Page 37 of Taken By the Vampires
“Don’t forget she needs to eat lunch, Xander. Regular meals, remember?” Davon said.
“I will take care of her.”
He left the room. I forced my feet to follow him through the corridors and down two flights of stairs. “Where are we going? The dungeon?” The air was certainly getting progressively cooler the lower we sank.
“Just the cellar. We converted it to a gym. The other rooms weren’t large enough.” Xander opened a door at the base of the steps and I walked into a brightly lit room that would be the envy of many professional gyms.
I walked to the center of the room and spun around, taking in the fitness equipment— weights, mats, thick, knotted ropes strung to the ceiling and in a far corner, a squared off fighting space. “Do you guys take fitness classes here?”
“This is just for us. When you live so remotely, you need something to entertain you.”
I turned to see Xander staring at me. He hadn’t bothered to even hide it. “I hope I’m not your entertainment.” He could crush me like a bug down here, if it amused him.
A hardness, almost a sadness, swept over his face before he managed to cover it as though it had never happened. “Entertainment presumes that it is fleeting and quickly forgotten. You, Ella, would never be mere entertainment.”
Oh. I turned away, moving towards a treadmill. “Want me to warm up on this first?”
Xander turned the machine on. “Only to warm up your muscles. I don’t want to wear you out too soon. I have other things in mind for that.”
I concentrated on moving one foot in front of the other, consciously not watching Xander when he stripped off his tank and began his own set of warming up exercises.
The man had a body of a god. I nearly lost my footing when I became mesmerized by the interplay of muscles along his long, lean limbs. There was an otherworldly grace about him I couldn’t quite pin down.
I forced my eyes on the distance display on the treadmill and tried to shut him out as best I could. It was difficult, considering everything he said I took as a sexual innuendo, which only increased my awareness of him. Because if there was one thing I did know, if I didn’t hold myself in the strictest of control I was going to disgrace myself and set myself up for more rejection.
Chapter Twenty Six
“So, what are you going to teach me?”
Although he’d warmed up, he hadn’t cracked a sweat, while I’d walked half an hour and was already perspiring like crazy. All of that muscled perfection needed a lot of energy to get hot, I guessed.
“Some hand to hand combat,” Xander said.
“You make it sound like I’m going to fight a war,” I said.
“Your safety is no light matter. If any of these skills give you an edge, then you will use them. I will not allow anyone to harm you, Ella.”
I eyed his lean chest, packed with streamlined, chiselled muscle. “If I looked like you, I think I’d have a better chance.”
A small smile played on his sensual lips. “Your body weight doesn’t matter. I’ll show you some techniques that will be effective. The secret is to know what to use and how to use it properly.”
“How do you know these things?” I realized I didn’t know a lot about them. Xander may have been a soldier or a fitness trainer. I had no idea. I was caught walking a fine line of being uncomfortable and placing my innate sense of trust in a man who could eat me for breakfast if he chose.
He shrugged a shoulder. “I’ve had training. And years to hone my skills. Now, have you finished delaying?”
I guess it was now or never. He wasn’t going to let me leave the room after a stroll on a treadmill. If there was one thing about Xander, he said what he meant. I wasn’t going to leave without some sort of defense tactics, whatever they may be.
I nodded, my mouth drying. “May as well get this over with.”
His lips quirked again. “Good. Now turn around. I’m going to attack you from behind and I will show you how to deflect hands around your neck.”
I turned and he came so close behind me that his body heat washed through my clothing. He scraped my hair aside, the strands lightly brushing my neck. Goosebumps broke out over my skin and my whole focus centered on the man I couldn’t see behind me. “I don’t think potential attackers will take the time to play with my hair before they abduct me.”
He pressed his lips on that sensitive place between my neck and my shoulder and inhaled. His nose grazed my skin and he inhaled once more. His body stilled, preternaturally so.
My skin prickled as a rush of awareness crashed through me, and yet, like any good prey, I stilled so that the only thing moving in my body was my heart and the blood it pumped. I barely dared to breathe, as if moving would somehow allow Xander to pounce.
A long moment passed. He shuddered, as though it had taken him a great deal of effort to stop whatever he was going to do. Disappointment, along with a healthy dose of fear poured through me.
