Chapter 143 - Inseparable

Daphne

I never would have considered a night at a shooting range to be a hot date, but Nash had proven me wrong.

A pistol was a weird gift to give a girl, but at the same time, it was quite touching. He wanted to give me the gift of protection and self-defense. He wanted to make sure if he was ever not around, that I had the means to defend myself. It was… surprisingly sweet and thoughtful. And the fact that he’d chosen purple just made me laugh.

I can’t get away from purple.

The shooting range was a surprise too. Sneaking into an old barn to find out there was this whole shooting gallery and training area inside was bizarre. I felt like I’d stepped into a spy movie or something.

Handling the gun was scary at first. Even when I knew the magazine cartridge was empty, I was afraid I was accidentally going to set it off. But Nash was a patient and proficient teacher. By the time I stood up to the table and took aim, I wasn’t scared anymore.

Maybe that had more to do with Nash standing behind me, his warm body sending reassuring zings of heat and electricity into my back. The ear protection muffled the noise of the shots, but I could still hear them, each one making me jump a little on the inside. I wasted a lot of bullets before I finally got a feel for it, and started to hit the target.

Of course, Nash made it look so easy. He squeezed off shots in quick succession and drew a straight line down the victim, from the forehead down to his heart.

I’ve never cared for guns. I always thought guns were for cowards and weakling humans who had no other means to fight. But watching Nash squint down the sights on his pistol, standing strong, relaxed, confident, I realized that it was hot. I was starting to appreciate why a lot of women fantasized about soldiers and policemen.

Then again, maybe it wasn’t the gun. Maybe it was just the man. I think he could have been holding an icecream cone, with his face so intense with concentration and I would still have been wet with pure desire. I’d missed him, I’d missed his touch, I’d missed the feel of him inside me, stretching me, filling my core.

I was so close, so close to just telling him to lift my skirt and have his way with me. But then I had a flash of Louis… pour Louis, on his big lonely bed… and I had to pump the brakes. For a moment, Nash looked p.issed. I don’t think he was angry at me, or even at Louis. He was just frustrated with the situation. But he did a good job of recovering the moment. We crawled around on the floor picking up the spilled bullets that we had knocked down, and then we played on the military-style obstacle course that took up the other end of the barn. I tied my skirt between my legs so that I could climb the cargo net up to the ceiling, swing on thick ropes, and army-crawl under barbed wire. It was dusty, dirty, sweaty fun, and the whole time there was a constant undertone of sexual energy, every accidental and purposeful touch like the most excruciating, never-ending game of foreplay ever.

How long were we going to keep this up? How long before one of us went crazy with desire?

When my stomach started rumbling with hunger, we cleaned up our mess, turned out the lights, and left the strange secret shooting range on Old McDonald’s farm.

And no cows were harmed.

We climbed back into the jeep, and stowed the pistols safely under the seat. Nash had apparently pulled some strings to get me a permit for my gun, but he said it would be less complicated if we just kept them well out of sight, just in case we got pulled over by the local police.

And for our romantic, first date dinner, he took me to a little family-run diner, with vinyl booths, and an old-fashioned jukebox playing music from the sixties. “I’ve never been here,” Nash confessed as he opened the door. A little bell jingled to announce our arrival. “But I was told they have the best burgers.”

“Staple diet of Nash Turner,” I joked as I slid into the booth. It was probably just as well we had a table to separate us. If I had sat beside him, the temptation would have been too much.

“Hey, I’ve been eating all those fancy meals at the château,” Nash said, flipping open the laminated menu. “I’m developing a grease deficiency.”

I shook my head, “I don’t know how you can eat what you do and still look like a Greek god.”

He grinned like a little boy who had just received an unexpected compliment. Nash didn't smile often, but when he did, it practically melted me into a puddle. “You think I look like a Greek god?”

I rolled my eyes and scanned the menu. “I hope you brought your wallet, Turner, because I worked up an appetite.” And not just for food. Judging by the way his dark eyes glittered, I think he was well aware of the particular appetite that I was barely repressing.

A few minutes later, the waitress, a tiny older woman with a helmet of grey, curling hair, arrived with a heavily laden tray, which she unloaded onto the table in front of us. Thick, juicy burgers, golden crispy fries, frosty milkshakes in tall glasses, onion rings, fried cheese sticks, and, because Nash insisted the baby needed “something healthy”, a side salad.

I laughed at his attempt, and doused the salad in creamy dressing, cheese and croutons. “I’ll eat healthily tomorrow.”

We exchanged friendly banter over our meal, but I realized that, somehow, Nash had managed to avoid all the personal questions. I learned that he was an only child that was raised by a single mother. He didn’t know his father, and didn’t care to. He gave me a few sparse facts, but nothing that I could really sink my teeth into. He didn’t tell me what his mother was like, he didn’t tell me what it was like growing up, he didn’t tell me anything about where he went to school, or what he was like as a man.

“Why did you join the military?”

He stopped chewing, and I realized we’d never really discussed his military career. I knew what I knew because I’d read the file that Louis’s investigators had compiled. I held my breath and waited.

“My life was going nowhere,” he said gruffly. “I thought it would give me some direction.”

“And did it?”

“Yeah, I guess you could say that.”

The question I really wanted to ask was why his military file listed him as dead, killed on active duty. But something in his expression warned me to tread lightly.

He sucked in a breath and looked me square in the eye. “Being a soldier is the only thing I’ve ever been good at.”

“I don’t believe that,” I said, but I could tell by the look on his face, that he believed it. “Clearly, you’ve got a good head for business, you’ve been running a successful company. You must be a good leader, because you have a team of people working for you that are loyal, that trust you.” I reached across the table to lay a hand over his. Probably a mistake, as just that simple, casual contact started the heat rolling through my stomach. I licked my lips. “You are good at a lot of things.”

“Daphne,” Nash groaned, pulling his hand away. He pushed his empty plate toward the edge of the table for the server to collect and then sat back. “What I’m trying to say… maybe the reason you ended up with two of us, is because I’m not good enough to be your mate.”

I picked up a French fry and threw it at him. “First of all, that’s just stupid. Second of all, you’ve got the dynamics all wrong. Again. I didn’t “end up” with the two of you, as you say. You ended up with two of us.” I picked up another fry and popped it in my mouth.

“Which makes zero sense,” Nash said, plucking the fry I had launched at him off his shirt and tossing it back on his discarded plate. “I’m just a human guy. Why on earth would I end up with two supernatural creatures?”

I looked at him closely, his eyes such a dark color of brown that it was hard to separate the pupil from the iris. His face, perhaps a little too angular to be classically handsome, but still, I wasn’t the only woman who stopped and stared when he stepped into a room. His strong jar was always darkened by stubble, even an hour after he had just shaved, and those long, curling lashes. He was tall and muscular, leaner than my brothers, but plenty strong. He was handsome. And he smelled so good. I'd never met a human with a scent like his before.

“Nash, maybe this is none of my business… maybe it’s a sensitive question. But you said you don’t really know your father… have you ever considered that…”

A muscle ticked in his jaw, and he looked away, out the window into the dark parking lot. Or maybe he wasn’t seeing the cars, but seeing his own reflection in the darkened window. “Maybe he wasn’t human?” Nash finished. “Yeah, I’ve considered it.”