Drawing The Line by Kimberly Kincaid Page B

play it so he can get his hands on you.” Jason lifted his palms casually, and Serenity waited for him to gesture her into the next part of the lesson.
    But instead, he wrapped both hands around her arms and had her back against his chest in less than a breath.
    “Oh!” Her lungs seized and went into lockdown, heart slamming against her breastbone so hard, Jason had to be able to feel it against the arm he now had angled snugly over her torso.
    “It’ s all about action and reaction, Ms. Gallagher,” he said, his breath hot as it curved into her ear. “So what are you going to do?”
    E ven though it clicked in the back of her mind that this was part of the drill and that Jason would never really hurt her, Serenity froze. “I…I don’t know.”
    “Well the first thing you need to do is relax.”
    Right. And next she could do backflips all the way across the area rug. “Are you kidding me?” She let loose a sardonic laugh. “Look at my circumstances here.”
    “I am looking at your circumstances. If you freeze up, you’re not going to be able to react. Just because I’ve got you doesn’t mean I’ve beaten you. Unless you let me.”
    Jason’s voice was so calm, so laid-back and reassuring that she was able to scoop in a breath, then another. “I don’t want to let you.”
    From over her shoulder, she saw his smile from her peripheral vision as much as she felt it next to her skin. “Good. Now think.”
    While his hold on her wasn’t particularly rough , the intense cedar scent of his closeness filled Serenity’s nose and threatened to short out her senses, and the feel of his lean hips snug against her back sped up the passage of air to her already taxed lungs.
    Nope. No way. It might be the ugliest escape in the history of self-defense, but she could do this. Gathering her will, she squeezed the muscles in her belly as tight as they’d go and tipped her pelvis forward, thrusting back into Jason’s body with the resulting momentum. He hitched in surprise, and hot adrenaline clashed with pure instinct in her veins. Serenity used the split-second distraction and the space it had created to her advantage, jerking one foot from the floor to try and sidestep his grasp.
    But the heavily-soled heel of her kitchen clog smashed directly onto Jason’s bare toes instead.
    “ Crap! I’m so sorry!” She yanked the offending limb back off the carpet as Jason exhaled in a sharp grunt, but the move— combined with the arm he still had wrapped around her— turned her footing into toast. Serenity threw her hands out in an effort to regain her fading balance, but with all the furniture moved well out of grasp, the only thing within distance was the person she was tangled up in.
    And they were about to take one hell of a carpet nap.
    Serenity braced for impact as her only remaining shred of equilibrium kicked out from under her. But at the last second, Jason arced her around with a swift twist, his body firmly beneath hers as he hit the floor and she landed straight in his lap.
    Oh God. Oh God .
    “No. Just us. But you sure as hell are a force of nature,” Jason rasped on a groan, and only then did Serenity realize she’ d blurted the words out loud. She lifted her head from the spot where she’d intuitively buried it in his shoulder, pressing her palms into the thick nap of the rug to push up and scan his face and upper body.
    “I am so, so sorry. Are you okay?” Serenity leaned back in, skating one hand from his temple to the smooth line of his jaw, checking to make sure there were no obvious injuries to his head. Everything looked intact, and his gorgeously blue eyes were wide open and alert.
    “Yeah. I’ll live.” He blinked a few times without the suggestion of seeing anything, and oh God, she’d maimed a police officer with her total idiocy. “And don’t be sorry.”
    “I smashed your foot into the carpet and knocked you all the way to the ground,” she protested, but Jason reached out to capture