Chapter 11
Wyatt
“Prepare for complete and utter domination,” I proclaim to Bryn, dropping my voice a few octaves while I flex a bicep. Naturally, it’s the one covered in my sleeve of tattoos, since I’ve caught her looking at them a few times.
If I didn’t know I sounded like an idiot, I’d be offended by the burst of snorting laughter that comes from the woman standing a foot shorter than me. “Please. You are going down!”
She looks like something straight out of one of my dreams. It’s going to be enjoyable watching her run away while I hunt her down in the laser tag room, because her ass in those jeans? The best I’ve ever seen. She fills them out to perfection, the round curve begging for my hands to be all over it.
Three dates. I know my own rule, but Christ almighty, she makes me want to break it, especially in that outfit.
It isn’t just the straight-leg jeans over her cowboy boots, it’s the top.
Some white vest kind of thing with silver buttons on the front, it pushes her perky breasts together, the deep V creating more cleavage than her T-shirt the other night.
It sits higher on her waist, too, giving me a sneak peek at her stomach when it rides up.
I already know how my night is going to end later. In the shower with my cock in my hand.
“Not happening. I’m not going easy on you just because you’re beautiful,” I tell her, stepping closer to where she’s standing, adjusting the straps on the sensor vest. Her cheeks flush at my compliment, and I grin. “In fact, I think it might make me ride you harder.”
Her head snaps up, eyes widening as they lock with mine. Glancing around the room filled with other players—fifteen or so—her face brightens further. She tucks her hair behind her ear, strap on the vest forgotten.
“You wish that’s how this night was going to go.”
“Yes ma’am, I do,” I confirm, taking a moment to let my eyes rake down the length of her body.
I’m not sure how, but the way the laser tag vest fits her makes her look even sexier, even though it’s big on her small frame. Maybe it’s that she was willing to do this when I told her my idea. Excited, actually. I got to hear it firsthand when I told her over the phone a couple of nights ago.
We’ve kept our chats to a minimum. Texts comprised mostly of funny memes, silly jokes, and “hope you’re having a good day” kind of things.
I explained to her that I didn’t want to get to know her over the phone, but still wanted to talk to her, so we’ve kept it light.
For a lot of years, a lot of my life has been spent on social media, receiving DMs from girls—and guys—and while there’s a time and purpose for that stuff, it’s not how I want to learn about my girl.
Not that Bryn is my girl.
But one day she might be.
“Everybody ready?” the kid working at the venue shouts out.
Bryn is team red, I’m team blue, and glancing around at the group entering the game with us, we’ve been split up in pretty even numbers.
A handful of kids on each team, probably aged thirteen or fourteen, and then a group of adult friends are the contenders.
My guess is they’ll all mostly leave us alone, playing within their own dynamic, but an easy shot is an easy shot.
It’s all about the points everyone can rack up, so the key is to keep focused at all times. While hunting my beautiful prey.
“Three…” A voice overhead speaks.
“May the best rider win.” Bryn glances up at me, an eyebrow cocked, coy smile gracing her full, pink lips that have a touch of gloss I’d love to kiss off. “Watch your back, cowboy.”
“Two…”
“I’ll be too busy watching yours,” I tell her, shooting her a wink.
As the words come out of my mouth, the voice overhead says “one” and the doors open.
They’re wide enough a few of us can get through at a time, though Bryn and I are the last ones.
It’s dark inside the big warehouse, but the place is lit up with black lights and neon UV paint, highlighting the different set pieces: full walls turned mazes, cubby holes, platforms, half walls, crates, and other things to give people lots of places to hide and opportunities to sneak attack.
We have one minute to get lost through the place before the game commences, and Bryn wastes no time looking back or saying goodbye as she skitters away through the maze of walls.
“You can run…!” I call after her.
I hear her answering laughter a second later behind a wall to my left. Closer than I would have thought. “And I can hide!”
With another thirty seconds to go, I use my time to try and get the lay of the land recorded in my brain. Best hiding spots. Potential places she might go to place an attack on me. Up above on a platform, or down low through an opening in an obstacle.
When the game finally starts, screams and laughter ring out over the music pumping through the speakers, masking the sound of footsteps and creepers coming up on you.
I smoke a kid with my laser beam, then an adult, two kids, and another adult, taking the easy shots as they come.
Just like I thought, the groups tend to stick to themselves rather than branching out and taking all the points they can get, and I’m feeling pretty damn good about my game when I spot her.
The white shirt she’s wearing lights her up like a Christmas tree on a dark, cold December night. Rookie mistake when it comes to laser tag and wanting to stay camouflaged in the dimly lit spaces.
She’s peeking around a corner, back to me, gun pointed out in front of her, ready to take a shot.
There’s a half wall that I came along shielding my lower half, and I duck down as she moves, keeping my eyes above it to watch what she’s doing.
I thought she was about to twist in my direction, but instead she darts out from her corner and must tag someone else because I hear an “Aw, fuck!” as she runs through a couple of blockades and around another wall.
I take off after her, slowing down as I come across the place where she hit the other target.
The guy is still standing there, one of the adults, and his vest lights up just as I get in range.
Poor schmuck. I hit him before he even knows what happened and then keep going, slowing down as I round a corner in the direction Bryn went.
This is where I lost sight of her, but I swear she’s not far. I can feel her near me.
A streak of white lights up my periphery as I peek around a set of orange crates. To my right, it darts between two walls creating a V. Slight, petite, chin-length bob.
Bryn.
“Gotchu,” I whisper to myself, formulating a plan as I look around the area at what I can use to my advantage. There are two windows cut into the hiding spot she’s found herself, at varying heights, the perfect place for an ambush.
As long as she stays there long enough, it should work like a charm.
Creeping through a few more barriers, I come to a set of barrels stacked side by side, three tall, and hide behind them.
From here, when I look towards the V, there’s an archway separating us, blocking half the view of the barrels.
I can see her location, but it’s not a straight shot, and it’s obscured.
Perfect.
Taking my black cowboy hat off, I set it on top of the barrels at the edge furthest from her. Then, after a long look around my immediate area, I crouch down, and call out, “Where are you, Bryn?” before taking off. Not directly towards her, but away.
Moving in and out of objects as quickly as I can, I make a wide circle around her location, having kept it relatively in view the whole time, and sneak in around the back side. She’s crouched down, looking through the window in the direction of my hat, gun aimed and poised to strike.
“Hi, gorgeous,” I drawl lazily, ensuring I’m loud enough over the music.
Bryn shrieks to wake the dead, straightening immediately before whipping around to face me, eyes wide, a hand clutching her heart like it’s racing wildly beneath her beautiful breasts. I’d love to find out.
“Shit.” She shakes her head, denying what she’s seeing. Me in front of her, two hands on my laser, pointed at her. Laughter bubbles up her throat. “Please. Wyatt. Please.”
I’m not going to lie, hearing the word “please” come out of her mouth along with my name is hot. It’s one of those things I’m going to file away in my mind and bring back out before we get to date three. Likely when I’m in the shower.
“Sorry, gorgeous,” I say, taking aim at the biggest target in the center of her chest.
With her laser by her side, she lifts her other hand in surrender, then says the only thing that makes me take pause. “I won’t kiss you if you tag me!”
That has me standing taller, my eyes raking over her face, scrutinizing whether she’s telling the truth or not. It’s impossible to tell in this lighting.
“Ever?”
She sucks both her bottom and top lip in between her teeth and shakes her head.
Lying then.
“Never? You’re sure?”
The smile is desperately trying to spread across her face, but she bites down harder on her lip, nodding this time.
“I’m not sure I beli—”
In the blink of an eye, my vest rumbles, signaling that I’ve been hit. Stupefied, I look down at it, discovering that it’s no longer lit up, then bring my attention back to Bryn to find the grin she was holding at bay spread wide, lighting her up like my vest should be.
“You hit me!” I accuse, mouth hanging open, eyes rounded in surprise.
“It was me or you, baby, and I wasn’t going to let it be me,” she laughs, still holding her laser up in front of her. Ready to strike again when my vest comes back to life.
Trying to wrap my head around what just happened, I sputter, “I can’t believe—how did—you—you hit me!”
She giggles, the sound healing parts of my wounded ego.
The delight is evident in her eyes as they sparkle with playfulness.
Slowly, she takes a step in my direction, then another, her hips swishing in a way I’m not sure I’ve seen her do before.
It has my full attention, my laser coming to rest near my hip as she comes to stand in front of me, only her own laser separating us.
She holds it, aimed at my center plate, but I don’t care.
She could tag me a million times now and I wouldn’t care if it meant I could always see this kind of vibrancy in her hazel eyes.
“You were too slow,” she says, a sultry whisper in her words.
“Sometimes slow is good.”
The air around us changes, becoming charged with this thing between us. Her eyes move between mine, then drop down to my lips, lingering there for a moment before finding my gaze again. Fuck me. Three dates? When I’d love nothing more than to take this woman right here, right now?
Stupid self-imposed rules.
“Sometimes fast is good,” she counters, barely audible over the music, and my eyes immediately drop down to her lips.
Took the words right out of my mind.
“Besides,” she adds, eyes dancing with humor. “I had to take the shot. I didn’t want to have to make good on my threat of never kissing you.”
My vest lights back up, the glow of it adding a new color to her face.
Lifting my free hand to the blue that lines her jaw, I follow the color along her smooth skin, feeling the soft tremble that runs through her at my touch.
With my thumb on her cheek, and my pinky just beneath her jaw, I tilt her head back.
Her lips part, her laser drops to her side, and the vest strapped to her chest rises and falls quicker as her breath comes in anticipatory hitches.
I step into her with the newly created space between us and incline her head deeper as I lean forward. “That mean I’m allowed to kiss you?”
“Please, Wyatt.”
A growl of satisfaction slips from me at the plea, and I drop my head, closing the last couple of inches between us as my mouth finds hers.
Soft, pliable lips meet mine, and the taste of raspberry and mint explodes across my taste buds.
I haven’t even swept my tongue against her lips and I can taste the sweetness that she is.
Intoxicating. Bryn is a sweet high I don’t know I’ll ever come down from.
My hand slides into her hair, the soft strands working through my fingers as I hold the back of her head, and I feel her hand land on my side, bunching my t-shirt in her grip.
Her vest bumps into mine as we both try to get closer to each other, to no avail.
I could curse the things, but instead I deepen our kiss, my lips parting, hers mirroring the action, like our time on the dance floor.
I knew then that kissing her would be incredible, but it’s even better than I imagined.
I don’t push it further than that. An open-mouthed kiss, my lips working along hers, tongue flicking the plumpness of her lower lip. I’m going to drown in her, and I’ll do it happily in this warehouse full of neon and black light.
My vest rumbles suddenly, and at her sharp intake, I know hers is rumbling too, but I don’t break the kiss.
We’ve been hit by another player, possibly two, and I quickly turn her to shield her with my body, walking her backward until her back hits the wall where she was hiding.
It’s only then that I lift my mouth from hers, both of us taking a deep breath.
Her eyes are still closed, cheeks flushed, even in this light, and a slow smile is widening her slightly swollen lips.
I want this moment to last forever. Wanted that kiss to last forever. To bottle it up and keep it on my dining room table where I could relive it every second of every day. She’s beyond stunning in this moment, and I never want to forget it.
When her lashes flutter and her eyes open, gifting me with those incredible hazel irises, she breathes, “I’m really glad you didn’t tag me.”
“Still can’t believe you hit me,” I chuckle.
“Worth every second.”
“Yes, ma’am, it was,” I murmur, leaning down to steal another kiss. Then I slide my lips along her cheek to her ear. “We probably have three minutes left. I’ll give you a thirty-second head start but if I catch you, you owe me another kiss.”
Her entire body shivers at my breath against the sensitive skin. “And if you don’t?”
“I owe you three.”
She pulls back, her eyes simmering with heat. “You’re never going to catch me.”
Grinning as I step back and allow her to move from between the wall and me, I watch her dart away, my eyes following that inspiring ass in those shapely jeans.
Don’t plan on catching her. Not until this game is over. Then all bets are off and all kisses are on.