CHAPTER 4
KYLE
“Again!” I barked, hating being so sharp with her, but we had all decided our girl needed to learn some self defense, and that meant I had been tasked with most of the training, since I was most skilled, with black belts in several martial arts. “And mean it this time Liv. You need to hit out like you actually want to hurt me.”
“But I don’t want to hurt you!” She snapped back, looking so damn cute with that scowl on her face. She was pissed with me. We had been training in the gym for over an hour, and I had done nothing but bark at her.
Just over a month had passed since the day Liv had crumbled at her parents grave side, and in that time she had recovered and gained back some of the attitude we had drawn out of her before she had been snatched. Her cast had been removed from her ankle a week ago and we had only started training the day before.
I was trying to teach her the basics, slipping holds, some simple attacks and how to throw a decent punch. I would move on to more complex methods once she had the basics, maybe even teach her some Krav Maga, but for now, throwing a punch seemed to be proving difficult enough for my little live wire.
“But if I was an attacker you would want to hurt me, so go again, and imagine I’m a bad guy.” I pushed. She gave me a death glare as she stood, righting the little t-shirt she was wearing with some yoga pants, so perfectly tight, that I was having to fight to stay focussed. She was looking less sickly these days, a little rosy tint to her cheeks, and just a little fuller in the face. She still had to be encouraged to eat, but we made sure she did, and it was helping. She had more energy and she was slowly, but surely getting a little stronger every day.
“Did I tell you yet, just how much I hate training?” She hissed, making me smile. I loved it when she got grumpy and snarky. I loved seeing her fire.
“You just did. Now stop pouting, adjust your stance and hit me like you mean it. Show me how pissed you are right now.” I goaded, and I saw it was working when her stance changed, her shoulders squared and her eyes lasered on my smartasss grin. Now she wanted to hurt me.
I stepped into her space as she moved her feet into the position I had shown her. She tucked her hand into a firm little fist, and pushed her weight onto her back foot, ready to brawl. The punch came fast, all of her frustration and anger in there as she launched her fist into my chest. She was small, so the impact was too, but she hit hard enough to push me back a little, and it was what I had been looking for from her. The hit had fire and intention behind it. It would be enough to knock an unsuspecting attacker back a little, to give her some advantage.
I looked up, as she turned from me and stormed to the side of the room where two bottles of water sat on the weight bench.
“Good. That was much better. You meant that one. That’s what I wanted.” I encouraged her as I followed. I thought she was still pissed with me, and I intended to apologise and make up now that the session was over, but when I got to her I realised she wasn’t facing away from me because she was mad, she was crying, silent tears running down her cheeks. I cursed myself in my head. I had been too fucking hard on her.
“Baby, I’m so sorry. I pushed you too hard, didn’t I?” I soothed, as I wrapped her in my arms and held her tight. She allowed me to hold her for a moment, then pulled away, and hurriedly wiped the tears from her cheeks.
“No…..it’s not that Ky. I mean yeah, you were kind of an ass, but I’m used to that.” She jibed, with a smile to soften her dig. I just rolled my eyes at her and waited for her to go on. It wasn’t like she was wrong. I was kind of an ass with her sometimes, but only because I was determined to do whatever I thought was necessary to keep her safe, and yeah, sometimes that may be a little extreme to her, but I refused to ever put her at risk again. “I just….I’m not sure I can do this. I hit you….my fist hit you, and all I could think…..was…..I….I don’t want to hit people Kyle! I don’t ever want to be like him.” The last part was little more than a whisper, but the words were powerful. She was scared hitting people would make her a monster, like the one who had hurt her over and over for eight fucking years.
I noticed the quake in her hands at just the mention of her kidnapper, and tears were once again running free down her beautiful face. I hated seeing her like this, seeing what just the memory of what she had endured could do to her. Clearly training her to attack was only going to make these memories come more, and I couldn’t allow that.
“You could never be like him, Princess. He was a monster. You don’t have a malicious bone in your body.”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t hit you, or anyone again…..I just can’t.” She was starting to get anxious, her breathing became more rapid and the breaths shorter.
“It’s ok. You don’t have to. We will only work on defensive moves from now on, slipping holds and gaining enough space for
