Page 15 of Lethal Game

“No, but everyone laughs anyway.”

“Um, I’m not very good at that. If it’s funny, I’m going to laugh.” She’d been told her practice of telling people exactly what she thought was a vice rather than a virtue. Better he found out now than later.

He stared at her for a couple of seconds. “Are you always this...honest?”

She grinned at him. “Are you calling me an asshole?”

He banged his head on the wall behind him. “What did I do to deserve this?”

“You already answered that question. Answer mine.”

He sighed. “French literature.”

She couldn’t have heard that right. “What?”

“French literature,” he said louder.

“Really? Isn’t that one of the most useless degrees to get, a language fine arts degree?”

“Yes,” he snapped. “Yes, it is. Thank you for pointing out the obvious.”

He probably spoke French, and he said they liked their soldiers to speak multiple languages. “How many languages do you speak?”

“Why, so you can call me an asshole in all of them?”

She had to bite her lip to keep from laughing at his frustrated tone. “I only know English, so that’s unlikely.”

He muttered something under his breath then said, “I speak seven. English, French, German, Spanish, Arabic, Dari, and Urdu.”

He looked so irritated she couldn’t help herself. “Is that all?”

He gritted his teeth and said, “I’m a communications sergeant. I specialize in—”

“Communications?” she finished for him, coughing instead of laughing outright at his annoyance.

“I can use any gun, rifle, or rocket launcher ever made. I’m a qualified sniper and I particularly enjoy setting traps to capture or kill enemy personnel. I’m an expert in combat jujitsu and I’m an instructor for the Special Operations Combatives Program in hand-to-hand combat.”

Her bodyguard was a ninja. Nowthatwas interesting. She folded her legs and hopped up on her knees. The grin on her face felt...strange, but there was no stopping it. Here was an opportunity to learn something that might help her reach her goal. “So,” she began, trying to keep the excitement out of her voice. “Can you teach me some more self-defense moves?”

He bared his teeth in an expression that was even scarier than his blank face. “I don’t teach defense. I teach offense.”

There was a difference? “Oh.” Rather than feel threatened by his display, she found it...exciting.

“The contractor you work for failed to give youanyself-defense training?”

“I’m a specialist. They accelerated my intake.” She shrugged. “It wasn’t my idea to omit the training, but they wanted me onboard as fast as possible.”

He studied her with a frown on his face then said, “Is that the only reason?”

She sighed. No avoiding a direct question. “I have a chronic medical condition that would have kept me from getting into the military.” She held out her hand. “For example, I get some pretty big bruises sometimes.” She cleared her throat. “My skills, however, are desperately needed. As a contractor, I don’t have to have self-defense training, only operational training.”

He examined her hand, then nodded. “I can modify things so you don’t accidently injure yourself.”

“Awesome.” When had her breathing gotten so fast and choppy? No. She wasn’t... She didn’t think he was good-looking, did she? He was built like a tank, which should have scared her to death, but it didn’t. He didn’t.

He stared at her. “This is serious, Dr. Perry. Not a game or something you use to impress people. If you do it wrong, you can kill someone.”

“I’m taking it seriously, I just...” She stopped to try to find the right words. “No one has ever taken the time to show me that sort of thing. I never played sports in school because I was always years younger than my classmates. In college, I was so busy with my classes and other...” Summing up the weirdness of her adolescent years in one word was not easy. “Stuff. I never had any opportunities to learn how to do something physical.” Ha. Like her parents would have allowed her to do anything that might result in an injury, no matter how slight. “My spatial orientation isn’t very good, so I’d probably be terrible at martial arts, but I’ve always wanted to learn Tai Chi. It looks relaxing.”

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