“Just point and shoot, Ember. You know how to do this.” Cerberus nods toward the target he just finished setting up again for me.
I’ve shot guns before, but it’s been a long time, and I guess you can say I’m more than a little rusty. I barely hit the targets the first two times, and nicked it the third.
“Easy for you to say,” I gripe and glare up at him. He’s not the one embarrassing himself by not shooting the targets right.
Cerberus comes in behind me, his arms glide along mine, and curl around my wrists, lifting them. He dips down enough to whisper in my ear. “Relax. Breathe. Shoot.”
His voice, deep and smooth, sends tingling sensations straight between my legs like it used to. Like it did this morning when he woke me up.
Taking a breath, I relax my stance and pull the trigger, watching where I’m aiming. The bullet hits. Not center, but it was closer than what it had been.
“Good girl,” Cerberus murmurs against the shell of my ear. “Now, try it again. Aim slightly to the right.” He guides my wrists just the barest amount and lets me go. “Shoot, baby.”
I do as I’m told, aim, pull the trigger, and watch where the bullet hits. Bam! Right on target.
“Holy shit,” I utter to myself. I can’t believe I hit it where I did. Right in the center.
“See, you did it,” Cerberus murmurs, coming back in, wrapping his arm around my waist. The heat of his body presses against my back. “Now, do it again.”
A chill goes down my spine. Not in a bad way.
“Why are you doing this?” I ask rather than following his orders. Lowering the gun, I put the safety on and tilt my head back to meet Cerberus’s gaze. “Why are you making sure I know how to shoot?”
“I want to make sure you can handle a gun. You need to be carrying with you. Never depend on someone to protect you all the time. You gotta be able to protect yourself as well. One way to do that is knowing how to handle a gun properly and where to aim. You need to be able to aim to wound and kill.”
Kill?
I didn’t want to kill anyone. I don’t think I could.
“I don’t think I could kill anyone,” I whisper.
“None of us want you to have to do that, baby, but it doesn’t mean there won’t come a time when you need to know how to do just that.”
“But—”
“No buts, Em.” He interrupts me before I can say another word. “With all the bullshit this club’s gonethrough in the past several years, the danger that has surrounded the women of the club, I’m not taking chances. I want you to be able to protect yourself as well as be protected. You never know what shit will go down.”
What he says makes sense, and I like the fact that he wants me to be able to protect myself.
“Okay,” I find myself saying without thinking of anything else to add to it.
“Now, let’s do it again,” he states, his fingers coming to stroke my bottom lip briefly. “I want you to get three more hits, then we’ll move on to something else.”
“Something else?”
“Yeah.” Stepping back, he smirks and jerks his chin toward the target. “Safety off.”
Why do I feel like those two words have more meaning behind them than they should?
“Are you serious right now?” I look over at Cerberus like he’s grown two heads. “I can’t do that.”
“Yeah, you can, baby.” His lips tilt upward, the panty-melting grin of his sliding into place. “No, I can’t. Never, not even when I was younger, did I ever play paintball. I don’t know how.”
“It’s a simple concept. Like hide and seek, but when you see the other person, you shoot them.”
Oh God. He’s nuts. Totally out of his mind.
“I can’t play in what I’m wearing.”
