Roman drops to his knees, releasing me in mere seconds before falling forward and catching himself on his palms. “Holy fuck,” he grunts, blowing out his cheeks before slowly letting out a slow breath. “That wasn’t part of the plan.”
I cringe, feeling a little sorry for the guy, but then, he also held me down and tortured me so there’s that. “Sorry, I panicked,” I tell him. “But at least I got free, right? That’s cool.”
Roman shakes his head. “Not. Part. Of. The. Fucking. Plan.”
“You have no one to blame but yourself,” I tell him, pride swirling deep inside my stomach at being able to evade one of the famous DeAngelis brothers. “It felt too real. You didn’t tell me you were going to start dragging me away. I wasn’t prepared.”
“What can I say?” he grunts, “Dragging unsuspecting women around by their throats is one of my favorite things to do. I got a little carried away.”
I shrug my shoulders. “Innocent mistake,” I tell him, eager to keep going. “Get up. Let’s go again.”
Roman holds his hand up and waves me off. “Levi. You’re up, man. I just need a minute … maybe two.”
I turn to look back at Levi and he scrunches up his face. “You’re not going to nut punch me as well, are you?”
“Who knows? It’s all part of the thrill, don’t you think?”
Levi sighs and steps in closer. “Fine,” he says, his tattoos peeking out from the neckline of his shirt, daring me to bite them. “But we’ll try something different. We’ve got a lot to cover.”
The next hour flies by with the boys teaching me everything they know about evasion techniques, but to be completely honest, they’re a bit rusty as they’re not usually the ones who need to do the evading. Roman and Levi show me what they want me to do, sometimes demonstrating on me and other times using each other. Only when they use each other, there’s a subtle brutality that goes with it that tells me their normal training sessions are anything but gentle. Every now and then, Marcus throws his two cents across the room, and because he’s not standing here in front of me, the boys swiftly ignore it for their own advice, which only serves to infuriate the devilish god across the room.
As time ticks by, it gets easier to focus, easier to accept the feel of their touch on my body and their general closeness. Only that all goes to hell when Roman comes at me with a surprise attack, grabbing my body and throwing me down to the soft-fall training mats. My back slams flat against the ground and he comes down on top of me, his weight pinning me to the ground.
A terrified scream comes tearing out of me before I even know what happened, and after a short moment, I will myself to breathe. “Not going to hurt you,” he reminds me, his dark eyes unapologetically piercing into mine, demanding me to focus. “Get yourself free.”
Swallowing hard, determination crashes through me like a wave and I give it my all, fighting him off me as he holds me down, his skill way too advanced for my limited knowledge. Had we been out at a club and he’d been an attacker with less than respectable intentions, I would have been fifty shades of fucked.
He doesn’t ease up and I hear Levi close by, instructing me on what to do as Marcus roars from across the room giving me conflicting demands. Frustration quickly weighs me down and my moves become sloppy, slow, and predictable.
Hopelessness floods me and just when I’m about to tap out and admit defeat, the two massive wolves come bounding through the open door of the training room. They race toward me, their ferocious snarls echoing through the room as they bare their teeth.
My eyes bug out of my head as they run with lightning speed, barely giving me a chance to scream before they’re surrounding us. “Fuck,” Roman grunts, pulling himself up higher and curling his arms around my face, keeping me buried beneath him and protecting me from their vicious attack, certain that these wild animals have finally cracked.
I hear Levi moving in closer as the wolves’ snarls continue. They come in by my head, standing over me and as Roman slowly pulls up off me, his brows marred with confusion, I realize that it’s not me the big wolves are snarling at. It’s Roman, and fuck, they’re not happy about the way he’s holding me down.
Roman pulls back off me, raising his hands to show his innocence and as he gets up, the wolves move forward on either side of me, forcing themselves between me and Roman.
“The fuck is going on?” Marcus questions, somehow now right by my side. He grips my arm, and despite his injuries, he’s able to tear me right up to my feet in one swift move.