“So, what we need is evidence. Because if the legal system won’t take care of him, we will. But we don’t go off half-cocked,” he says, looking straight at me. “When we take out a motherfucker, we make damn sure he’s guilty. You with me?”
She snarls and nods her head.
I grab her hand and squeeze it, and a look passes between the two of us. Whatever this is, we’re going to go through together.
25
Everett
I hope to put a smile back on Rafi’s face, and for now that means putting a gun in his hands. Speaking of which, I can hear him clumping along the path behind me. I turn around and try not to laugh.
“That thing is as big as you are.”
Rafi carrying—nearly dragging, really—a sniper rifle fully assembled is cracking me up. The damn thing is enormous; I don’t know what DB was thinking. Rafi is avoiding my eyes, a little self-conscious, the last thing I want for him. I let him catch up and take the rifle from his hands.
“Aren’t you supposed to assemble this at the range?” I ask, doing a terrible job of hiding my smile.
“You watch too many Hollywood movies,” he says primly.
Come to think of it, I’m pretty sure Daniels avoided using a quick-assemble rifle if he could.
“I guess it messes up the accuracy.”
“Yes, among other things. Also, most modern sniper rifles aren’t nearly this long.”
I hold the rifle in one hand and grab him with the other, pulling him in for a sweet and dirty kiss. Even with the awkwardness of our height difference, his kisses are powerful, searching, heady things.
We finally separate after someone—probably Anders—wolf whistles from the house. His face goes serious for a moment, and he says, “It was really nice of you to ask DB to bring me a long-range rifle, but next time please let me know so I can tell you which one fits me.”
He’s told me before that finding things to fit him is difficult, and he can be a little sensitive about it, which is reasonable. Frankly, I’m happy for the subject change. I run my finger over his kiss-red lips. “This was the smallest sniper-type rifle the gunrunners had, but we can go back for a regular rifle if you want.”
He shakes his head. “No, I wanna shoot this bad boy. I’m curious to see if I’m still any good in the real world.”
“That’s fair. But don’t you worry—we’ve got a ton of weapons whose owners are no longer around to use them. I’m certain we’ll find you a good one from our stockpile after all of this.”
His cheeks go pink as I card my fingers through his hair. This shyness, when compared to his urgency in the truck, in the shower, hell, in the make-out session we just had…it’s alluring in its inconsistency.
“I’m going to need to get used to that.”
“Get used to what, baby?”
“The fact that everything around you is murder.”
I lean into him, nearly taking him out with the barrel. “Oops, sorry. But does it still turn you on?”
His cheeks get even brighter and he bites his lower lip. Looking up at me through his lashes, he smiles, saying, “But it’sso wrong…”
“Yeah, well, I turn you on with murder, and you turn me on because you’re so small and delicate. I don’t wanna dominate you, but knowing I’m so much taller and stronger than you…” I finish with a growl, pulling him close to increase my height advantage. He blinks up at me and his breath hitches, and there’s his little tell again. He’s turned on.
I shake off the desire to find a tree to push him up against and say, “It’s embarrassing, really, because this is the one thing about me that requires no skill at all. I’m not even that tall, but you being so tiny makes me feel bulletproof.”
“Said like a true top,” he complains as we arrive at the carport. This is where the previous occupants stored their weird-but-cool utility vehicle. Imagine, if you will, the bastard child of a threesome involving a golf cart, an all-terrain vehicle, and a small heavy-duty flatbed truck, and that’s pretty much what this thing looks like. More importantly, it has a vertical gun rack.
I slide the rifle into place a little rough, and he pushes out his hands. “Wait, don’t jostle it so much. You’ll mess up the scope.”
“Shit, sorry, baby. I’ll be more careful.”
He lowers his head, smiling, then steals the rifle back from me, setting it in the rack with the precision of someone who isn’t wearing his T-shirt half-untucked.
