Chapter 25
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Keira
Living with Dean Reynolds was quite possibly going to kill me.
Day after day, we trained together. Sat down for meals together. Tracked Nox Woodson’s movements together. We laughed and argued and sat in silence together.
And every single day, I wanted him more instead of less.
This whole just-friends thing was not working.
Take, for example, his training on the obstacle course he’d built.
Every single morning, he was out there as the temperatures warmed.
Getting all sweaty with his shirt off, hair plastered to his face and his skin getting more tanned by the day.
His muscles were more prominent too. Leaner. His reaction times faster.
Lately, watching Dean on that obstacle course had become a pastime of mine. A guilty pleasure.
For the first part of each morning, I would do my own training. I’d been taking longer walks, doing light cardio and stretching. Drilling my physical therapy exercises like it was my job, and arguably it was. But I still couldn’t lift anything. Couldn’t run or spar. Couldn’t do pushups or planks.
Despite my limited routine, I usually tired out fast. Then I liked to grab a drink, sit on the back deck, and make notes on Woodson’s daily movements using the GPS tracker we’d placed on his car.
Every few minutes, I would let my eyes wander to Dean pummeling the heavy bag. Or doing a zillion pull-ups.
Dean jogged up the steps onto the deck, pouring a bottle of water over his head. Rivulets spun down his neck, shoulders, and chest. A drop of water clung to one pink nipple.
Really? Was that necessary?
“Hey. What’s Woodson up to today? Anything new?”
“The usual.” I showed Dean my notes.
Woodson spent most of his time at the Phelan property. At least, his truck was parked there. His other usual hangouts were his home, a dive bar, and the strip club. The man didn’t vary much on his routine.
Unfortunately, after a stakeout with a pair of binoculars outside Woodson’s home, we’d learned it was surrounded by cameras. River hadn’t been able to gain remote access to the cameras, so there was no possibility of sneaking a listening device inside undetected.
Another option was a listening device at the Phelan place. But Dean thought it was too risky to try going back there.
I wanted to get Woodson alone on a deserted road.
Force him to answer my questions using any means necessary.
And I didn’t have a single ounce of guilt about the thought of torturing the guy.
I was sure he’d been there the night of the shooting.
The demon mask connection was enough for me, and I had no doubt Woodson also tried to run Dean and me off the road after I saw him at Donny Phelan’s mansion.
Woodson had tried to kill me twice. He didn’t deserve my mercy.
But Dean refused to make any big moves against Woodson until I was fully healed. That would be at least another month. I wasn’t sure I could take it.
I just wanted to hurry up and finish healing. I wanted to know who’d shot me and why. What Donny Phelan and Nox Woodson and Crosshairs Security had to do with this whole strange conspiracy.
But for now, all of that was going to take more time. More patience.
More ogling of the sexy man I couldn’t have.
At night, it meant more dreams about Dean, when all my resolutions about just being friends went out the window, and my subconscious played out my deepest desires.
In my dream last night, we’d been sparring together, getting all sweaty and tangled up until we were suddenly kissing.
I’d licked along his salty skin until I reached the erection tenting his athletic shorts.
The rest of the dream had progressed in filthy images and imagined sensations.
His hard cock in my mouth. The fullness when I sank down on his thick shaft, starting to ride him…
“I’ll shower and make us some sandwiches,” Dean said. “I was thinking we’d spend some time in the sniper’s nest this afternoon.”
I sighed. “Yep. Sounds good.”
An hour later, we crawled into the sniper’s nest we’d made on a hillside. The vegetation was thick enough here to break up the sight lines. We were dug in to keep below the ridgeline, with stones reinforcing the depression and netting woven with branches and native grass to camouflage where we lay.
I could now take apart the sniper rifle in a matter of seconds. Reassemble it. Clean and inspect it. Almost every day I practiced aiming through the scope, often with Dean lying pressed against me, correcting my body position and teaching me the right way to breathe. To wait and watch for a shot.
Of course, I couldn’t actually take a shot with a live round yet. It would be a long time before I was ready for that. Even lying in a prone position was hard for me, since I had to be careful about putting pressure on my injuries.
But I hadn’t seen Dean fire the rifle either, not even to calibrate it. He’d said there was far more to being a sniper than pulling a trigger.
Through the rifle scope, I watched a family of deer grazing unaware in the meadow below. The deer had no need to worry. I was only observing. The rest of me was all too aware of the man beside me.
I was almost used to lying this close to Dean without getting distracted. Not quite, but almost.
I’d never spent so much time with someone just being quiet. Sometimes those silences were comfortable. Sometimes fraught with tension.
Okay, there was always tension.
“What are you thinking about?” I asked today. Because I still wanted to know him, even just as friends. I wanted anything of Dean I could get.
“How I swore I’d never pick up a weapon again, but it was easy. Feels like I never left.”
His tone was even. I remembered the conversation we’d had the night we followed Woodson to the strip club.
You didn’t kill them because you enjoyed it.
And his response: You think I didn’t?
But if Dean had thought I would be horrified, he was wrong. I’d accepted his past the same day he told me. He was the one who couldn’t accept himself. Couldn’t let himself stay in one place. Be happy.
Couldn’t give us a chance.
“Do you ever have regrets?” I asked.
“About leaving that life? No. Not about that.”
“What do you regret?”
Dean’s arm shifted, and I knew he was touching the leather cord he wore on his neck. Then he blew a stray hair from in front of his face. “For one, letting my hair get this long. It’s out of control. It’s starting to bug the shit out of me.”
I laughed, pushing away the disappointment of his changing the subject. “If you have clippers, I can cut it for you. Did you know Stephie wants to go to beauty school after she graduates? She wants to be a hairstylist.”
“No kidding.” His grin was soft in the dimness. “Good for her.”
“She makes me watch all these online videos with her. I picked up a few things. I’m not saying it’ll be a great cut, but your hair would definitely be shorter.”
“Do you like my hair long?”
Ugh, what a question. Of course I liked it long. It was hot. “Yeah. But I like it short too.”
I felt him looking at me. I checked the scope, watching the deer again as they snacked on meadow plants and heat spread up my neck.
Was it weird of me to offer to cut his hair? That was a thing friends did for each other, right?
Of course, not like I’d let him anywhere near my hair with a pair of scissors, but…
“Okay,” he murmured. “After dinner. You can give me a makeover. But go easy on me.”
A tremor went through my hands. Hell. So we were doing this.