Chapter 37

I stomped back toward him and held out the gun, doing my damnedest to look bored. It felt like I fell about a mile short when he took it from me, released the clip, and made an overexaggerated show of loading each bullet. When he was finished, he slid the clip into place and handed it to me.

Without a word, I stormed back, trying to pull up every gun fact I could recall. Fatal shootings, gun violence, gun laws; plenty of those sprung to mind, but not one useful tidbit about what the hell to do with a gun. Wait! The gun would have a safety on it. I needed to remove the safety or the thing wouldn’t fire. All right, that was something.

I turned to face the target, surreptitiously glancing at the gun in my hands, searching for what might have been the safety mechanism. Next to the trigger was a small circle, like a button. That had to be it.

I pressed it then wrapped both hands around the gun and raised my arms up in front of me. I couldn’t believe I was really going to do this. A week ago, I’d been a veterinarian who was more likely to take part in a march against gun violence than fire a gun in some stupid shooting range. But here I was, and there was no way Mr. Al Pacino over there was walking out of here with that smug look on his face. I would slap that look off of his face if I had to.

I focused my attention on the target in front of me—jeez, it seemed really far away—then squeezed the trigger.

The crack of the gun went off like a thunderbolt in my ears. I flinched at the sound.

When I’d recovered enough to squint at the target, I wanted to curse even more. Not a mark. The bullet hadn’t even grazed the outer edge of the target. Shit. Shit. Shit.

I could feel Dominic’s eyes on me, but there was no way I was going to look at him. I didn’t want to see the stupid smug look on his stupid face.

Instead, I stared at the target and raised my arms again. You got this, Moore, I pep-talked myself, ignoring the fact I wasn’t going to be a Moore for much longer.

One breath. Two. Three. I squeezed the trigger, prepared this time for the earsplitting crack, but the bullet made it no closer to the target. Damn it.

“All right, Annie Oakley,” he teased, coming to stand behind me. “How about you let me teach you before you end up shooting me by accident?”

“It wouldn’t be an accident,” I muttered under my breath.

I remained still when he moved in closer. So what if I wasn’t an expert marksman? I’d spent my adult life trying to help things, not hurt them.

When he positioned himself right behind me, his arms on either side of me and his chest pressed against my back, tingles shot through my whole body. And it seemed with him standing so close, he was using up more of the oxygen in the room, making me work harder for every breath.

He leaned in closer until his lips were right next to my ear.

“Breathe with me,” he whispered, and the sound traveled right through me, settling low in my abdomen.

I closed my eyes and tried to do as he said, focusing on the rise and fall of his chest against my back and breathing in tandem. But it was difficult when I could feel the gentle exhale of his breath against my neck.

He reached out from behind and repositioned my fingers on the gun, making it sit more comfortably in my hands. His fingertips grazed mine, I could feel the roughness of his thumb as it smoothed over mine.

“Just focus.” His voice was a whisper, releasing my hands. “Now… fire.”

As if my hands had been trained to obey him, I squeezed the trigger, trying to ignore everything but the target far in front of me.

A loud crack. The recoil that shot my shoulders back hard into his chest.

I did it! The bullet landed far from center, but I could see the small hole right through the paper, maybe eight inches off from the bull’s-eye in the middle.

Forgetting myself entirely, I whooped in triumph.

“You did it,” he said, hugging me from behind and making me forget all about the target. There was

only the heat of his body. The feel of his powerful arms around me. His warm breath against my neck. “Do it again,” he said, letting go just enough so I could reposition my stance.

I tried to focus through the haze of heat that was wrapped around me. It made my muscles weak despite the coil that was winding tighter in my core.

“Do it,” he whispered, breathing warm air against my neck.

I squeezed the trigger, and the bullet found its mark, a little closer to the bull’s-eye this time.

Instead of celebrating, I leaned back harder against him, searching for his lips. I wanted to feel them against my ear, my neck.

“That was better,” he breathed. “With enough practice, you might be almost as good a shot as me one day.”

As good of a shot as him? He was an expert shot, wasn’t he? How old had he been the first time he’d held a pistol? The first time he’d fired a shot? The first time he’d killed a person?

I surged away from him as a sharp shiver charged down my spine like my spinal fluid had been replaced by liquid nitrogen.

“All right, Annie Oakley. It’s my turn,” he said, stepping in front of me.

“Don’t call me that,” I hissed, just as frustrated with my body’s own response to him as I was with the man himself. “I have no interest in being an expert at killing people.”

He turned to look at me with his eyebrow raised. “You might have no interest in going on a citywide killing spree, but I guarantee that the day you’ve got a gun pressed to your skull, you won’t have any qualms about killing the motherfucker.”

He spun back around, raised his gun in front of him, and emptied his whole clip straight through the bull’s-eye.

“Contrary to what you seem to think, I’m not a cold-blooded murderer,” he said, holstering his gun. “But I won’t die—or let the people I care about die—just so I can pretend the world is full of fucking sunshine and rainbows.”

“I never said you were—”

“I know what you think,” he snapped. “Your eyes give you away every time.” He took the gun from my hand and returned it to the case on the small table.

I had no idea why I felt like crap when he was the one who killed people and did God only knew what else.

“I’m sorry,” I said through gritted teeth because it was absolutely insane that I was apologizing to the Undertaker.

“No worries, limone,” he said, shutting the case and flicking the clips into place. “I think that’s enough training for one day. We should go.”

I followed him out of the room, back through the reception area to his car. He opened the passenger side door for me without a glance, but as I slipped inside, he caught my wrist and pulled me to him. His lips were on mine before I could make sense of what was happening. Warm and firm, he tasted like coffee with just a hint of scotch. I didn’t know what it was about the combination, but it never ceased to draw me in, to make me want to delve deeper.

Heat coursed through my veins, lighting a fire between my thighs as his tongue slipped between my lips, gliding along my tongue.

This was wrong. Some part of me knew it, but I was just so tired of caring.

I grabbed onto his shoulders as he released my wrist and took hold of my hips.