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even happen. “Harder this time.”
    She didn’t hesitate at all this time, and the stick thwacked solidly against the pad, right in the center of his forearm.
    “You’re a natural,” he said. “Again.”
    She was so beautiful like this—determined and focused, coming right at him with purpose and force. She was stronger than she looked, and comfortable enough in her body to use every ounce of that strength against him.
    “You’ll be a hell of a fighter if you stick with this,” he said quietly, after she’d hit him again and come back to the ready position.
    “Don’t just say that,” she said, breathing hard.
    “I don’t lie,” Dale said, a little offended. “I wouldn’t just say something like that unless I meant it.”
    “But I’m not—” Now she looked uncomfortable, shifting a little from foot to foot. “In shape.”
    She probably meant that she was curvier than the current fashion for stick-thin models. Dale wanted to tell her she was gorgeous, but that wasn’t what she was asking about. “You’re more in shape than you think you are,” he said instead. “You’re not weak by any means. And that’s not what I meant, anyway.”
    “What did you mean?” She relaxed a little.
    “You have a good sense of where you are in space,” Dale said. “You’re precise in your strikes, and you hardly ever put a foot wrong. It’s much harder to learn that than it is to build up arm muscles.”
    Her cheeks turned pink. “Thanks,” she said, and immediately changed the subject to, “Should I keep practicing the strike?”
    “I think you have it down,” Dale said, “although you should definitely keep practicing on your own, until it’s second nature. Maybe next week we can work on trying it on a moving target. For now, maybe we could practice a little of what Lynn taught you to do? She’s a great teacher, but one thing she’s not is a tall man.” Lynn usually had him come into a few of her class sessions to play the attacker, anyway.
    “Sure,” Sam said. “We mostly worked on what to do if a guy comes at you from the front.”
    “Let’s do that, then.” Dale set himself up in a stance opposite her again. “Ready?”
    “Ready,” she said, and he came up to her, moving in to grab her shoulder.
    She had a hand up and going for his eye almost faster than he would’ve been able to block. “Good!” he said, stepping back. “Try again.”
    This time, he was prepared, and when she went for his eye, he grabbed her wrist.
    She twisted it around like Lynn would’ve shown her—but at the same time, her heel came gently down on his foot.
    He let her go. “That’s impressive,” he said. “The hardest part of all this isn’t learning the moves, it’s putting them into practice at speed and with a real opponent. I wouldn’t have expected a new student to be able to use two moves at once like that.”
    She nodded. “That’s what Lynn said. That we have to practice these over and over again, because otherwise we won’t remember how to do them in a real fight situation. I’m sure if you were a real attacker I would’ve had a harder time.”
    “Even in a practice situation, that was better than most people would’ve done,” he said. “Good job, honestly.”
    “Thank you.” She was blushing again.
    “Let’s try some more,” he said, trying to avoid making her uncomfortable.
    The problem was, the moves that Lynn went over in the very beginning classes involved him getting up close into Sam’s space, trying to grab her or push her against a wall or knock her to the ground.
    And Sam was flushed with exercise, her hair curling around her forehead and her chest heaving as she breathed, and Dale had to keep getting in close to her, touching her wrist, her shoulder, her hip, her neck…
    It was good he was used to maintaining control over his body, was all.
    Finally, he put her down onto the mat and had her try to get away. He’d thought about skipping this move, because it involved