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“Besides hide behind you, or run away?”
When his eyes narrow, my smile grows larger.Realer.
“I dunno. I suppose you’re asking me to pick it up and shoot it, right? So I guess the answer is, I wrap my hands around the handle and pull the trigger?”
“A semi-automatic will shoot one bullet per pump of your finger.” He takes a pair of glasses for himself, before tugging the gun from the holster by his left ribs. “A fully automatic will keep shooting until you decompress the trigger, or until you run out of rounds.”
“A-and wh…” Swallowing, I look down at the pistol in his hands. “What kind is that?”
“This is a Smith and Wesson, semi-automatic. It’s gonna put a hole in someone big enough to do the job right.” He handles the weapon and has the magazine thingy popping out of the bottom, though I don’t know how he did it. What mechanism he touched. “Fifteen rounds per magazine,” he continues. “Count them, because you don’t wanna get caught short.”
“How many have you used?” I push up to my toes, as though to peek over his hands and watch him. “You shot yesterday, right? Did you count them so you know how many you have left for today?”
“I have a fresh magazine in here.” He turns his hand over and shows me the steelnestledin his palm. “As a cop, I’m supposed to keep count and justify every shot I’ve taken.”
“Supposedto?” I lift a brow and bring my gaze up to his. “That sounds almost like you’re hinting at something else.”
“I’m not here on official business,” he murmurs, “and I don’t much care if I have a job to go home to when this is all over. Add in Malone’s involvement, my position in the DEA prior to this, and I have ways around the bureaucracy.”
“You’re saying… you exist in the Wild West?”
He slaps the magazine back inside the gun’s handle until it clicks, meeting my shaky smile with one of his own. But harder. Surer. “I’m saying I have friends in high places, and I only shoot when it’s really important.” He grabs my wrist and slaps the weapon into my palm. “Feel it, Aurora. Feel how heavy it is. How solid it is.”
My pulse thunders in my veins and leaves my breath racing. Panting. Nervous as hell.
“When you shoot it, it’s gonna have a bit of a recoil. Not a lot for an experienced shooter. But for someone like you…” he takes my hips and turns me to face the little paper target he already sent away. “Someone scared and unsure,” he murmurs, stepping up behind me so I feel his chest on my back, his heart beating against mine, “chances are it’s gonna scare you, hurt your dainty little wrists, and make you wanna drop it and cry.”
I bring my free hand up and roll my wrist. “You think so?”
He chuckles, his breath tickling the back of my ear and sending strands of hair fluttering in the breeze. “I think I’d feel better if you knew how to use it, just in case. I need you to have a way of protecting yourself when I’m not around to do it for you. Now focus.”
Irritated, I set the gun on the counter and turn in the tiny space he leaves available to me. “But if you’re not around, I won’t have access to your guns, anyway. Which makes this lesson obsolete and an abuse on my ears for no reason.”
He grabs the earmuffs and plops them on my head so the ear bits slap the sides of my face. Then he turns me again and pins me between the counter and his body. “Learn, Aurora. Bad guy comes for you, he’s gonna carry a gun like this. So if I teach you the basics, hopefully you can use your smart surgeon brain and figure out the rest.”
“I’m not a surgeon.” My bottom lip pops forward, but my mind focuses on the goosebumps sprinting along my skin as Drake reaches around me and picks up his gun. “I’m not even done with pre-med yet.”
“You’re everything you need to be, Little Bird. And on your way to being so much more.”
Silence hangs for a moment where I swear, he nestles his nose by my ear and inhales the scent of my shampoo. But he doesn’t linger. Instead, he pops the magazine out of his gun again and sets it on the counter. “You get fifteen shots,” he repeats. “This is a double action weapon, which means after you cock it the first time you won’t have to cock it again each time you pull the trigger. When you go to pull the trigger you want one, smooth motion. The first half of your pull will feel much longer than the second because it is easier to pull. You have a safety on the side.” He grabs my hand and slaps the pistol against my palm. “Safety,” he presses. “Right here. If you forget to disengage and try to shoot, chances are, you’re dead. Because by the time it took you to remember, someone else already tagged you.”
I swallow the nerves in my throat and try, with everything in me, not to notice Drake’s firm body pressed to my back. He wants platonic. He wants safety. He’s setting me on a shelf and saying no. So I close my eyes and hum in the back of my throat like the action somehow brings me calm.
Then opening them again, I study the target sitting about twenty-feet away. “Alright. I’m ready.”
“Good.” He releases my hands, but places his on my hips to stay close. “Grab your magazine and slide it up into place.” His entire body hugs mine. His thighs on my backside, and his chest against my shoulder blades. “You’ll want to get a feel for it, because when you’re under fire, you don’t get a chance to look or study. You need muscle memory and for your hands to get that fucking magazine into place quickly.”
“You say fuck a lot when you’re tense.” I grab the steel magazine and test its weight for a moment, before placing it in the gap at the bottom of the handle and pushing it up. It clicks into place, drawing a relieved sigh from the back of my throat. “It’s in.”
“Yeah.” His voice is a whisper. Barely. But I feel his breath on my neck. His hand, inching around to my belly. “Now cock it. Pull the top slide back. I want you to know how it feels to shoot. Follow the steps, Aurora. Safety off. Pull. Fire. Pull. Fire.”
“You say you don’t want me,” I rasp, embarrassingly breathless despite the fact I haven’t moved in minutes. “You say no. But you talk about cocking, pulling, and fire and make even the most mundane thing sound erotic.”
“That’s on you.” But damn him for splaying his fingers wide on my stomach and holding me close. “I can’t make you feel or hear something through a lens in which I don’t control. I’m trying to teach you. You’re hearing sex. Sounds like a you problem.”
“You think so?” I lean back far enough to peek outside our small room. “I don’t see anyone else teaching like this.”
He chuckles, so his breath flutters against my hair. “No one else in here is a civilian with no experience.” He takes his hand from my stomach and moves back a step. “But if you think you got things under control…”
