“No.”
Pressing my lips against his neck, I drew circles against his skin with the tip of my tongue. “No? Not even a little?”
“Maybe.”
“Just think what it’d feel like to see me shoot one, to stand behind me and feel me pull the trigger, Val. All that power. All that force squeezed in the palm of my hand.”
Another groan and a shudder, and I knew I had him.
Grabbing his pants at the foot of the bed, he shoved one leg in before moving out of my hold. “Get dressed.”
“Take a strong stance and a firm grasp.” Val stood behind me, and kicked my feet apart wedging his knee between my legs. “Hold the gun on your target. You want to let your finger barely touch the trigger and let it go limp.”
Snickering, I rolled my chin over my shoulder. “You, um, want it to go limp?”
“Very funny.” Smirking, he pointed to the cans he’d set up on wooden posts in a field outside his house. “Now, turn back around and focus.” Obeying, I extended my arms again like he’d shown me. “Now, I’m going to cover your hold and pull the trigger with you.”
With experienced precision, he held us both steady and shot accurately, blowing the can off the post in one shot.
“Wow,” I breathed, genuinely impressed. “You’re good.”
“You have no idea.” He grinned.
Through two more rounds, he shadowed me, instructing me on stance and follow-through. Finally, through enough whining on my part, he stood back and let me try it on my own. The first time, I was crushed to realize I’d shot a migrating bird. Val laughed at my devastation, asking how I planned to shoot a man if I broke down over random fowl. Pissed off, I shot again, effectively deflating his tire.
“Eden, let’s just call it a day. I’d like to keep my windows while I still have them.”
I’d failed at most everything I’d ever tried. I’d be damned if I was going to fail at this. That can was a dead man.
“Don’t be a smartass, Val. Smartasses sleep alone.”
“Always with the dick threats.”
“Use what you know.” Sighing, I gave him a pleading look. “One more time, okay?”
“Fine,” he agreed, palming his neck. “One more, and then I have to get ready to leave.”
If I couldn’t show him I could hold my own, no way would he let me leave with him. I had to make this work. “I can do this.”
“Sure, you can.”
The condescension in his voice boiled my blood to a level of wanting to turn his nuts into fertilizer. It didn’t help that he stalked behind me like a hungry lion, just waiting to go in for the kill. My hand shook as I tried to focus on the target, his pacing form distracting me out of my peripheral vision.
“Can you stop doing that?”
“As you wish.” Sidling up behind me, he molded into my back, his chin settling into the crook of my shoulder. “Better?”
Rolling my eyes, I aimed the gun. “Much.”
“Do I make you nervous?”
“No.”
“If you go with me, there’ll be distractions all around you, Cereza. Bullets could be flying from all angles, men shouting, and chaos erupting like you’ve never experienced.”
As his whispers broke into hoarse rasps, I bit my lip to keep from laughing. “Do I make you nervous, Danger?”
“No, you make me want to hold you against the fence and bend you over.”
My body temperature rose with the morning sun, and my palms became sticky against the grip. Squinting, I focused all my attention on the silver can sitting on the post.
“Shoot,” he whispered in my ear.
With calm composure, I squeezed the trigger, hitting the center of the can and knocking it off the post and across the lawn. Shocked, I lowered the gun and turned my chin excitedly over my shoulder. “Did you see—”
The rest of my words ended up in Val’s mouth as he crushed my lips with a bruising kiss. Grabbing my hips in a strong hold, he shifted our combined weight as he turned us against the fence, taking the gun from my hand.
“Hold on.”
“Val, someone will see us.”
“No one’s here,” he mumbled, his lips in my hair. “They’re all gone into town. I want you—now.”
My heart rate picked up as he ruled my body with an expert touch. I couldn’t hold back a lust-filled moan as his fingers released the button on my shorts, working them down my legs until they pooled at my feet.
A clang of metal and material rustled behind me while he fumbled with his own pants. Fire lit up every inch of my skin as his hand trailed up my spine, urging my head down as he pulled my hips back. “Whatever happens later, I need you to remember one thing,” he whispered hotly against my ear.
“What’s that?” I groaned.
In a surprise move, his fingers dug into my skin as he drove into me, the unexpected invasion tearing through me in a heated possession. Screaming, I threw my head back, at the same time his fingers wrapped around my throat.
“You belong to me.”
With unreserved intensity, Val plunged into me, each thrust claiming more and more of my identity. Intense friction drove me to the brink of insanity, my fingers slipping from my hold on the fence, only to be slammed back onto it by Val’s.
“Yes,” I moaned over and over until the word garbled in my throat, and I splintered apart in his hands.
A layer of sweat glistened between us, as with a roar of my name, he released a lifetime of fear into me, his body jerking with power.
Rolling his forehead onto my shoulder, he lowered us both to the ground, cradling me in his lap. Without hesitating, he enveloped me in a protective hold, his nose disappearing into my hair. “What have you done to me?”
Shifting in his arms, a glaze hovered in his warm chocolate eyes before he focused on the clouding sky. “What do you mean?”
One arm tightened as the other folded underneath his head. “I don’t need anyone, but I can’t breathe if your scent isn’t in my lungs. I can’t focus if your fire hair isn’t in my sight. I can’t enjoy a meal without your taste on my lips. I can’t hear if your voice isn’t fucking yelling what an asshole I am, and I can’t feel unless your skin slides under my fingers. So, yes, Cereza, what have you done to me?”
I fought the smile that threatened my lips. Lifting my chin, I whispered in his ear, “I’ve strengthened you.”
He arched an eyebrow and peered down at me, waiting for more.
“I’ve given you something else to live for other than anger and revenge. Just like you’ve done for me. I should hate you, Valentin Carrera. I should take your gun and put a bullet in you.”
He stroked my cheek. “Then, why don’t you?”
I glanced down at our entwined hands, the gravity of the words on my tongue constricting my chest. “I think I’d sooner stand in front of one for you.”
With my head laying against his chest, I felt the catch in his breath and the rumble in his throat as he admitted the words in the language meaning the most to him. “Te amo, Cereza.”
A tear slipped from the corner of my eye as I nodded. “Damn you, Danger. I love you too.”