Page 51 of Born a Queen

She rolled her eyes at him. "Yeah and look how that ended."

"What I'm saying is, you had training. You challenged me, if only for a few seconds. That doesn't happen. Very few people, especially women of your size, are able to challenge me." He ran a hand through his hair ruffling it, obviously frustrated with the direction of this conversation.

Raina waved her hand dismissively in the air. "I caught you by surprise. You didn't know I'd taken any self-defense training. You probably thought you had an easy mark."

He nodded, pointing at her. "Exactly. I thought you would be an easy pick up, and you did take me by surprise. No one takes me by surprise."

She was beginning to get where he was going with this. Cautiously, she asked, "Are you asking for a rematch? Because I haven't exactly been honing my skills in case you hadn't noticed when I got shot in Italy."

"I'm not asking for a rematch, little girl," he said, with some amusement. "I'm looking to teach you a few things. In case anyone else ever tries to grab you. You take them by surprise, the way you did me. Only, if you're attacked again, you take them by surprise, you take them down, and you kill them."

She stared at him in consternation. She hadn't considered that he might want to teach her how to fight better. It shifted the way she viewed him. It was like he didn't care if she used her skills to fight him as long as she survived any other potential attack. That knowledge was something she didn't want to examine too closely. It fit with the apparent devotion he was showing toward her. She didn't know how to deal with it.

"You spend half the time watching what I eat in case it tips the delicate balance of my kidney health, yet now you're proposing to teach me how to fight. You don't make any sense to me," she challenged him, pointing out his contradiction.

Instead of defending himself, he said, "No, I don't imagine I do make sense to you. Not yet anyway."

"What does that mean?" she demanded, hands on her hips.

But before she could get an answer, he was lunging for her. She let out a shriek, flung herself to the side, gripped his elbow and tripped him. He didn't go down. He was too skilled to go down, but he stumbled and it took him a second to turn around and face her again. When he did, a grin was spread across his face, as if to say I told you so.

Raina clapped a hand over her mouth. She hadn't meant to do that; it had been automatic. Muscle memory from all those self-defense classes.

"Well done," he praised, striding back toward her. "Now, when I attack you again, this is what I want you to do – "

Raina had a surprisingly good time learning combat tactics with Mateo. He didn't just teach her self-defense, he taught her how to finish an opponent if she needed to. How to make sure the attacker stayed down so they couldn't grab hold of her again.

Over and over Mateo would attack and she was forced to go on the defensive. She learned different ways to throw her hands up, to lunge, to kick, to use dirty tactics to take an opponent down.

By the time they finished, she was laying on the ground, heaving for breath and grinning broadly. Mateo, who was standing over top of her, dropped to the ground beside her. She looked over at him. He had barely broken a sweat, whereas she was practically dripping. Still, he looked satisfied, pleased by her performance, which lit a small fire inside her. She didn't want to become his trained monkey and actively resisted his orders so that she could retain her independence, but deep down, she liked it when he looked at her like that, as though he felt pride in her.

"Again?" she asked, inviting him for another round.

He rolled over onto his hands and pushed himself up in a push-up, his biceps bulging against his T-shirt, threatening to tear the seams. He sat back on his heels and held a hand out to her. "Again."

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