RARE (THEROCKAFELLABOYSSERIES#1)

Self-Defence

Zoey Kagel

We have a private room in the hotel gym to ourselves for an hour. We arrived in Edinburgh around midmorning and Luke is on edge. I know being in his home city is doing something bad to his mental health, so I do my best to appease him by punching the heck out of the heavy bag dangling in front of us from the ceiling. 

Luke is behind me, guiding my fists when the land in the middle of the leather bag. "It's so heavy. What is the point of this?" I puff, exhausted and sweating.

"You need to learn how to defend yourself," he says, eyes focused back on the bag. 

When I'm no longer moving, he looks at me impatiently, sighing as he lays his hands on my shoulders to turn me around. "There's too many risks around us. If it's not my crazy sister, it's a desperate woman trying to hurt me by hurting you with sex tapes. And don't even get me started on the press." 

I don't utter another word, knowing him teaching me these moves is calming his worries. And, however hard it is too admit, he's probably right. The madness seems to be growing by the day. I want to ask him if he thinks things will get nastier, but can't find it within myself, so punching the bag seems like a better option. 

"Keep your stance even, Zoey," he tells me, bending to pull my feet where they are needed to get a better punch.

I watch him rise from the huge wall mirror in front of me, appreciating the roundness of his backside in those loose shorts. He must sense my stare, because he rubs my back as an encouragement to keep going. 

The heaviness of the bag sends a sharp sensation all the way to my elbow, prewiring me to the muscle soreness I'm going to experience tomorrow. I walk back a few steps, shaking out my hands to press up against his hard body. 

It's pretty clear by the heaviness of his breath on my neck, his ideas have changed, but I push on, a small sense of relief finding me at learning the moves to defend myself. Luke is shaking his head, rounding me so we're eye-to-eye. 

"The most effective self-defence tools are your elbows and knees. If it's a woman, go for the chest, and if it's a guy, go for his balls," he says, proceeding to show me an elbow strike.

"I carry pepper spray most places. And I can handle a gun," I let him know and the shock spreading across his face is real.

The muscles in his arms flex as he slams his bent elbow down, to the sides and in front of him. I watch a few more times to pick up the motion before giving it my best shot. I'm doing something right, because he's shouting all the encouragements at me. 

"Feet firm, baby," he says when I skid to the side from the force of my movements. "And eyes on me."

My chest heaves, but I keep bashing every invisible obstacle as Luke does the same. A bubbling of anger firing inside my belly at all the arseholes making it so we have to even be doing this in the first place. 

Luke growls as his arms shake violently, sweat glistening all over his tan skin and wetting the grey vest. When his knee slams upwards, he growls louder, turning to strike it into the punching bag. A world of troubles simmer in those blue eyes. Way more than he's let me in on. 

It forces tears to surface in mine and I blink down to the floor so he doesn't see, keeping up on the crippling elbow strikes. It feels selfish with everything he's going through. When my attempts to stop the tears from leaking out and it dribbles down my cheeks, I know he's spotted them. 

"Why are you crying?" he asks, panicked as he halts his movements to storm closer. 

I wipe my face frantically, but he's grabbing my wrists to stop me. "I'm fine, it's nothing."