Matteo
I’m strutting like a motherfucking peacock. My shoulders are back and my steps are longer as I continually glance at Azra like she’s close to telling me she loves me again.
You. I love you.
My cock almost throbs through releases like when she said it only an hour ago. Her voice was soft and uncertain, as if she were unsure if she was allowed to develop feelings, but I’m so fucking stoked that I’m walking through the lemon orchard like a peacock who won a championship fight.
Azra walks beside me. Her expression is a mix of curiosity and suspicion—her default setting when my arrogance is at its peak.
We’re heading to the gun range behind the grove for her first firearm class.
Halfway through the orchard, Claude spots us. He’s the full-time horticulturist for the orchard, and the only man not related to me by blood who can talk to me like I’m still twelve and get away with it.
He’s standing next to a 4WD utility vehicle, holding pruning shears. A sunhat sits crookedly on his head, matching his trademark wonky grin, when he notices our approach.
He locks eyes with me, then squints as if he’s hallucinating.
“Matteo, you’re early,” he calls out. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you play in the orchard during the day. Not since you were a child.”
When his beliefs about why I’ve arrived in the lemon grove smack into me, I groan internally, but Claude keeps talking, stealing the chance to tell him I’m not here for what he thinks.
“I guess it’s lucky I always come prepared.” He hobbles around the vehicle with a grunt and, after wiping his hands on his shorts, reaches into the storage container in the back and pulls out a mask.
Not a beekeeper’s mask or protective gear. It is nothing remotely close to normal. It’s the Scream mask from the Scream franchise. The white Ghostface one.
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Claude…”
He shrugs. “I’m due for lunch anyway, so I don’t mind if you kiddos want to play for an hour or two.” He hands me the mask, then shifts to face Azra. “Godspeed, young lady.”
I remind myself that Claude has been around forever. He’s practically family, which means he’s earned the right to do stupid shit without losing teeth.
It takes a beat to calm my frustration enough to speak with words instead of my fists. Claude is already heading toward the driver’s seat of the 4WD, more than happy to disappear from the map for a couple of hours.
Before he can escape, I grab his arm. “Claude. This is my wife, Azra.”
Claude freezes, and his eyes widen to the size of dinner plates. He looks at Azra, then at the mask, then back at Azra.
“Wife?”
When I jerk up my chin in confirmation, he snatches the mask out of my hand so fast stitches pop. “Then I guess you can’t help me with the bees today,” he sputters. “Not with your time being occupied by your wife.” He chokes on the last word like it’s too big to swallow.
I’m just as shocked by how much I love hearing it.
Wife.
My wife.
Claude nods rapidly as if I responded. “We don’t want you getting stung with any nasties.”
He thinks he’s saved us.
I’m not close to reaching the same conclusion.
Azra folds her arms over her chest before giving Claude her best interrogative stare. “That’s a beekeeper’s mask?”
“Uh-huh,” Claude replies, nodding too fast. “It scares the bees as much as it subdues them.”
Azra cocks a stern brow, and Claude shits his pants before he bails, leaving me to clean up my own mess.
“Pleasure meeting you, but I’ve gotta go. Orchard emergency. Bye!”
He dives into the UTV and skids down a row between lemon trees.
I stalk his departure, torn between amusement and wanting to kill him. Usually, I respond to a situation like this with violence, but Claude is family. And two—I love wrangling a moody, cranky Azra.
I’m obsessed with every single one of her moods. So much so, I’m dying to experience her first period as her husband. Will she tear my nuts off with her hands or her teeth?
Fingers crossed she does both.
Azra slowly turns to me, eyes narrowed.
Still fixated on the thought of wrangling a tiger into submission, I smirk and wink. It doesn’t have the effect it usually does. Perhaps her period is closer than believed?
Huffing, she storms toward the gun range as if she knows exactly where it is.
She doesn’t, but I let her pretend.
I fall into step behind her, hands in my pockets, with a grin that refuses to leave my face.
The gun range is located at the far end of the orchard, hidden behind a row of dense lemon trees. The air smells of citrus and gun oil—a combination I’ve always found comforting.
At the entrance, Azra glances around like she’s entering a forbidden world. Based on the stories I’ve heard, she grew up believing that only men could enter places like this.
Curling my hand around hers, I ask, “Ready?”
Her nod is confident, but her fingers twitch.
She’s nervous, which is strange for her.
After forcing her to don the necessary safety gear, I hand her a loaded pistol. “First rule: Always assume it’s loaded. Second: Never point it at anything you don’t intend to shoot.”
Wetting her lips, she nods.
“Third: Finger off the trigger until you’re ready to fire.”
Again, she nods.
“Fourth: Stance is just as important as the caliber of your weapon.”
I step behind her and adjust her shoulders, tuck in her elbows, and fix her grip. She’s stiff at first, but she relaxes the more I guide her.
I twist her to face the person-shaped shooting target at the end of the range, then step back. “Line up your shot, breathe out slowly, then squeeze the trigger.”
The gun trembles in her hand as she lifts it.
She fires.
The bullet hits the dirt three feet in front of her.
Cranking her neck back, she winces. “Sorry.”
“It’s fine.” Moving closer, I show her how to perfect her stance.
The next few minutes play out as good, if not better, as how I imagined when purchasing the gun.
“Try again.”
She fires again and misses.
“I’m terrible at this.”
“No, you’re not. You’re learning.”
She bites her lip, and that’s when I see it. The glint in her eyes and the way she holds the gun a little too comfortably announce that I’m being played.
“Maybe it’s not me. Maybe it’s the person teaching. If you can’t do, you teach, right?”
Her mouth twitches as she perfects her stance before she empties almost the entire magazine into the paper target.
Every single shot hits its mark.
Every. Single. One.
Except she didn’t aim for the man’s chest. She took out his dick, nuts, and half his fucking bowels.
With a sweet smile and one bullet in the chamber, Azra slowly pivots to face me.
She’s so fucking perfect that there’s no chance she’ll miss her target when she aims her gun at my crotch and her finger hugs the trigger.
I’m doomed, and I’ve never been fucking happier.