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“You should be listening tome. I was out here first.”
“I have twenty years on you.”
I laugh under my breath. “You’re pulling the age card? I’m not sure that works when everyone is an adult.”
“It’s not about age. It’s about experience. I’ve been handling my weapon for at least twenty years longer than you. So, I call the shots. Stay behind me or go back to your room. Choose now or I’ll put you in your room!”
While a part of me understands what he’s talking about, another part of me is throbbing at the thought of being ‘put in my room.’
I guess my best course of action is to continue to defy his direction.
“Yeah, I think we’re good!” I tuck around him, swing open the front door, and step out into the blowing snow. This flannel isn’t enough for these temperatures and I’m immediately cold. I’m literally freezing my ass off because I’m not wearing a bottom. My legs are bare.
In the movies I’ve seen, men use the wall of a building as a shield while they move, but the drifts are least three feet high and I’m still barefoot. I really didn’t think this through, but I want Niko to know I’m tough. I want him to see me as more than a prissy, little rich girl who gets what she wants.
I feel Niko’s heat behind me, but I also feel his frustration. He’s saying something under his breath, but I can’t hear it through the wind. Thankfully for him, because if I could, I’d surely be giving him an earful back.
His big, rough hand is on my arm. He’s tugging me backward. I flinch away and push forward running into the whiteout until I see what’s making all the commotion.
I turn back toward Niko. “Look, it’s nothing. The greenhouse lost the door.”
I trudge toward the swinging metal door like the badass I am, with the intention of hauling it off the frame and setting it inside the greenhouse for the night. You know, because clearly, I can take care of myself and the two grumpy men.
With my chest puffed and ego inflated, I’m nearly to the greenhouse when a gunshot echoes into the air.
Panic shivers through me and my chest tightens as I turn back to see two men in the tree line. They wear black snow suits, and the red dot of their weapons are aimed toward us.
The world is blurry and my head spins as my Joan of Arc persona melts into the abyss. Suddenly, I’m a scared little kitten who wants a big, strong man to protect her.This is the internal conflict I was talking about!The one where I’m a broken mess who’s desperately trying to prove something to everyone, though I don’t really know what it is I’m trying to prove. Apparently, it has something to do with being ridiculously naïve with a side of anxiety.
Niko aims his gun and bends down, lifting me onto his shoulders. He’s strong and sure. And though I’m not tiny, he carries me like I am.
“Cover your ears, princess.” Two shots go off.
None are returned.
Did this man just shoot two men without a mistake? Two men who have been trained and live as hitmen?
Maybe I should be disgusted, repulsed, nauseated… but I’m not. My blood is racing, my heart is pounding, and I’m soaking wet.
He opens the back door to the cabin, and he ducks in, sitting me on the bench near the closet.
This angle is everything. I drag in his scent. It’s still woodsy, but it’s changed. There’s something more there, a musk I can’t describe. I shouldn’t want him as badly as I do. Two men are hurt or maybe dead. Then again, they were shooting at me. Niko took care of everything, without a second thought.
I want his big, rough, capable hands all over me.
Leaning over my body, he reaches up into the closet and pulls down a thick gauged rope. His gaze is on mine as he twiststhe long line around his forearm and the palm of his hand to untangle the strand.
“What are you going to do with that?”
He shakes his head, a grimace on his face.
Okay… maybe he’s in shock. I’m sure killing two men like that isn’t easy.
I stare up at him, my stomach still shaking from shock. “You okay? Those men were probably trained killers. I wouldn’t feel too bad if I were you. It was us or them. If you ask me, what you did was… incredible.”
He still doesn’t speak, but he glances toward me this time with an unsettling stare.
Still, he’s so gorgeous. His dark eyes, the salt and pepper beard, the intensity on his face. I probably shouldn’t be attracted to this, but I am.
