Hush - Fighting Fate #2 (42 page)

He frowned at me. “What’s wrong?”

“You’re wearing too many items of clothing, that’s what’s wrong.”

He grinned, his eyes twinkling like I’d never seen before. They were beautiful. “I’m taking you out, so you need to eat and get dressed.”

Inhaling slow and deep, I sighed. “Can’t we just stay in bed all day?” I added a little pout just in case that might work.

Noah chuckled and kissed my nose. “No.”

Giving him a little disgruntled huff, I let my hands wander under his shirt, over the hard contours of his back. “Where are we going?”

“I’m taking you to the shooting range.”

My gaze snapped up to meet his. Uh…what? “We’re going to go shoot guns?”

“Mmm hmm,” he said, watching me closely.

I tilted my head to the side a little and gave him a look of uncertainty. “Uh…I know you haven’t done the whole dating thing in a while, but most guys don’t take girls to go shoot things on their first date.”

His grin widened. “When have I ever said I was anything like most guys?”

Sighing, I ran my hands up his chest and around the back of his neck, threading my fingers in his hair. “Okay then. I’m going to go shoot guns. Just let me gather the required amount of enthusiasm…”

He growled playfully. “Don’t make me punish you…”

I rolled my eyes at him. “You know that’s not a threat to me, Noah. In fact, I encourage you to punish me. Right now. I’m dying for you to put those handcuffs of yours into good use.”

Darkness flashed deep in his eyes, but it was quickly replaced by a hardness I wasn’t expecting. “The only person I want to use them on right now is Aaron.”

Okay, so this conversation wasn’t going in the direction I wanted it to. Obviously Noah had been up stressing over everything while I’d been blissfully asleep.

Resigning myself to the fact that I wasn’t going to be getting any love right now, I pulled him down for a chaste kiss before releasing him and reaching for the bacon.

I smiled as I bit into it and watched as a wave of satisfaction flashed across his face. “Do I want to know why we’re going shooting?” I asked as he climbed off the bed.

His jaw clenched and he rubbed his hand over his chin. “I need to know you can protect yourself,” he said, his body language showing just how frustrated he was by the situation.

I didn’t point out the many flaws in his plan. Some of them being the fact that I didn’t own a gun or have a permit to use one. But I wasn’t going to bring that up now. I knew I just needed to let him do what he felt he needed to do.

Munching down the bacon and chasing it with the juice he’d brought me, I quickly jumped in the shower and got myself ready for my gun-toting adventure. I was actually a little surprised by
how excited I was at the prospect of firing a gun. Noah was obviously a good shot, so I didn’t think I could find a better person to teach me.

Walking in
to the range behind Noah, I watched him greet the big guy at the front counter with one of those boys’ club handshakes and a thump on the back.

“Noah! Fuck, man, how long has it been?” The big
guy said with a grin.

“A while,” he said. “Been on a job. Just got back.”

The guy nodded before his eyes flashed my way and his eyebrows quirked. “And who have you got there?”

“This is my girlfriend, Kaeli
,” he said, his voice actually sounding a little smug. “Kaeli, this is Mick.”

I might’ve said the appropriate greeting…I wasn’t sure. My head was still celebrating the fact that Noah had just called me his girlfriend. I heard him tell the guy it was my first time and that he wanted to teach me, or something like that, and then I was signing something and we were moving down a corridor.

Noah stopped at a section down near the end and started organizing…I don’t know…guns and stuff…

I glanced around while he was busy, checking the place out. We seemed to be the only people there, which relieved me a little. If I was going to make an idiot o
ut of myself, the less people who saw, the better.

“Here…”

I turned to see Noah holding out a pair of safety glasses for me to take. I watched him for a second before I took them. He was in complete business mode and, to be quite honest, I was a little turned on, because business mode equaled bossy Noah. Yum.

“Uh…do you want me to put these on now?”

“No. I’ll go over the features of the gun first. Come here.”

I stepped closer to him, my gaze drawn to the gun in his hand.

“We’re just going to use my Glock today. It’s a good gun to start with, easy for beginners, but I think I’d like to get you something with a manual safety.”

I frowned at the gun, suddenly hesitant to touch it. “It doesn’t have a safety thingy?”

His lips twitched but he managed to keep a straight face. “Not like you’re thinking. It has three safety mechanisms, but I’m not going to go into them right now. All you need to know, is the trigger safety.” Holding the gun so it was pointing down, away from us, he pointed to the trigger. “See that bit in the middle of the trigger? That’s the safety mechanism. If that’s not pulled properly, the gun won’t fire.”

I stared at it carefully. “Okay.”

“Alright, stand here,” he said, maneuvering me so I was facing down the range. Standing behind me, he held the gun out for me to take. I hesitated.

“It’s okay. The chamber’s empty. Just take it and feel it in your hand first. I’m just going to show you how to hold it and how to stand while you’re firing.”

Sliding the glasses on top of my head, I took it from him with a careful hand. It was lighter than I expected.

“Okay, stand with your feet about shoulder width apart, that’s it, and hold the gun out in front of you, using your other hand to keep it steady.”

I did as he said, kind of copy-catting what I’d seen in every action movie. Except for those ones where the bad guys held their guns on the side. I didn’t understand that at all.

“So like I said, to fire the gun, you have to pull the safety trigger all the way in. You’ll find a little bit of slack before it fires but
it’s pretty light on a Glock. You can pull it now to feel it if you like.”

I did. I felt like I was playing with a toy gun, but I wasn’t going to mention that to Noah.

“Good. Now, this gun is a semi-automatic, so it reloads the bullets for you. Pull the trigger again, but this time listen when you release it. When it gets to a certain position, you’ll hear a click. That’s the reset position. When it gets to that point, the gun’s ready to shoot again.”

I was fascinated by the way he explained it all. I could tell it was his passion. No wonder he was so good at it.
I pulled the trigger and listened as I released it, hearing the little click he was talking about.

“Alright. Do you think you’re ready to give it a go?”

I went for enthusiasm, because he was kind of rubbing off on me. “Yes!”

I felt his breath blow
over the back of my neck from his chuckle, sending shivers down my spine. I tried to stop my head from clouding over so I could concentrate on what I was doing, but damn, he was making it hard.

Placing his hand over mine on the gun, he directed me to hold it down and away and picked up w
hat I assumed was the bullet cartridge.

“This is the magazine,” he said.
“You take it.”

I took it off him and, placing his hand over mine, he showed me how to fit it into the gun.

“Okay, show me your stance.”

I held the gun up with both hands and positioned my feet how he’d told me, looking down the range through the little guide thingies on top of the gun.

“Good. Now when you fire, you’re going to feel a little bit of recoil. It’s not too bad with this gun, but I want you to be ready for it.”

“Okay,” I breathed. I could feel the adrenalin starting to pump through me.

He slid the glasses down over my eyes, then placed some earmuffs over my head. Holding one earpiece away from my ear, he shifted to my side a little.

“I’m just going to stand back a little. Just relax. Focus on your target, and breathe. I find the best way to get a good shot, is to breath out, long and slow, then squeeze the trigger.”

I nodded. I was nervous and excited, but I just really wanted to do him proud.

Feeling him back away, I focused on the target down the range. I went through a mental checklist of everything he’d said, and tried to slow my breathing, taking long, slow breaths like he’d said. When I felt ready, I exhaled slowly, and squeezed.

The force of the shot did push me back a little, but I’d been prepared for it. I wasn’t sure if the bullet hit anything. It was too far away to see.

I stood still for a moment, unsure whether he
wanted me to shoot again. Making sure to keep the gun pointing down the range, I turned to look at him. He nodded his head and motioned for me to keep shooting.

So I did.

I couldn’t hear the click he’d spoken about before to know when the trigger had reset, but I thought I remembered roughly where it’d been, so I kept shooting. I tried to imagine it was Aaron standing down the range instead of the paper. It seemed to help.

When the bullets ran out, I lowered the gun to the ground in front of me like I’d seen Noah do earlier. It kind of made me feel bad ass. I liked it.

Noah came to my side and took the gun off me, taking out the magazine and checking that the chamber was empty before putting it down and hitting the button to send the paper man flying forward.

Sliding the glasses and earmuffs onto the table, I turned to see Noah watching me.

“How did that feel?” he asked.

“Amazing!” I said, grinning like an idiot. “I feel kind of bad ass now.

He laughed and shook his head. “Well, let’s see how you did.”

Glancing over his shoulder, I saw the paper man almost before us, and when I saw where all the holes were, I thought I’d done pretty well. There were a few holes around the edges, but most of them were over the chest area. Two holes, which I assumed were from when I’d pictured Aaron, were in paper man’s head - one right in the eye. Yes!

“Fuck me,” Noah breathed. He glanced from paper man to me then back again.

I noticed he was breathing a little heavier than he was before.

He turned to face me full on, his eyes dark and dangerous. “I didn’t think you could possibly get any hotter than you already were, but I seriously want to fuck you right now.”

Oh, shit.

Heat pooled between my legs. I tried to keep my head because I was likely to let him take me right there if I didn’t, so exhaled and glanced over to paper man.

“So I did okay then?”

His eyes narrowed and he growled. “I need to get you home.”

Grabbing up his Glock and other gun paraphernalia, he took my hand and led me towards the door at a brisk pace.

We’d just gotten into the parking lot when we came face to face with a girl.

“Patch,” she said, her eyes wide with surprise.

I frowned at her, not because she called Noah, Patch, although that did confuse me. It was the fact that I recognized her. It was that girl who’d come to my school for those couple of weeks. What was her name again…? Ah yes.

“Sarah?”

She glanced at me, but her gaze immediately went back to Noah, more or less ignoring me. What the hell?

Noah tensed beside me. “Kaeli, this is Leah. She was undercover at your school. She was supposed to
be watching out for you.”

He said the last bit like he wasn’t happy. I didn’t understand. His whole body language had changed dramatically. Sarah…Leah, or whoever the hell she was, narrowed her eyes. She was still blatantly ignoring me.

“Can I talk to you for a minute?” she said quietly. “Alone?”

I tried not to stiffen, but she was putting me on edge. I didn’t understand why she was being so cold towards me. What had I ever done to her?

“I don’t really have the time right now, Leah,” Noah said coldly.

“Come on, Patch. Please? You know I’ve been trying to see you since the bust.”

Noah shifted on his feet. I could tell he didn’t want to, but he obviously felt he owed her or something.

Squeezing his hand, I tried to be the good girlfriend. The good,
not jealous
girlfriend. It was tougher than I thought.

“Uh…I can just go wait in the car…?”

Noah looked like he wanted to say no, but I gave him a smile I hoped told him I was fine. A little confused by the sudden tension, but fine just the same.

Sighing, he handed me the keys and squeezed my hand. “Thanks. I won’t be long.”

Nodding, I said a quick goodbye to Leah and let myself into Noah’s car.

I watched them as I waited. I tried to make it look like I was checking my
cell, but of course I wasn’t. Noah looked pissed, and Leah went from looking like she was pleading, to pissed as well.