There were several reasons that Gourry had been hesitant to give Lina sword lessons. The fact that the difference in their skill level was so great that he didn't think he would be able to help her much was one of them. Another was fear over how it would impact their relationship, granted in that respect he had little to worry about. The threats against Lina were so grave that she did swallow her pride and was genuinely happy for his feedback. But the third reason was the physicality of it. And he had a hard enough time managing his urges for her when he wasn't touching her.
Fortunately the first thing that they needed to work on was drilling her tendencies to dodge to her left out of her and he didn't have to worry about touching her. He could just poke her with a stick! But now? They had progressed to attacks. And her stance was all wrong.
"Wait," he said as he walked behind her and wrapped an arm around her to fix her posture and…it was hard to think about swordplay. It was hard to think about anything other than pulling her back to him so that he could spoon with her, pull the hair from her neck and nuzzle against it, let his hands roam her body…
She will fireball you out of existence! He reminded himself as he took a bracing breath, "Like this and then move your hip…" he said as he put a hand on her right hip and resisted the temptation to flex it as he guided her to where it needed to go. But the feel of her hip beneath his hand was enough to take his breath away and it took him a moment to finish, "there."
He stepped back before she could become aware of how aroused he was getting as he took a steadying breath. This wasn't about romance. It was about helping her to stay alive.
He tightened his hand around the stick he was using to train with and moved in front of her and fell into a defensive stance. She took a moment and then she came at him. He brought the stick up to parry the blow and she came around for another and as he was about to deflect it she dropped to the ground and attempted to kick his legs out from under him.
It was a good move. Not exactly an orthodox or even an honorable one, but given her size it was definitely to her advantage. Still, he jumped and moved to intercept the blow she had waiting as he touched ground, the force so strong that he knocked her over, landing on top of her, their mouths just inches apart.
She exhaled, her breath warm and inviting on his face as he was confronted with an overwhelming desire to kiss her. With a tremendous force of will he moved off her and held out a hand to help her up, "Sorry."
"I'm fine," she said amiably and, was it his imagination, or was there a spark in her eye? "Damn, I gave it all that and you still blew through it."
He couldn't resist putting a hand on her shoulder, "Hey, you're not going to find a lot of people at my level. And with Zuma gone there's one less of them. And your magic is more potent against a demon than your sword fighting ability."
She nodded as Gourry become more convinced that she wasn't mad or discouraged as she bumped hips with him and slapped his lower back companionably and…dare he presume that this was some sort of flirtatious play? "Still, given that I'm going up against Gaav I'm going to need every advantage I can get. One more time!"