𝐇𝐨𝐦𝐞┃ Anthony Lockwood┃2┃

Chapter Forty Eight - Practice Makes Perfect

"Sure." She coughed out. "If you want. Unless you have something else that you would prefer to do."

Lockwood stepped further into the basement, emerging from the shadowy corner. "I'll help you. Fetch that rapier again and show me your stance. We'll start from there."

Nola did as she was told, and picked up the offending rapier from the stand once again. She clutched the ornate hilt in her right hand and held the weapon outwards.

"Well, I've sourced the first problem. You're holding the thing like you're going to use it to thwack a piñata, not engage in combat." Lockwood hummed.

Nola frowned, before huffing in Lockwood's direction. "I'm holding it how I'd hold any other rapier! You're the one who picked this godforsaken thing!" She cried out defensively. She knew she was a good agent; it was clearly the rapier's fault. "You must've picked the chunkiest ones they had in the store!"

"I did, yes." Lockwood nodded along as he spoke. "Here, let me show you."

Lockwood smoothly approached Nola, rolling up his shirt sleeves as he went. He ended up standing behind the girl, his figure looming over hers.

"The first thing you want to do is widen your stance." Taking his right foot, he nudged each of Nola's swiftly feet with the side of his shoe, causing them to shuffle outwards underneath her weight. "You've got to keep your frame sturdier at the bottom to balance out the weight of the sword."

Nola nodded swiftly. She was thankful that Lockwood was standing behind her at that moment, considering her cheeks had flushed to the colour of the half-eaten Royal Gala apple on George's desk. "Okay. Wider stance. Got it."

"Next: loosen your grasp a little. You're clutching onto the hilt as if you're going to club someone with it." Lockwood placed his hand on top of Nola's, prising her clasping fingers away from the hilt. Nola felt said fingers fizz at the contact of Lockwood's thin and slender hand upon her skin. "Those delicate little fingers need to hold the sword gently in order to keep the weight balanced. Got it?"

Once again, Nola nodded. This time, her eyes scrunched up as she paced her breath. "Mhm, mhm. Got it. Gentle."

"The last thing is your posture. Your body is not remotely in line with the sword." Lockwood's voice had become a deep and husky whisper in Nola's ear. His face was mere millimetres away from her face, her lips, her hair, her neck... "Your chest and your waist need to be aligned with one another. Here, like this." Lockwood's nimble fingers soon caressed the curves of her hips. The hips of which he loved so much. The hips of which he had rambled to everyone about. George, Holly, Flo, even the Skull had heard him amble on about them.

Nola couldn't help but melt at the proximity. Her breath hitched in her throat as she felt Lockwood's body press against her back. Her lips were beginning to part as the bottom one trembled, and her heart was thrumming so hard in her chest that she was anxious that it was audible. Her legs felt as though they had wasted away, and her arms were beginning to resemble the same consistency of gelatine. As Lockwood's breath grazed the skin of her delicate neck, goosebumps danced upon the surface, and her rapier arm lowered.

"What are you doing?" Lockwood asked, his voice deep and commanding, as it always was. "Is practice over?"

Nola could feel the hairs on the nape of her neck stand on end. Lockwood's hands remained anchored to the contours of her waist, and it didn't appear that they were planning to let go. "What are you doing?" She breathed.

Lockwood smirked. Seeing Nola so flustered by him provided him with a sense of joy that he was not aware he was capable of feeling. "I'm teaching." His voice was gravely. His hands, of which Nola often thought were crafted by God, soon traced from her waistline to her wrists. Within seconds, he had spun her around, so that the two flushed faces were inches away from each other. However, he soon frowned.

"What's that face for?" Nola asked. "Is my posture still not good enough?"

Lockwood's jaw had grown taut with tension. His bright, dark eyes were narrowed and serious. "Your pulse is rather quick, James."

Nola's eyes rolled. "Well, yes. There's a reason for that."

Lockwood swallowed, his eyes never leaving Nola's. "Never again."

"What? What do you mean 'never again'?"

"Never again will I let you go. How could I let you fall through my hands? I should've held onto you when I had the chance." He said with a breathy voice. For the past four months, Lockwood could do nothing but lie awake at night, dreaming of the girl in black of whom he had lost. He could do nothing but simply imagine her so close to him, so flustered by him, so infatuated by him. After all, he had let her walk away from him, so what else was he to do but imagine?

Nola looked up at Lockwood's tall frame through her eyelashes. She knew she shouldn't be in the predicament she was. She knew she shouldn't be chest to chest with him, her wrists bound by his slender hands. She had left his company to protect Lockwood, and she knew that being so close to him at that moment was not doing so. However, how could she resist?

How could she resist the fascinating character who, instead of being deterred by danger, got excited by the mere smell of it. Who didn't mind risking his own life as long as he got the opportunity to savour every moment and do something that left his footprints in the sands of time. Who most certainly had a superiority complex and usually acted in haste by jumping into the battlefield without taking the necessary precautions. Who showed Nola what a home was. Who showed Nola what a family was. Who loved Nola with every fibre and being that made up his entire body.

She knew she shouldn't, for Lockwood's sake, but how could she help it?

Lockwood's eyes were fixated on Nola's as if by glue. Every time he looked at her, at her innocent green eyes and her pillowy lips, he felt one of the many padlocks constricting his heart drop away. He knew that she was the only earthly being that could fill the cavern in his soul that Jessica had left behind. That his parents had left behind. He knew that without Nola, he would simply be the empty shell of a hollow boy. "Never again." He hummed.

He would kiss her, right then, after everything she'd done. After everything they'd done. Nola believed that she was poison, and that Lockwood was the antidote drug that would make her forget it.

He bent back her head across his arm and kissed her, softly at first, and then with a swift gradation of intensity that made her cling to him as the only solid thing in a dizzy swaying world. His insistent mouth was parting her shaking lips, sending wild tremors along her nerves, evoking from her sensations she had never known she was capable of feeling. And before a swimming giddiness spun her round and round, she knew that she was kissing him back.

"Oh, finally. It's about time."

Lockwood and Nola sprang apart in shock, only to find a grinning Holly Munro standing at the bottom of the basement stairs.

"Come on." She smiled. "Time to go."

Lockwood and Nola shared a bashful glance.