As I moved, the light breeze kicked her scent up toward me, making me breathe in all that coconut that clung to her skin.
The change in position also let me look down at that pretty face of hers.
Her eyes were wide, the pupils blown wide with shock. Her sun-kissed face looked bleached. And that pouty mouth of hers was open slightly.
Fuck if there wasn’t some strange, almost overwhelming urge to lean back down again, to press my lips to hers, to feel the press of her tits against my chest, to nudge her legs open, notch myselfbetween her thighs, then grind against her until we were both panting and groaning.
What the fuck was wrong with me?
We’d just been shot at. Yet all I could think about was dry humping her on the ground like a couple of horny teenagers.
She was aprincess, for fuck’s sake.
I needed to be worried about her wellbeing, not wondering what she sounded like when she came.
“You okay?” I asked. If my voice was a little breathless, I hoped to fuck she’d blame it on the run, on the worry about getting shot, and not on some strange newfound attraction. “Hey, you okay?” I asked again when she just kept staring up at me like she didn’t know who I was. “Babe? Gracie?”
Panic clutched my chest as I scrambled up onto my knees.
My hands shot out, fingers moving over her head, her neck, down her arms, over her chest. Somehow, I didn’t even have any inappropriate thoughts as my fingers skimmed over her breasts, down the curves of her hips, down her legs. I was too busy looking for damage, for some reason that she still looked so shell-shocked.
“Are you hit?” I asked.
I was too panicked to think rationally right then.
All I could picture were the worst-case scenarios.
Gracie with blood gushing from a bullet wound.
Gracie in a hospital bed, pale, hurting.
Gracie in a pine box.
“Where are you hit?” I asked, hands going to each side of her neck, feeling for her pulse. It was strong, fast.
“I’m…” she started.
“Where?”
“Nowhere,” she managed, her voice airy. “I’m not hit.” Then, voice gaining a little more strength, “I’m not hit. I’m okay. Areyou hit?” she asked, trying to sit up, but I was still straddling her body, making her give up and move flat again.
Was I?
I had no idea.
I was buzzing. I could feel my pulse in all the points: temples, neck, chest, wrists, pelvis, knees, feet. But there was none of that searing-hot pain I’d felt the last time I’d been shot.
“Perish!” a voice, masculine, called, accompanied by the thundering footsteps of not one, but several, men.
My hand went instinctively toward the holster at my ankle. But before I could make contact, I registered the voice.
Matteo Grassi.
“Is everyone alright?” he asked, rushing up to our side. “Gracie?” Matteo asked, and I couldn’t help but wonder if his panic was just for an innocent potentially being hit, or because he knew the club would not be happy if a bullet meant for him ended up in a princess instead.
“I’m okay,” she said, finally sitting up. The movement forced me to get to my feet, but I reached down to pull her up onto her feet. There was a split second where she brushed the dirt off her romper before she remembered why she was there. “Oh, God,” she said, turning toward the barn.
Matteo’s men were already pulling open the giant sliding doors.
