Nothing Left to Lose (34 page)

I sighed, I’d
never talked to anyone about this before, but I felt like I owed
him an explanation for it. “It takes my mind off everything. It
gives me something else to think about. The more it hurts, the
easier it is to forget everything else and just focus on the pain.
It’s just something I’ve done since… well, since Carter.” My voice
cracked when I said his name.

He nodded
sadly. “I can’t stand to see it though. I know you like to run, but
do you have to run for thirty minutes flat out like that? I mean,
you ran so damn fast that I don’t think I would have been able to
keep up with you. And that last minute,” he blew out a big breath,
“damn, you looked like you were ready to die, and yet you went
faster? It was awful to watch,” he winced, swallowing hard.

I frowned. When
you looked at it from his point of view, it did sound kind of over
the top. “Okay. I’ll try and tone it down. Can we just leave it?”
Not liking the turn in conversation, and wanting to think of more
pleasant things, I leant in closer and pressed my face into the
side of his neck. I sighed in contentment as I inhaled his
delicious smell. There was nothing else like it in the world.

“Do I smell bad
or something?”

I jumped back,
realising what I was doing. “Sorry.” I chuckled nervously, looking
anywhere but him.

He laughed.
“Are you telling me I should go for a shower?”

“No!” I
protested. “You smell good. It’s soothing. You smell like-” I
stopped quickly when it dawned on me what I was about to say. I
gulped, sitting up. “Never mind. Do you want breakfast?”

As I scooted
towards the edge of the bed, his hand closed over my arm, thwarting
my escape. “Hey, not so fast! I smell like what?” he asked.

I winced. “I
don’t want to say,” I whined.

One of his
eyebrows rose playfully as he tugged on my arm so I fell back onto
the bed. He grinned as he quickly manoeuvred himself so he was
pinning my arms above my head and my body was trapped underneath
his. “If you don’t tell me, we don’t go to school today.” I
chuckled and shook my head. I didn’t want to go to school anyway, I
would rather he pinned me to the bed all day. “Please tell me,” he
breathed, pulling out the puppy dog face.

I groaned, done
for. “Oh, for goodness’ sake, fine! You smell like safety, like
home,” I admitted, turning my head to the side so that I wouldn’t
see his face as I said it.

His grip
loosened on my arms as he pushed himself off me, sitting up. From
the corner of my eye, I could see him looking at me. “You want to
know what you smell like to me?” he asked quietly. I nodded without
looking at him. “Your smell scares the life out of me. You smell
like commitment and marriage,” he said simply.

The air rushed
out of my lungs as I sat up and looked anywhere but him. I knew he
was joking, but his casual joke about marriage made my stomach
twist into a knot. “That’s not funny. I told you mine seriously,” I
muttered, shaking my head and climbing out of bed. He didn’t answer
as I headed out of the room, already deciding that I’d make bacon
for breakfast. I needed the energy today and cooking it would be a
welcome distraction from the thoughts that were trying to force
their way into my head.

In typical guy
fashion, he was showered, dressed and looking like a Greek God by
the time the food was ready. As he walked out of the bedroom, I set
bacon and eggs in front of him. “Wow, that’s great service,” he
joked, sitting himself at the kitchen island. “By the way, are you
busy Friday night?” he smiled a little nervously.

Busy? If I was
busy then he’d already know about it. “No, why?”

He cleared his
throat, rubbing at the back of his neck absentmindedly. “How about
we make Friday nights our date nights?”

My ears picked
up the plural of that sentence. Did he mean every Friday was date
night?

He grinned. “I
was thinking dinner and a movie. That’s a good first date,
right?”

I smiled at how
unsure he looked. “What would you normally do with a girl if you
took her out?” I asked, curious as to why he seemed to be asking
for my input.

He grimaced a
little. “Er, a bar then her place, probably.”

“Wow, and you
don’t think you’re a player?” I teased. “Why her place? So you can
leave when you want and don’t have to stay the night?” I continued,
giggling at how uncomfortable he looked. I had completely hit the
nail on the head; clearly that was the exact reason. “So, what
would you do for a second date then? Because, technically, the lake
was our first date, you said so yourself,” I said matter-of-factly,
enjoying him squirming.

He cleared his
throat. “Well, on a second date, we’d probably skip the bar and
just go to her place.”

“And the
third?” I inquired, grinning.

“I’ve never
been on a third date,” he shrugged, shovelling his food into his
mouth.

My mouth popped
open at this admission. “Seriously? When you said you’d never had a
girlfriend, I thought you meant like a serious one, not like you’d
never been on more than two dates.”

“I’ve never met
a girl I wanted to date. I told you that,” he replied, finishing
his food in record time and heading over to the sink.

I rolled my
eyes. “Right, I know, you’re not a player, just misunderstood,” I
mocked, grinning as I finished up my food too. I held out my empty
plate for him to take. He seemed remarkably domesticated, aside
from cooking; he was very adept at tidying up after us both.

“Hey, you want
to go shooting tonight? While I was on the net last night, I found
one that’s not too far away. We could go join,” he called as I
walked to the bedroom.

I gulped. I
wasn’t actually sure if I could see a gun again after my dream last
night, but I didn’t want to have to explain that to him. “Um,
sure.”

School was
good, just like the day before. As promised, Ashton’s presence kept
all of the guys away from me so I didn’t need to worry about
anything. Again, we had lunch with what was fast becoming our group
of friends. Before the end of lunch, I exchanged numbers with
Rosie. I could see the disapproval on Ashton’s face – probably
because of the ‘safety factor’ as he so often called it, but to me
it was no big deal. Rosie was actually a genuinely nice girl, I
liked her.

Throughout the
day, Ashton kissed me a few times again. Each kiss seemed to spark
something deep inside me. It was like some sort of age-old primal
instinct that I had no control over. I both liked and hated it at
the same time.

Too soon
though, we pulled up at the shooting range that Ashton had found.
Nerves were churning in my stomach, and I wrung my shaking hands,
chewing furiously on my lip as he cut the engine in the parking
lot. I wasn’t sure I could get out of the car. My whole body was
stiff, frozen in place as Ashton climbed out and walked around the
car to my side.

This was all
because of the dream last night. The dream was the whole reason
that I was terrified of guns. During my time with him, I’d seen
Carter shoot people, but that was the only time I’d ever had a gun
put into my hand. The experience had scarred me deeply.

“You okay?”
Ashton asked, as he opened my door and bent down to see why I
hadn’t moved to get out. I shook my head in answer. He reached in,
unbuckling my seatbelt before taking both of my hands and squeezing
them gently. “I promise it’s fine,” he cooed.

I flicked my
eyes up to his face, seeing the concern in his eyes. “I don’t think
I can,” I whispered, shaking my head.

Without
answering he leant forward and planted a soft kiss on the corner of
my mouth, squeezing my hands again. All of my worries seemed to
melt away as his warmth and safety washed over me, giving me the
confidence to move my heavy legs and let him help me out of the
car.

“You can,” he
replied, nodding sternly. “But if you don’t want to, then we’ll
just go home. It’s your choice.”

I closed my
eyes, taking a couple of deep breaths before clasping his hand in a
vice-like grip as I nodded in agreement. With him at my side, I
could do it, and if I couldn’t, then I’d just ask him if we could
leave. “I want to. Just don’t let go.”

“I won’t,” he
promised. I gulped, swallowing the squirming terror that was
building in my chest as he led me inside.

I pressed into
his back as he filled out a couple of forms, signing us in and
setting us up a membership so we could go whenever we wanted to.
When he was finally done with the paperwork, the guy led us to one
of the lanes in the middle. Thankfully, we were the only ones in
there, so it was quiet apart from the radio humming old eighties
tunes in the background.

I whimpered and
turned to Ashton, watching as he sent off one of the little target
sheets the same distance away as I had it last time. When he was
satisfied with the sheet, he turned and put my goggles on for me
before he covered my ears with the headphones. He smiled and
reached behind him, unclenching my hand that I had fisted onto the
back of his shirt, holding him tightly.

“You sure you
want to do this?” he checked, rubbing my knuckles with his thumb as
he straightened my aching fingers for me. I hadn’t even known I was
holding him that tightly until then. I nodded weakly, eyeing the
door warily as I decided if I should run or not. Before I could
make up my mind, he moved behind me, pressing his chest against my
back as his arms wrapped around me tightly. “Breathe, Anna,” he
instructed. I gulped and sucked in a ragged breath as he picked up
the little, black handgun from the box he’d been given.
Immediately, I shrank back away from it, trying to melt into his
chest. He rested his chin on my shoulder as he held the gun out in
front of me. “Take it when you’re ready.”

My hands were
sweating, so I had to wipe them a couple of times on my jeans
before I reached up and let him put the heavy gun into my hand. “Oh
God,” I whimpered.

His hands
closed over mine, holding them tightly. “Remember the safety
button, and whenever you’re ready, go.”

I took a couple
of deep breaths to try and steady my nerves. When I realised that
it wasn’t going to get any better, I flicked the safety off, aiming
for the target and shot all six bullets in steady succession. It
actually wasn’t as bad as I had expected it to be. The whole dream
thing must have distorted it in my head. Deep down though, I knew
that having Ashton there was the key, he was the only thing keeping
me together.

Wordlessly, he
took the gun and changed the cartridge for me. The whole time, his
arms were around me securely. After shooting another six rounds, I
finally put the gun onto the counter and breathed a sigh of relief.
Ashton turned me around and hugged me tightly, grinning from ear to
ear. “I’m so proud of you. I didn’t think you’d be able to do it
when we were at the car,” he congratulated.

I smiled back.
“Neither did I.”

“Let’s see your
skills.” He pressed the button, calling in my sheet. I smiled, not
actually that bothered where my shots had gone, I was just happy to
have overcome my fear and not crumbled under the pressure of it. As
it turns out though, I’d done pretty well considering my hands were
shaking. Almost half of my shots were within the outline of the
body.

“Are you gonna
have a go?” I asked, eyeing the gun cautiously. It was weird but I
wanted to see him in action. The couple of times that I’d seen him
with a gun he’d looked menacing, yet sexy in a weird way.

He shook his
head. “Nah, it’s okay,” he replied, shrugging.

I wasn’t
expecting the disappointment that settled over me. “Oh come on, I
haven’t seen you shoot yet.”

His head cocked
to the side, regarding me curiously before he finally nodded.
“You,” he pointed to me, “there,” he continued, pointing to the
side of the booth where we were standing.

I grinned at
his order and did a mock salute. “Yes, sir.”

He laughed and
walked over to me, taking my ear defenders and putting them back on
for me before trailing his fingers across my cheek softly. “Don’t
move.”

I gulped and
nodded in agreement as he walked back to the counter, sending off a
fresh target off into the distance. He didn’t stop it at the point
I had mine at; instead, he sent it all the way back to the other
wall, a solid sixty feet away.

The way he
stood was sexy as hell: one leg back, knees a little bent, slightly
turned to the side and arms out front. I could just imagine him
standing like that in his uniform that I’d seen in that photo.
Talk about mouth-watering,
I mused.

I saw him
glance at me from the corner of his eye before he picked up the
gun, aimed and squeezed off six shots, changed the cartridge and
then shot the other six, all in the space of about fifteen
seconds.

My mouth popped
open in shock because it had all happened so fast. He turned back
to me and laughed. I was vaguely aware that my eyes were wide and
that my mouth was hanging open in awe of what I’d just seen. I’d
actually never seen anything so sexy in my life.

He put the gun
down and motioned me over to him. “Go on then, pull it in.” He
nodded at the recall button.

I pressed it
and we waited while the paper made its way all the way back to us.
When it stopped, I was a little lost for words. Every single shot
that he’d made was on point. In fact, he had made two little groups
of shots, one on the centre of the chest and the other in the
centre of the head. He had grouped the shots so closely that it
actually looked like two large holes instead of twelve little
ones.

“Holy shit,
that was incredible,” I gushed, still looking down at the paper in
awe.

He shrugged as
if it were nothing. “You forgot I was a badass?”