” She lets out a chuckle. “Turns out I’m pretty good.”
I raise my eyebrows in surprise. “Really? Well, I think you need to show me what you got then.”
Charlie laughs. “I would but I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Babe, there’s nothing you can throw at me that my brother didn’t when we were growing up. Trust me, I’ve been training since I was a kid.” I stand and hold my hands out. “Come on, tough girl, let’s see what you got.”
Chapter thirteen
Charlie
Theideaofgrapplingwith Linc sends excitement shooting through me, especially since he’s being a cocky little shit about it.
When I say I took some classes, it meant Lucy and I trained for three years every day. The tourist traps of living in New Orleans lost their shine after about six months. We decided we needed something to spend our days doing since we mostly worked at night. Considering it isn’t one of the safest cities in the world and I had no clue how to defend myself physically, Lucy signed me up at her gym. I fell in love with all of it. Taking down people twice my size made me feel ten feet tall. Helping the other women who came to the self-defense class with similar stories to mine and seeing them stand a little taller when they got the hang of it was a high I became addicted to.
Letting Linc pull me up from the bench, I give him a tentative smile.
“You sure?”
A half smirk tilts his lips. “Yeah, babe. I’m sure.”
Well, okay then. I’m not going to feel bad about this in the least.
“Come at me like you’re going to attack me.”
Linc pauses, his cockiness vanishing to be replaced with hesitance.
“It’s okay,” I reassure him.
He comes at me like he’s going to put his hands around my throat. When Linc makes contact, I use my arms to cover my face and rotate quickly on my back leg, breaking his hold, then holding his arms with one of mine before driving my other elbow into his nose.
Of course, I don’t actually hit him, I don’t want to hurt the poor guy. It all happens so fast, he’s stunned still for a moment before a wide smile stretches across his face.
“Impressive.”
“Now grab me from behind, but put a little more effort into it,” I tell him with a wink.
He laughs and shakes his head. “Okay.”
Linc comes up behind me and grabs me from behind, circling his arms fully around me. I bend over and set my base, pushing my hips back into him, and grab his leg. Losing his balance, he falls back, and I hold his leg in a knee lock.
“Holy shit, babe. Nice job,” he says when I turn to him with a huge smile.
I release his leg, and he hops back up.
“Okay, now grab me in a headlock from behind.”
Linc does just that, and I grab his arm, pulling it down and tucking my chin. Throwing my hips back as I bend my knees and throw my upper body into a fold, I use the momentum to throw him over my shoulder. This one is great because it works when your attacker is bigger by using both of your momentum to execute the move. Plus, I like shocking the shit out of people when they go flying through the air.
Linc lands on his back and the air whooshes from him.
“Okay,” he coughs out. “I believe you.”
I hold out my hand to help him up, but he pulls me down on top of him then rolls me under him.
“Can you get out of this one?” he asks, smiling down at me.
“I could,” I tell him, throwing my arms around his shoulders. “But I don’t want to.”
