Edison (The Henchmen MC 10)

But then there was one thing in the room that I was not used to seeing there, a tall, fit, dark-haired, black-eyed, sexy as all hell Romanian man in a pair of black basketball pants and a black tee, looking silently intimidating just leaning against the wall.

Even with my silent footsteps, he seemed to sense my arrival, his head lifting, his gaze going right to where I was standing in the doorway, feeling the unusual urge to shuffle my feet under his penetrative gaze.

"Lenny," he greeted in that growl of his that seemed to shiver through my insides and rest as a heavy weight on my lower stomach that any woman would be able to call for what it was - desire.

Great.

Just what I needed.

To be all hot and bothered by a man whose hands were about to be all over me in a way that was definitely not meant to turn me on.

I shook off the thought, raising my chin a little. "I want to focus mostly on the pressure point application," I told him, figuring that it was my money, I should be allowed to dictate what I learned. "I have learned a bit of using the momentum against an attacker from my classes with Lo."

Lo was a woman I could see myself being friends with. You know, if I did things like nurture friendships, that is.

She was a bit older than me, but badassery seemed to seep out of her very pores. I had overheard someone say something about her running Hailstorm which I knew as some weird paramilitary camp up on the hill that looked a lot like some end of the world prepper's wet dream, but I had no idea what it meant to run it, what it was that Lo did outside of owning and teaching at the gym.

Whatever it was, I was sure she did it with her seeming practiced ease.

I had had classes with three male instructors, but not one of them pushed me anywhere near as hard as Lo did.

She had confided in me once that she thought my desperation to learn everything I could in such a short amount of time made it seem like I genuinely needed the knowledge, wasn't just dicking around and wanting to learn to be some badass just for the cred. She said that she had once been the same way. And she knew it was much more important for her to push me until I puked and bled than to have the person I was clearly trying to protect myself from do it to me.

I respected that.

No kid gloves.

Because not a single bad guy in the world would slip them on to deal with me.

Lo was a woman who knew the ugly of the world.

What she didn't know exactly was that I was part of that ugly, that I didn't need the skills to be able to defend myself against some big bad.

I was the big bad.

"We can do that, though I do want to make sure you have the momentum parts down as well."

Then, completely without any warning at all, he charged me.

One second, he was a still figure against the wall, the next he was somehow right in front of me.

I would say it was so fast that he blurred, but to be perfectly honest, he moved so fast that my eyes didn't comprehend the movement at all.

So when his open palm slammed into my shoulder unexpectedly, I couldn't think fast enough to move, letting the impact shove me back a foot before I could even plant my feet.

All my training.

All these months.

And someone could still get the better of me that easily.

You're not ready.

That was the voice inside my head, whispering its ugly, toxic thoughts, the kind of thoughts that would make it impossible to use my cool, calm, and collected mindset to keep me grounded, to let me win.

And that, well, that was fucking unacceptable.

Losing was not an option.

Getting pinned and killed myself was not in my plans.

I was not going to let one strike make me reevaluate my skills.

My feet planted, and I went ahead and gave the middle finger to being on the defense.

And I attacked.

Somehow, he seemed to anticipate this, deflecting my strikes with his same languid, loose ease, every muscle in his frame seemingly relaxed while mine coiled.

I landed a whack to the spot just under his clavicle, the thump a much-needed boost of confidence, even if his much larger frame didn't budge.

I cocked an arm back to swing, only to find my wrist encircled by one of his huge hands. My whole body was swung around, my back suddenly up against the wall of his front, one of his arms a vice around my waist.

The movement came from pure instinct, having been pounded in to me by Lo and one of her mountains of men from Hailstorm who she used as an attacker for me because, apparently, the move was better when your opponent was much larger than you.