Right Behind You

Chapter Twelve: Billy

"Do you still think I'm the best?
I think about you a lot
I be so much out my head
I don't know how to make it stop
I think I just hit a new low
My momma don't know that I smoke
I can't keep my head above water
I just might buy me a boat."

-Billy (Tobi Lou)

Kae:

"Harder!" Andrei's commanding voice drove me to land another punch to the already battered punching bag. My knuckles hurt from all the force that I was putting on the bag, but at the same time, the feeling brought me a sense of comfort. For some reason, hitting something at full force helped me release any kind of anger or anxiety that I had built up inside of me.

I wondered if that was the reason why Andrei remained so calm and collected all the time; just spending afternoons here going at a bag, laying all your worries and frustrations on it really neutralized your emotions.

"Good, you are improving, Kae." Andrei nodded in improvement as he watched me lay another series of punches on the bag. I could feel my fists throbbing but, it felt so addicting to keep punching at the bag, I could go forever.

Andrei had been secretly training me now for a couple of weeks now, we would always do it at night since it was the easiest for us with him working late nights and me finishing up patching men around that time as well. Today, unfortunately, he wouldn't be able to do a nighttime session with me because he was heading out of town again. We decided an afternoon session would suffice since Alexei was out handling other business. It gave us enough time to get some lessons in before he came back.

I wasn't quite sure why we were being so secretive, but I preferred others not knowing about what we were up to so we didn't draw attention to ourselves.

Andrei held his hand up and commanded me to cease punching the bag which I did unhappily. I wanted to have a couple more goes at it, but it seems he had other things in mind for me today.

I waited patiently for Andrei to walk over to me which he did. I couldn't help but notice the slight glisten of his shirtless body as it reflected off the pure sunlight pouring into the sparring room. Andrei was really fit, his body almost seemed rock-hard; it was also quite intoxicating to see those tattoos sprawled over his body as well. From afar, he could be a dangerous man, but I was quite intrigued by his polar opposite personality.

Andrei stopped just shy of where I was standing and looked at me intently. "If I was an attacker what would you do to me?" He asked suddenly.

I was caught a bit off-guard by his question. Our training sessions mostly consisted of him teaching me how to punch, kick, block, and evade any other movements an opponent my lay on me. He never gave me a situation or scenario per se where I had to react accordingly.

"If you were an attacker?" I asked him curiously.

He didn't wait for my answer, his body moved with the stealth and smoothness of an assassin and not a minute later did he have my hands tied behind my back along with his hands around my throat. He wasn't pressing hard, but there was enough force telling me that if this was real, I would be done for.

I squirmed a little under his body feeling his heat silently mix with mine.

"Don't be scared, I'm giving you an example." He whispered to me.

I nodded and focused intently, not wanting to curl into a pathetic ball like I had done so many times whenever Camden had me in a similar position such as this.

"I want you to breathe deeply and think of where all my limbs are at this moment." He explained to me calmly.

He wanted me to focus on his limbs?