Deadly Testimony (13 page)

She was more interested in the police reaction to the finding.

“I’ll look forward to the findings along with the rest of the information I requested.” She slid off the stool and stood.

Nguyen offered his hand. “Working solo isn’t easy. You have to sleep sometime. What do you do with him when you do?”

A few choices images popped into her head.

“I’ve considered several options to keep him secure.” It was all she would admit to Nguyen.

“If you change your mind about backup, let me know.” A wry smile spread across the federal marshal’s face. “But I hear from Safeguard that you do well on your own.”

She shrugged. “I’m alive.”

Nguyen’s smile broadened. “Exactly.”

He might be complimenting her. It wasn’t something she was proud of.

Chapter Fourteen

“What are you doing?” Lizzy’s voice was a hissed whisper.

Kyle hadn’t heard her return at all. A feat, considering the way most hotel room doors eased close with a rather loud click. Then again, exercise was his form of meditation in many ways so maybe it wasn’t so much of a surprise that he’d stopped paying attention to his surroundings. He completed his set with two more push-ups and stood to face her. “Exercising. Again. What else is there to do in this room?”

A pause. There were several possible answers to his question and the sight of her expressions as she obviously thought through some of them made him grin. He was standing in nothing but his boxer briefs, after all. The rose flush rising up on her cheeks was incredibly intriguing.

The open vulnerability lasted only a moment, then she recovered and scowled at him. “Pants.”

Not a response he’d anticipated. But then, it was part of why he enjoyed her company. He raised an eyebrow at her. “Excuse me?”

“From here on out, you need to be wearing at least pants.” She stayed rooted where she was, back to the door with her arms now crossed.

Other women did it with calculated intent to enhance what assets they had. When Lizzy took on the posture, it indicated a completely different attitude and seemed generally the time to cede with prudent haste.

The pants he had on the bed were his suit pants. They’d do for the time being but he’d probably wear sweatpants the next time he chose to work out.

He picked up the pants then turned to her, holding them loosely in one hand. She might make the decisions when it came to his safety, but in this, he was going to point out the ridiculous. “I have limited clothing and I doubt you’d want to allow me to make use of the hotel’s dry cleaning service. I thought it best to minimize the need for laundering by working out in my boxer briefs. At least these, I can rinse in the sink as a minimal effort to keep my clothing somewhat less soiled.”

An exasperated sigh let loose and she dropped her arms to her side. “Point taken. It would still be a lot better if you had pants on.”

A momentary pang hit him, right where his pride should be. Normally would be. But he found with Lizzy, all sorts of things were amusing he’d never noticed before and other quirks of hers were endearing where he would normally be grinding his teeth and posturing for control of a situation. She spun his perspective around and set it off-kilter.

And here he was, sure he was considered an attractive male to most women of the interested orientation, hurt because Lizzy wanted him to put his pants on.

Or...

Want and prefer could be two very different things. In fact, one tended to be more honest than the other.

While Lizzy had been quite brutally candid and straightforward with him from the very beginning, he was getting the impression she tended to avoid it with herself.

“We are two grown adults, to the best of my knowledge.” He watched her carefully as her eyes strayed back to her laptop. It wasn’t just that she was dedicated to her work, he thought, it was a refuge for her. Especially from things she didn’t want to pay attention to. Like him. “Is it really that much of a distraction for me to be walking around in my boxer briefs? Surely your teammates and you have done the same in certain times of rest.”

Her lips pressed together, pursed, as her gaze remained on the laptop.

“Dare I ask whether most of the men you work with wear boxers or briefs?” His amusement was leaking into his voice now and he didn’t bother to hold it back. She wasn’t angry with him. If anything she was giving way little by little, her shoulders relaxing almost imperceptibly. “Or do they go...commando?”

He might even see the corner of her mouth lifting. Maybe. A tiny bit.

This was not the time to be jealous. He had no reason to be. Wasn’t sure if he wanted one. But pondering whether her teammates wore underwear or not wasn’t having the intended outcome in his own damned brain.

He’d really prefer to consider what she tended to wear. Or not. “Do you go commando?”

Temper sparked in those chocolate-brown eyes and she glared at him. “Seriously?”

Inordinately pleased with having succeeded in baiting her, he took a step toward her. “Hard to know what a person prefers under their clothing.”

She might be counting to ten under her breath. “Not a good idea to go without under a combat uniform. Foundation garments are key.”

“For comfort or for practicality as well?” He hadn’t expected her to play along with this line of conversation but he was delighted. Discussion with her never seemed to go where he thought it would.

Her eyes narrowed. “Both. Especially for women. A good bra helps in a lot of ways on an active day.”

He could imagine too much, and the way she was staring at him just about dared him to make an ill-advised comment regarding her mention of a bra. No. The both of them could take unexpected turns in conversation. Keep things lively.

“When you’re not on assignment protecting people, what do you do to keep up your level of fitness?” He’d honestly been curious in any case.

“I work out every day,” she admitted, her tone wry. “Even on this assignment I did a modified workout while you were showering.”

He was sorry he’d missed it.

“Why?” He could guess, but knowing her, he had a fifty-fifty chance of being incorrect.

She rolled her shoulders, possibly to ease strain across her back. “I prefer to work out alone unless I’m doing hand-to-hand drills.”

If she’d been one of the normal type of companions he spent time with, he’d have offered a massage. The suggestion was not likely to be received well in this case.

“When you mention drills, do you mean sparring?” Now there was something very interesting. Better than doing all too familiar exercises over and over again.

Her gaze fastened on him. “Serious sparring would be a bad idea. No pads, no mats.”

Kind of her, to not mention her potential level of skill as compared to his.

He gave her a nod, partially in thanks and partially in acknowledgement. “You are the professional bodyguard. More than that, you have more experience in dangerous situations. I was more curious about lighter timing drills. A more good-natured way of learning about the skills each of us might have.”

A hint of a smile played around her lips, much more than previously. “Generally, I don’t practice with anyone outside of Centurion Corporation.”

“It would seem a limited practice.” He tossed his suit pants back onto the bed behind him. The topic had been dropped and he didn’t want to put them back on until he’d had a shower.

“You’d have a point there, but I also prefer to let a potential opponent guess about what I can and can’t do.” She paused. “I was itching for a fight the night we met. I’ll admit it. It’d been a long workday and it’s frustrating to be irritated at people all day. The men hounding you gave me the perfect excuse to let off some steam.”

“You have my sympathies.” And he meant it. “Letting off steam is exactly what I was trying to do when you returned.”

Too much thought. Too much worry. Too far out of the structure of the comfortable life he’d decided to leave behind.

After a moment, she eased her backpack off her back and set it on the floor against the wall. “You asked about sparring. What experience do you have with martial arts?”

He grinned, tension inside him giving way to anticipation. Yes. This was good. “I practice
Gongkwon Yusul
, a sort of Korean hybrid martial arts form.”

Her right eyebrow rose as she regarded him with more interest than he’d seen yet. “Unusual.”

“It’s a more modern martial arts system,” he admitted. “Comparisons could be drawn to Western mixed martial arts in the way it combines traditional techniques. My instructors have repeatedly stated that it emphasizes the application of striking, locking and throwing. A practical, free-flowing response in unexpected fighting situations. Good for self-defense.”

Practical as it was, it also maintained traditional philosophies such as respect for others and personal development. It’d given him a constructive outlet for the rage he’d nursed in his younger days.

He hadn’t appreciated tradition as much as the variety when he’d first started. “I started in my youth and continued practicing the drills when I came to the US. No instructors were available as I was completing high school and college. Besides which, my uncle couldn’t have afforded paying for it. Practice alone was all I could do. I find it to be a learning opportunity when I can spar with someone else.”

Lizzy pushed away from the door and took a step toward him. “I haven’t studied this Korean martial art.”

“You, I imagine, have mastered many arts though.” He held his hands out, away from his sides, palms up. “I could learn all sorts of things from you.”

She snorted. “Timing drills. Fine. Not full-contact sparring. We don’t have protective gear and it’s too easy to do too much damage.”

He raised his eyebrows but nodded. Timing drills took better control in any case. It was more about speed, precision and, of course, how well timed a move could be. Besides, you could learn quite a bit about a person working with them in this way, like dancing. And he was finding with every minute spent in Lizzy’s company, he wanted to learn more about her.

“First,
pants
.”

* * *

How did the man make baggy sweatpants look sexy?

It was both better and worse than the sight of him in snug-fitting boxer briefs. She’d always been a fan of boxer briefs in general. Much better than tighty-whities. Occasionally she’d enjoyed the sight of a man in loose boxers but too often, the freedom of boxers let way too much hang loose to peek out at the world at inappropriate times.

Kyle stood before her now, with pants on, his posture loose and relaxed. She put her hands up to guard. “We’ll start slow, see where this takes us.”

He gave her a nod and a sign of respect, then got his guard up.

A big part of timing drills or sparring was to know your partner well enough and eventually trust them to be able to block the strike or kick you were putting out there. Otherwise they ended up hurt and you ended up with too short a workout.

So she started out easy. Light jab, slow cross. Soft hook to the body, followed by another slow cross. He blocked each with ease and responded to the combination in kind.

Nice. Maybe one of the easiest ways to start out a drill. He moved smoothly and echoed her combination with the confidence of someone who recognized it for what it was.

She added in some footwork, leading them in a dance within the confined space of the hotel room as they traded light strikes back and forth. Her blood started flowing and her muscles warmed up. It felt good.

As she threw another cross, Kyle changed up the game by trapping her wrist in a move she hadn’t seen before.

“Not bad.” She recovered and caught his own follow-up strike in a move of her own, twisting as she did to throw him off balance.

Warm-ups were over and it looked like they were both ready to have some fun.

“You have been going easy on me.” Kyle’s words came smoothly, with no sign of overexertion.

She wasn’t surprised though. He’d been keeping himself in good shape. Conversation during a workout was one way to monitor your partner’s status. If they were breathing too hard, overheating and out of breath, then it was time to slow down and cool off.

But Kyle’s breathing was good. Even though a healthy, fine sheen of sweat was starting to show across his brow, he was most definitely ready to up the intensity.

So she did, adding in a low kick to force him out to medium range and following up with an outside slanted kick to the thigh. She was careful to make it a tap and not a real kick.

He ended up taking the second kick rather than dodging, but he’d zoned to his right to reduce the force of the impact and threw a punch to force her to block instead of going for what would’ve been his momentarily weakened leg in a real fight.

“Nice,” she admitted it. Only a few minutes in and he was showing better sense than most.

They picked up the tempo, exchanging hand strikes interspersed with kicks as they circled each other in the small space of the room. They kept contact light but increased the intensity and speed as they went.

He was good, clean, keeping his guard up and his movement efficient.

“You tend toward defense.” She jabbed to force him to guard his handsome face then drove a knee toward his belly.

He only managed a partial block and grunted as her knee contacted with his abs but otherwise shook it off without a problem, driving an elbow toward her throat.

“My training is mostly for self-defense.” He huffed. She was making him work for it now. “And I find I get too hotheaded when I go on the offense. I make mistakes.”

“Fighting safe can be wise.” Sometimes. She’d give him that. Not always though. There’d been places, times, when speed and decisiveness meant she and her team survived. “And it’s fine for stuff like this. But let it go on too long and you’re more likely to lose.”

He shot a low kick at her and closed the distance faster than he’d done so far, lashing out with a right cross. His longer reach gave him an advantage and it would’ve been a great move if she hadn’t been expecting it.

As it was, she slipped to the side just enough for his punch to whisper past her face. Then she raised her shoulder, pushing her cheekbone to her shoulder to capture and tuck his fist against the curve of her neck.

Kyle started to pull back in surprise.

Perfect.

She stepped forward inside his guard and put her left foot behind his right. Seeing her coming forward, he instinctively tried to step back and get his guard back up.

Nope.

She caught his ankle in an
ashi harai
, driving him backward and down toward where he expected his foot to be bracing his back-step. Tall as he was, he relied on his solid stance to keep his footing too much.

Instead, she threw her right arm up between the two of them and quickly swung it around in an exterior loop to place his still-retracting arm into an under armpit lock. He lost his balance and toppled, taking her with him. Which was fine.