by Tate James
Zed laughed. "Deal. Sequined nipple pasties and all."
I groaned. "Something tells me this is a bad idea... but you're on, De Rosa. I hope you've been paying attention to Lucas's moves because there's no way in hell I'm losing now."
He just grinned, his eyes on the road ahead of us. Smug fuck was so confident he could win. I might have to play dirty.
Leaning forward, I cranked up his stereo to eliminate any more talking. I wouldn't put it past Zed to try some psychological warfare to get into my head before we reached the range. I mean, I would have done the same, if not for the fact that right now it was likely to backfire on me.
We arrived at KJ-Fit half an hour later and parked beside Cass's bike. I squinted at it, then noted two helmets. Too. Freaking. Cute. I was actually devastated I'd missed seeing Lucas curled around Cass like that. Oh hell yeah, that was a mental image to file for later.
Zed gave me a knowing look, then led the way inside the warehouse, where we found a group of sweaty dudes standing around and EDM music booming from the speakers. It wasn't hard to spot what they were watching.
Above a thick crash pad in the gymnastics area, a shirtless Lucas hung from a wide bar, nine feet in the air, as he worked his way through a seriously impressive aerial routine, spinning, flipping, letting go, and catching himself over the horizontal bar like something out of the Olympics… which he had been training for. His muscles bunched and flexed as he smoothly transitioned through moves in time to the music, his face set with concentration and a ball cap somehow staying tucked backward on his head throughout.
I wanted to scold him for disobeying doctor's orders yet again, but at the same time I just wanted to stand there and gape at his skill—and his body—like the other spectators. So I just brushed past a couple of the guys who were calling out encouragement and glared up at him with my arms folded over my chest.
"Oh shit," Lucas muttered, locking eyes with me and knowing damn well he was in trouble. He swung around the bar a couple of times, then executed a flawless dismount onto the mat. "Hey, babe!"
Several of the guys watching had scurried back to their own workouts when they'd spotted Zed and I enter, but a couple were still standing around and gaped in shock at Lucas calling me babe.
Which he made worse by crossing the mat and stooping down to kiss me straight on the lips. Yes, I probably could have avoided it. But I didn't want to. I loved Lucas's free and easy affections. He didn't give two shits what my reputation said about me because he knew me.
"You're in trouble, Wilder," I muttered when he released my lips. "Where's Cass?"
"He's over at the range talking to some dude from his gang. Hey, did you know I'm a natural at the whole shooting thing?" He grinned, clearly proud of himself, and I gave him a suspicious frown.
"Sure you are, Gumdrop," Zed replied, clapping Lucas on the sweaty shoulder. "Come on, Hades, we've got a bet to settle." He said that last part loud enough to draw the attention of literally everyone within earshot, and I glowered at his back. Prick was deliberately drawing a crowd to try and throw me off my game.
"What's your bet?" Lucas asked, walking beside me as I followed Zed through the massive gym to the far door leading to the shooting range.
I cast another look at him, taking in the backward cap, the low-slung black sweatpants with sneakers, the bare chest—albeit marked up with scars now. Goddamn, he was gorgeous. "Uh, Zed and I are just having a friendly wager on who has sharper targeting."
Lucas's eyes widened, and his smile hitched wider. "Well, shit. This will be entertaining. What's the bet?"
I groaned. "Just trust me when I say you want me to win this." Not that I was insecure with my body or my ability to learn Maxine's routine—I was a decent dancer and confident enough to strip on stage—but I really wanted to make Zed do it. Just the mental image of him in a sequined G-string and nipple covers had me giggling internally.
We found Cass just inside the range, chatting with a tatted-up older dude cleaning a series of handguns on the table in front of him.
"Saint," I snapped, my voice cracking through the space. His head jerked up, his eyes meeting mine instantly. "A word."
He inclined his head in acknowledgement, then excused himself from the conversation he'd been having. His strides were long and lazy as he closed the space between us, his gaze predatory.
"Hades," he politely greeted me, like we were nothing more than professional acquaintances. He tipped his head, indicating we head through the fire exit door so we could speak privately, seeing as we had plenty of eyes on us already after Damn Zed announcing to the whole damn gym that we had a bet.
I waved a hand, telling Cass to go first, and I followed him. When we stepped outside, I pulled the door shut behind us to cut us off from everyone inside.
"You okay?" he rumbled, closing the gap between us and sliding one of his huge hands into the back of my hair. "You look tense."
I glared up at him but slipped my hands under his shirt to grip his waist and pull him closer. "I am tense," I replied. "I just found Lucas showing off his gymnastic skills in the gym and potentially messing up his internal stitches. I thought you were teaching him how to shoot?"
A dark, sexy look flashed over Cass's face, and he tugged on my hair gently. "I was going to."
"So what happened?" I asked, tilting my chin up. Fuck, I wanted to kiss him. When did I become so obsessed with this huge, grumpy fuck? When did he start smiling more? It was totally intoxicating.
"What happened at your venue? Seemed serious when you left with Zed." He gripped my hair tighter, brushing his lips over mine teasingly and making my whole body quake.
"Cass," I breathed. "Are you going to kiss me or just tease?"
He huffed a short laugh, then quit messing around. His lips coaxed mine apart, his fingers in my hair controlling my head as his tongue lashed against mine and his huge frame crashed me against the door.
I arched my back, leaning into him as he kissed me breathless, my short fingernails clawing at his muscular back as I lamented all the clothing between us.
"Christ, Red." He broke away from my lips with a groan. "You're the sweetest addiction, you know that?" He stroked his thumb down the side of my face, then dragged it across my lower lip. His dark gaze locked on my mouth, and I knew his thoughts were just as sordid as my own. The thick hardness between us spoke volumes, and I was so incredibly tempted to drop to my knees right there in the service road between warehouses.
"Raincheck this," I told him, reaching between us to squeeze his dick. "What happened with Lucas?"
Cass grunted but didn't move away. He just braced his forearms on the door to either side of my head and held my gaze steady. "Turns out he already knew how to shoot. He's no Zayden De Rosa, but he's sure as fuck no amateur. He knew exactly what he was doing—good stance, good grip, wasn’t affected by recoil like anyone shooting for the first time should be—until I handed him an unloaded gun. Either he’s a great actor or he’s never loaded a magazine. Strange as fuck, Red."
I wrinkled my nose. "He never mentioned learning how to shoot."
Cass arched a brow. "He says he hasn't, just that he played a lot of video games as a kid."
"Speaking of Zayden De Rosa," I muttered, "I made a bet with him. Any chance I can get you to cause a distraction when he shoots? I'm quickly losing confidence that I can win this."
Cass pulled back a few inches, his eyes widening slightly. "Oh, this is going to be interesting." He ran a hand over his short beard, a touch of a smirk touching his lips. "I'll see what I can do."
Flashing him a grin, I smacked a quick kiss against his lips. "You're the best, Saint."
He let out a low, primal growl and bit my neck slightly harder than teasing. "Don't you fucking forget it either, Angel."
Grinning, I pushed him away so I could open the door, and he took a second to adjust his pants to try and hide his boner before following me back inside the shooting range.
Zed was already chatting w
ith one of the staff as he set up two targets for us, looking relaxed as all hell. Shit, he'd totally played me.
"Ready, boss?" he asked with a confident grin.
I rolled my eyes. "Actually, I want to see Lucas shoot first. Our bet can wait a couple of minutes, right?"
"I'm not going anywhere," Zed replied, his voice loaded with meaning. "I'll wait as long as it takes... to win."
I scowled at him, letting him know I hadn't missed the double entendre, then waved Lucas closer.
"Alright, Wild child," I teased, "show me what you've got." I nodded to one of the fresh targets that had just been set up.
Cass handed Lucas the Glock that Zed had given him earlier in the day, and I watched him carefully as he handled it comfortably. There was no awkwardness in his grip and no uncertainty in his posture as he stepped into position.
I shot Cass a look, and he just raised his brows as if to say, See what I mean?
"Here," I said to Lucas, snagging a pair of earmuffs from a hook and slipping them over his ears. He gave me a smile of thanks, and I put a pair on myself before he took aim and started shooting.
As Lucas took his first shots, Zed's posture shifted, his spine stiffening and his attention more focused. Lucas finished and placed his gun to the side, then pressed the button to return his target for assessment. I doubted Zed was any more surprised than me to see the accuracy of his shots on the paper target.
They weren't perfect by any means, but they were good. Far too good for a first-time shooter.
"Lucas..." I tugged my earmuffs off and frowned at the hole-filled paper.
"I have no idea," he told me before I could fully formulate my question. "I swear, I've never shot a real gun before. Like I told Cass earlier, I used to be crazy obsessed with this first-person shooter game my uncle gave me as a kid. It came with a pretty realistic gun controller, and I got decently good at it." He shrugged. "This just seems super similar; that's all."
Zed and I shared a look at Lucas's explanation, and Zed ran a hand over his head. "What was the game?" he asked.
Lucas shrugged. "It was something with a futuristic or sci-fi vibe. Project X or Code Gray or something like that. I dunno. Why? You wanna get it to improve your rusty marksmanship?"
Zed glowered, and I bit back a snicker of amusement.
"If you think of the name, I'd like to check it out," I told him with a hand on his still bare chest. "Now, could you pretty please put a shirt on so I can beat Zed in this dumb bet?"
Zed scoffed a laugh, swapping out Lucas's target for a fresh one. "Oh, now it's a dumb bet, huh?"
I scowled in his direction. "Shut up and shoot, De Rosa."
From the corner of my eye, I spotted Lucas talking to Cass as he pulled his T-shirt on and Cass's vaguely surprised gaze flicking over at me. What in the shit were they discussing?
"Ladies first," Zed said in a quiet purr, indicating to the fresh target back in place at the far end of the room. "Best of three? Otherwise this will be over way too quick."
I narrowed my eyes, searching his face for whatever fucking tricks he had up his sleeve. As always, though, he gave nothing away. So I gritted my teeth and stepped up to the same place Lucas had just shot from. I still wore my high heels but didn't bother taking them off. I actually had better aim while wearing them because that's what I was used to.
Planting my feet shoulder-width apart, I slid my earmuffs back on and drew my Desert Eagle from my underarm holster.
Before I raised it to aim, though, Lucas brushed up against my back as he reached past me to grab his earmuffs where he'd left them on the little hook. I tipped one of my ear covers off slightly and gave him a curious frown.
"Sorry, babe," he murmured. "Left these here." His arm brushed mine as he leaned in closer. "Also, you look so fucking sexy right now all I can think about is bending you over this little bench and fucking you from behind." He whispered the sexy confession right against my ear, and an instinctual shiver ran through me, ending right in my pussy, which throbbed in excitement.
"Anyway, I'll let you get on with it," he said, brushing a kiss over my cheek. "Good luck, Hayden."
Crap. Hearing my name on his lips like that was such a fucking turn-on.
I swallowed heavily as I resituated my earmuff and focused on the target ahead of me. There was no real need for fucking around with lining up my sight and shit; this was all second nature to me now, just a simple matter of raise my weapon, aim, fire. Over and over.
When I was done, I placed my gun down, pulled my earmuffs off, and hit the button to return my target to me.
"Not bad," Zed commented, standing all up in my personal space as the target whizzed back toward us. "I mean, you're definitely a bit rusty. But I think we all are. We haven't been practicing anywhere near as much as we used to."
The mocking in his tone was so thick I wanted to punch him in the mouth. I wasn't going to bite, though. There were countless eyes on us from the viewing window on the side that led to the main gym, and even here we needed to maintain our professional, united front.
"Shut up," I muttered. "Your turn."
I pulled my target sheet down as Zed stepped up to his own alley and started firing almost instantly, not even taking a few seconds to get in the zone.
Sure enough, he won that round. Not by much... but a win was a win. Motherfucker.
We reset both our targets, and I stepped up once more. This time, Cass positioned himself right in my peripheral vision, leaning on the bench a couple of alleys down from where I was shooting.
I could feel the intensity of his gaze, and when he cupped his junk—seemingly just to rearrange the crown jewels—I simmered with annoyance. Those bastards had ganged up against me. Somehow, probably while I was outside with Cass, Zed had swayed Lucas over to the side of evil. And Lucas had convinced Cass. Those fuckers were trying to throw my concentration, and it was working.
My glower in Cass's direction told him I was well aware of what he was doing, but he just shrugged and gave me one of his sly, sexy as hell smirks.
"You gonna shoot any time soon?" Zed teased from my other side. "Pretty sure the range is due to close any minute now."
Flipping him off, I set my feet, raised my gun, and squeezed off a series of shots that already felt better than my first round. Thank fuck Zed had suggested best of three.
He fired his rounds while my target returned to me so we could compare them simultaneously. When we determined that I'd won that round—by the most miniscule of margins—Zed shot an accusing glare in Cass's direction.
"Don't blame him," I scolded him. "You should be trying to win on your own merits, not trying to derail me."
Zed arched a brow, then inclined his head. "Fair enough. Last round." He extended his hand, indicating for me to shoot once more. Except this time as I brushed past him to take my place, he paused me with a hand on my waist. "I'm really looking forward to seeing you on that stage, friend. You can't imagine the number of times I've pictured you taking your clothes off for me."
His fingers stroked over my stomach, somehow finding a sliver of bare skin where my blouse had come untucked, and I needed to clench my jaw to hold back the hyper-sexed groan that wanted to escape in response to that touch.
Fuck. He had me this time.
I stepped up to my mark, but my focus was shot to hell. All I could picture was what it'd be like to strip for Zed. Would he sit back and watch or want to lay his hands all over me as I danced? I knew he had an exhibitionism kink, but would he also enjoy watching me with other guys? Would he get hard watching me grind on Lucas? On Cass?
Shit.
We shot off our last rounds simultaneously, and our targets whizzed back to us just a split second apart. I only needed one glance at Zed's smug fucking face to know he'd won.
"Fucking hell," Lucas commented, inspecting the six targets all lined up on the table. "You two are insane. Zed won this by less than a millimeter. That's scary-perfect precision."
Cass gave a huf
f of a laugh. "There's a reason Zayden De Rosa was offered a place in the Guild, Gumdrop, and it wasn't for that handsome face of his."
Lucas's brows shot up. "You were?"
Zed gave an easy shrug. "I wasn't interested." His sly smile flicked over me. "Shall I let Maxine know to set up lessons, or will you?"
I flipped him off, then shot a glare at both Cass and Lucas. "You're all on my shit list today. You know why."
34
It was a couple of days later that I snapped. I'd been following through on my end of the dumb-as-fuck bet with Zed and was at a brutal dance lesson with Maxine when I got a call from Gen that I had been waiting on but dreading.
"They've denied your claims on all the cars," she informed me with regret in her voice. "The investigator is claiming you're the responsible party for bombing them all. The FBI has started looking into you as a suspect, and today they assigned an agent to tail you."
My fingers tightened on my phone, fury and frustration rippling through me. I'd already had Dallas try to pull any CCTV footage around the apartment that would clear me of the bombs, but everything had been wiped clean. Everything. Not even traffic cameras could support my innocence, and that in itself only seemed to incriminate me further. Especially with my neighbor as an eyewitness placing me outside the building at the time.
"Thank you for letting me know, Gen. Just be careful with your inquiries; the last thing I need is you getting dragged into this mess." My voice was underscored with clear anger, but I meant what I said. I loved that she was going above and beyond her job description—exactly as Demi had promised she would—but I didn't need to be responsible for her going to jail with me.
"Absolutely, boss," she replied. "This info came from an, um, old friend of mine. He won't tell anyone that I know, and the intel is solid."
I grimaced. "You're the best."
Ending the call, I tried to draw a couple of calming breaths to center myself before turning back to Maxine. "We're going to have to push this off a week," I told her with a grimace. "I have a feeling my afternoon is about to get bloody."
