Chapter Ten #12
He jerked his own hands back when they lifted to do a Bruce Lee move.
He was all limbs and would’ve looked like he was waving around wet noodles.
“I’ve been doing this for decades.” Zavier set aside the open shotgun, but without the warning glare, like he was confident Flynn wouldn’t lunge for it.
“Doesn’t mean those five shots were luck.” He held out his hand. “Now give me back my shotgun.” He wiggled his fingers.
Xavier looked amused. “And your two shots could’ve been luck, if we’re going by that logic.”
“I know you’ve learned your lesson,” Zavier’s said, the teasing in his voice absent. “I also explained the rules. You moved fast. With a weapon.”
Flynn glanced at the gray sky, watching as thick clouds rolled past.
“I don’t deny my mistake,” he said. “My whole life I’ve been surviving, shrinking myself, filled with anxiety, and sticking to routine to minimize small spaces.
Because tiny is safe.” He’d never told anyone about those things.
Didn’t really put it together until Colton made it no longer possible to deny the truth.
“Then you bring me here with the smell of gunpowder in the air, noise, and open land, and for the first time, I felt free, Zavier.” Flynn looked at the gun resting on the table.
“Hitting that disc gave me a sense of freedom I’ve never experienced before.
I got caught up with joy and became careless.
Just wanted you to know I paid attention. Just got overwhelmed.”
Zavier brushed his knuckles along Flynn’s jaw.
“I know. Witnessing your happiness was breathtaking. It was the purest joy I’ve ever seen.
” The pad of his thumb brushed Flynn’s cheek.
“Coming here wasn’t just about building your confidence.
I want you to be happy, but I also need you safe.
” Zavier dropped his hand and Flynn desperately wanted it back.
He blew out a breath through his nose. “Tell you what. You can shoot until the ammo is depleted, but we’re doing this my way.”
“Whatever you want.” Flynn grinned and saluted him, bouncing happily on the balls of his feet. “I’m all yours to boss around.”
Something flashed behind Zavier’s blues eyes. Hunger and a strange kind of wildness Flynn couldn’t quite name.
“Be careful what you offer me, kitten.” Zavier’s smoldering blue eyes locked onto him. “I’m a very possessive man.”
Flynn’s breath hitched, his body growing completely still. The hell? How did he even respond to that? His brain was glitching so hard right now, it was throwing out error codes.
From the moment they’d met, Flynn felt drawn to Zavier. The sensation went beyond looks. It settled somewhere much deeper, more primal level.
It wasn’t only because of his stunning looks. Flynn had felt something pulling in his chest. He’d dismissed it as attraction. Because damn, Zavier was beautiful. But the feeling had only intensified.
“Rains coming in,” a gentleman announced before poking a head of thinning gray hair around the corner. “Shuttin’ down due to inclement weather.” He coughed into his elbow. “Get your refund for the remaining time on your lane at the office. Fellas drive safely.”
Flynn blinked a few dozen times, feeling like he was pulling out of a trance.
Zavier placed the shotgun back inside the box. Flynn studied him, noticing how stiff Zavier moved.
Maybe five recoils to the shoulder hurt, and he just wasn’t admitting it.
Flynn had watched him too many times slotting or stacking books.
Zavier didn’t do jerky. His movement flowed through a room, the space bending around him.
Okay, so maybe Flynn sucks at poetry, but that definitely wasn’t how Zavier moved.
“You okay?” Flynn started toward the table to help, but Zavier held up a hand without turning around.
“I need a moment.”
Lowering to one knee, Flynn gathered all the shells ejected from the gun. Zavier’s five. Flynn’s had been placed neatly on the table.
Still, he’d hit two. That was something. Flynn closed his fingers around the spent casings he planned to frame. Keepsakes from the best day of his life.
Chapter Seven
The storm had swallowed the evening early, dark clouds rolling low over the mountains until the back roads to Crimson Hollow looked more like midnight than dusk.
The air felt thick through the cracked window, charged with that strange pressure that came before rain. Not rain yet. Just static. A few heavy drops struck the windshield every now and then, slow and fat enough to leave smeared trails beneath the wipers before disappearing.
Inside the pickup, soft blue dashboard lights cast dim shadows across the cab.
The tires hummed steadily against the pavement, gravel occasionally cracking beneath them when Zavier took the narrower curves too close.
Thunder rolled somewhere far off through the hills, deep enough to feel more than hear.
Flynn slept curled in the passenger seat beside him.
At some point during the drive, he’d folded in toward the center console, knees tucked up slightly, cheek pressed against the seat beneath Zavier’s flannel bundled under his head.
The oversized hoodie swallowed him whole.
Even asleep, he leaned unconsciously toward Zavier’s side of the truck like instinct had decided something Flynn himself hadn’t yet.
Zavier tightened his grip slightly on the steering wheel.
Kitten.
The word rose instinctively now.
His tiger stirred at the sight of Flynn sleeping there, small and warm and entirely defenseless.
That alone should’ve unsettled Zavier less than it did.
Another flicker of lightning illuminated the cab silver-white for half a second, and Zavier’s jaw tightened as the scene at the shooting range replayed again whether he wanted it to or not.
Flynn hitting the second clay target.
That surprised look flashing across his face before excitement overtook it completely. The ridiculous little dance afterward. The way he’d pointed the shotgun dramatically and grinned, quoting Scarface with absolutely no business since he didn’t even know the character’s name.
Say hello to my little friend.
Zavier could still hear it. Still feel him. Bright. Open. Looking toward Zavier first for approval without even realizing he’d done it.
Something inside Zavier had gone dangerously still after that.
Not him. His tiger.
That was the problem.
Zavier exhaled slowly through his nose, eyes fixed on the dark road ahead while another heavy drop tapped against the windshield.
He’d taken the gun too sharply from Flynn. His mate had tried to sass his way out of it, tried bargaining to get it back, all teasing defiance and stunning smiles, and Zavier—
Christ.
The memory hit harder now in the quiet cab. That look between them. Flynn staring up at him mid-banter after Zavier warned him about the offer.
Because of that offer.
The exact moment Flynn lost every smart remark in his head because Zavier had looked at him too intensely for too long, unaware a tiger was gazing back at him.
The offer had been said innocent enough, but Flynn had called to his beast in the most primitive way, causing Zavier to struggle to keep his animal leashed.
For the first time ever, his tiger had come dangerously close to the surface, closer than ever before, and if the owner hadn’t interrupted, Flynn would’ve seen the tiger through Zavier’s eyes.
His tiger had been right there, pressing forward hard enough that Zavier could practically feel it in his teeth. Wanting closer. Wanting Flynn. Wanting to close the distance until there wasn’t any space left between them.
Mate.
The word echoed darkly through him. His fingers flexed on the wheel.
Zavier was trained for control. Built around it. Years of discipline hammered into instinct. He protected people for a living, and now his own beast was testing boundaries around the one person Zavier should’ve been handling most carefully.
Especially now.
Before the claim.
Before Flynn fully understood what Zavier even was to him.
The tiger didn’t care about timing. Or caution. It had seen Flynn glowing with that chaotic unfiltered joy spilling out of him, and something possessive had rooted deep immediately afterward.
Zavier glanced sideways briefly.
Flynn shifted in his sleep, brows pulling together faintly before relaxing again. His fingers curled loosely into the flannel beneath his cheek.
So trusting.
That sharp irritation in Zavier’s chest returned, though none of it was directed at Flynn.
At himself.
At the fact his tiger reacted to Flynn’s vulnerability with hunger wrapped in protectiveness so intense it bordered primal.
It wasn’t lust. Beyond that certainty, Zavier couldn’t understand what his beast’s intentions were. Not with that much aggression.
Outside, lightning flashed again behind the clouds, illuminating endless pine trees in pale ghostly outlines before darkness swallowed them whole once more.
Inside the truck, everything stayed quiet.
Just dashboard glow. The low hum of tires. Flynn asleep beside him. Zavier driving through a storm that hadn’t broken yet while another one paced restlessly beneath his skin, equally unwilling to let go.
* * * *
Flynn snorted softly at his phone screen. “Sir, if your relationship requires security intervention and three backup cousins, that’s not love. That’s a hostage negotiation.”
The woman on-screen hurled a drink at her boyfriend’s side chick.
“Not the blowout.” Flynn winced. “That cost a lot of money.”
Curled against the back of the couch, Flynn adjusted the phone in one hand while the other rested along Zavier’s warm side beneath the blanket. His thumb brushed lazily against Zavier’s rigid stomach while another woman joined the fight swinging.
“Oh damn.” Flynn’s eyes widened. “She did not come to play. Knocked out two of your cousins before she even cleared the doorway.”
A laugh almost escaped him, but it softened when he glanced over his shoulder.