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For the first time since I woke up in that hospital, I feel a sense of purpose, and it bolsters me, like a Band-Aid, to the gaping wound Tom ripped in me. If I’m going to stand a chance against Tom, though, I need to learn how to shoot properly. Shoot to kill.
The screen door creaks behind me, then bangs shut. “It’s pretty out here, isn’t it?” Jude says, moving to stand beside me, a cup of steaming coffee in his hands.
I spin around to face him, my mind still on revenge. “Can you teach me to shoot?”
“It’s eight in the morning….”
“Do you have something better to do in the middle of nowhere?”
On a heavy sigh, he takes a sip of coffee, then places the mug on the worn wood railing. “Come on.” He leads me down the steps, past a pile of firewood and a rusted lawnmower to a tree with a sloppy, faded target painted on its trunk. Bullet holes scar the bark, as well as the bark of several other trees around it.
“All right,” Jude says, handing me a gun before he moves behind me. "Don't tense when you pull the trigger.” He takes my wrists in his hands, repositioning my hold on the weapon before he lifts my arms to help me aim. “Let the gun kick back. Now, line up the sight with the target." His fingers trail up my arm, sweeping hair from my neck as his lips move closer to my ear. The steady, warm rasp of his breath on my skin makes me relax a little, and I sink back against him. I focus through the tiny notch then pull the trigger. Bark splinters from the tree as the bullet lodges in the first ring of the target.
“It’s hot as shit when you shoot a gun.”
“You’re a Neanderthal.”
“Only with you, doll.” He trails featherlight kisses along my throat, his hands skimming along my sides. Gentle. Tentative. And I know it’s deliberate after last night. “I want you so damn bad, Tor.”
I didn’t realize how much I needed to hear that he still wants me after what Tom did, but the bulge pressing against my ass makes me stiffen. A subtle breath leaves his lips before he makes a small space between us.
“Shoot it again.”
Guilt and anger lash at me. Guilt because I’m pushing Jude away and anger at myself for letting Tom do this to me, to us.
“See if you can hit the middle of the target.”
I redirect my focus to the target and fire again and again until the clip is empty and, for the first time in days, my mind is clear.
29
Jude
It’s been a month since we came to this cabin, and I’m about to lose my ever-loving shit.
Garcia said it would take three weeks to get the house in order, and I had a gut feeling that wasn’t right. The list of shit he’s had me do since I can’t clean money is piling up, the latest of which currently sits in a garbage bag on the floorboard of Marney’s truck. Never in a million years would I have believed I would be so desperate to do the bidding of the cartel, but Tor’s safety is my responsibility, and my hands are tied. I hate having my fucking hands tied.
A god-awful smell hits me in the face when I step into the cabin with the Hefty bag at my side. Marney’s at the stove, wearing a crab apron and frying something in a pan.
“Good God, old fuck, what are you cooking?”
“Tuna melt.” He turns around as I move through the kitchen. “What’s in the bag, boy.”
“Mussa Catalona’s head.”
“A head?” He turns back to the stove to flip his sandwich. “What the hell kinda shit are you…” Now he’s glaring at me with a disapproving scowl. “The fucking cartel. I swear, boy. I told you getting your shit mixed up in that—”
“It’s the only way we’re getting out of here, Marney.”
He hurls the spatula at me. “That piece of shit keeps adding to your to-do list. Next thing you know, you’re gonna have Sinaloa cartel tattooed on your balls.”
Right now, the bastard did have me by the balls, but the price of freedom is never low or easy.
Marney goes into a rambling tirade about the cartel. I listen for about two point five seconds before I pull the blood-splattered shirt over my head and toss it in the fireplace, then head upstairs for a shower. And pleasant surprise, the water is already running when I slip into the bathroom.
The silhouette of Tor’s figure through the fogged glass is enough to make my dick swell. Over the past month, getting my hands down her pants for three seconds is the closest I’ve come to fucking her. As much as I need her, I don’t want to push her, and that makes me feel like an asshole for standing out here with a hard dick, wanting nothing more than to bury it inside her. It feels selfish.
