19. Addie #3
“Honestly, if you’d hit that first go, I’d have resigned immediately and recommended you for the position,” he laughed.
“Now you know how the weapon feels.” He reached around me, brushing his palm over my right hand.
“You know how it’ll react to your gentlest touch.
” His left drifted across my collarbone.
Then he cleared his throat, shifting behind me.
“Try again. Account for all the things you just felt and witnessed. You’ve got this, Addie. ”
Addie. He called me Addie.
It felt oddly personal, even if it was anything but.
I took another deep breath—because this man was inciting panic with every damned gesture—and lined the tree up again. The trigger felt smooth beneath my finger, the weight of the stock at my shoulder, reassuring.
“Squeeze on the exhale,” he murmured.
“Yes, Sir,” I muttered, rolling my eyes.
His quiet, rolling chuckle danced up my spine. I repressed a shiver.
“Careful, Deadly. You might unwittingly stumble upon someone’s kink if you keep talking like that.”
Coherent thought fled me. My jaw dropped open until I realised and snapped it shut with an audible, teeth-clacking snick.
Unable to come up with any kind of witty comeback that didn’t involve enthusiasm or drool, I bailed, finding refuge in the task at hand. I lined up the tree for a third time, readying to perfect my shot.
Inhale. Hold for four seconds.
Exhale.
…what the fuck is that?
A millisecond before I squeezed the trigger, something bouncing and red snagged my attention through the scope. Something coming down the track.
I stared until it came into view—eyes fixed, unblinking, on that speck of red. And when it reappeared—when I understood exactly what I was looking at—I went rigid.
The urge to shoot was unmatched; a visceral primal need.
Abstractly, I registered Pearce peering over my shoulder to discern the source of my hesitation. But it wasn’t hesitation at all—it was a war between desire and conflict wreaking havoc on my nervous system.
It would be so easy…
And then I pulled the trigger.
Sebastos Varco and his stupid red ball cap didn’t even see it coming.
Nor did the poor tree behind him. The bullet crashed through layers of bark inches above his thick head with a sharp, resounding crack. Seb fell over backwards, eyes darting around wildly trying to locate the source of his almost-demise.
Scowling, I grunted, “I missed.”
Pearce’s shrewd stare felt warm on the side of my face. “No,” he murmured. “You didn’t.”
“No. I didn’t,” I agreed, twisting my neck to look back at him over my shoulder. Meeting his gaze head-on, I was surprised to see a complete absence of disappointment staring back at me.
“You hit exactly where you meant to.”
“I did.”
“That was probably unwise.”
“Probably.”
“But it was also incredibly hot.”
“It was?”
“Mmhmm.”
Then, somehow, the rifle was on the floor and my face was in his hands as our lips crashed together. I rolled my hips, disjointedly realising that my legs had captured his waist and I gave zero fucks about that fact.
Pearce groaned, delving his fingers deeper into my hair, wrenching it loose from the half-hearted confines of my hair tie. His hips kicked upwards and I moaned, the sound hushed by the next crescendo of his tongue, expertly exploring the shape of my own.
I cared not for the fact that we should not be doing this, and all for the knowledge that, fuck it, we are.
I did not think past the next second, the next touch, the next moment.
I reached for the hem of his shirt, wrenching it over his head like I would perish without seeing what lay beyond that tiny sliver of skin I’d glimpsed earlier—and by the gods, it was a sight worth seeing. Like he had been crafted from bronze marble, midnight ink, and—
You’re drooling, Addie.
He chuckled, clearly pleased with all the ogling I absolutely was doing, and dropped a hand to my waistband. It went no further, much to my clitoris’ displeasure. When I whimpered at his restraint, he laughed again.
Yes, joy came easily to Deklan Pearce. I wondered if pleasure did, too.
Because he was annoyingly chivalrous as fuck and made no move to do so, I sat back and tore my own shirt off over my head, exposing admittedly not much, thanks to the black sports crop hiding anything of visual value.
“Fuck,” he whispered, leaning back to rest on his elbows.
His eyes looked mostly green in this light, with a distinct chocolate core around his pupils. How did I know this? I was transfixed—held hostage by the way those eyes devoured every inch of visible skin.
Suddenly self-conscious, I frowned, crossing my arms over my belly—and that soft pouch that never went anywhere despite all the years of training I underwent.
“No.” He sat bolt upright, claiming one of my wrists in each of his warm, golden hands.
“Don’t you dare. Not until I’ve personally inspected every scar, freckle, and stretchmark.
Preferably with both teeth and tongue.” He winked, uncrossing my arms gently and leaning forwards to lay me flat on my back.
Somehow, without me even registering it until it was too late, he’d secured both my wrists above my head with only one of his hands, leaving the other free to do… well, I wasn’t quite sure what he intended to do with it.
But I wasn’t exactly arguing about it either.
I choked on an inhale.
I’d been straddling his hips, but now, they were wedged firmly between my thighs, pressing against my core in the most delicious of ways. This was a masterclass in temptation. And I was failing the test.
He grinned, pressing his lips hauntingly soft to the side of my neck. When I shuddered, he huffed a laugh, and continued to trace a line down the centre of my body, all the way to my navel.
I was a sodden mess. This pair of underwear was as good as drowned.
But when he paused to kiss across my belly, I froze.
“What, this?” he asked, kissing just beneath my belly button. “Is this what you’re worried I’ll see?”
When I refused to answer and my stained cheeks answered for me, he smiled.
“Don’t you dare ever feel bad about this. This sexy little sliver is doing a marvellous job,” he said, kissing it once more.
“At what?”
“Only housing your internal organs, Adelaide.”
His lips dropped lower, right on my panty line.
“And if a man ever makes you feel bad about possessing internal organs or the skin that protects them, then he’s not a man at all. I can promise you that none of us would ever dare think twice about it.”
“Us?”
Use that rifle to shoot me now. All I’m capable of are one-syllable answers, for fuck’s sake.
“Mmhmm,” was all he said back.
“Fuck,” I whispered, lost to the sensation of whispered breaths against my core—and desperately craving more.
“Can I remove these, Deadly?” he asked, finger slipping beneath the elastic waistband, running back and forth across my pelvis.
“Please,” I practically begged.
“Thank fuck you said that,” he rumbled, then used that free hand to slide them free.
And suddenly I was fully exposed—and getting thoroughly eye-fucked by my weapons instructor.
And I didn’t give a flying fuck about it.
“I won’t do anything without your say-so, but just so you know, I’m going to be thinking about this perfect fucking sight for the rest of my life.”
My clit throbbed at the admission. “Please put me out of my fucking misery,” I moaned. “Either with that pretty gun, or your pretty hand. One or the other. Choose.”
His perfect face split into a broad, devious grin. “How ‘bout my tongue?”
My hips bucked at the suggestion, evidently as eager for that as my mind was.
“Fuck, yes,” I agreed, desperate for any part of him to ease that building ache between my legs.
He wasted no time. And when his tongue split me in two, when he plunged it into me, then dragged it upwards, I could have sworn I saw stars.
This was what I’d been missing out on all this time?
This was what I could have experienced at the hands of Ethan or any of the others?
He swirled it around my clit, then over it—faster and faster until I was a shivering mess beneath him.
What a fool I’d been.
But then again—
He sucked on the bundle of nerves, and I imploded—hard. All over his face.
His responding chuckle hurt in the best way, prompting a string of curse words and twitching legs.
“Pearce—”
“You might as well call me Dek now.” He grinned again, relinquishing my trapped hands and leaning down to capture my lips.
I could taste myself in his kiss, and fuck if I wasn’t ready for more.
I reached down to rub the heel of my hand over his rock-hard bulge, but he trapped it, murmuring, “You have no idea how much I wish we could continue this… but we have company now.”
He pressed one more kiss to my confused lips and rolled so that his back faced the door—and his fully-clothed body shielded my almost-completely-naked one.
“Sorry about this,” he muttered.
“Deklan, you better not be fucking some chick on my bed!” Beck roared, throwing the door wide and storming inside.
That’s right, this was his bedroom. And I was naked in it. With another guy. Who happened to be one of his best friends.
Fuuuuuck.