“Sounds good. We’ll be out in a sec,” she replied, adjusting the hopper on her marker.
She grabbed her helmet and turned to face Nikos. But before she could pull it on, he stepped in close—closer than she expected.
“What—?”
Then he dipped his head… and kissed her.
Her breath caught. Everything inside her stilled.
His lips were warm. Firm. Gentle, but possessive. It was a slow, sensual kiss that claimed her with its certainty. Like he already knew the shape of the chaos churning inside her and didn’t care.
Damn her traitorous body… she melted.
Just for a second.
When he pulled back, her eyes searched his, the world spinning slightly off axis.
“Why did you do that?” she whispered.
He smiled faintly. “For luck.”
Then he turned, pulled on his helmet, and stepped out into the staging hall.
She stared after him, her heart slamming against her ribs, her nerves frayed, her brain scrambled.
He wasn’t supposed to be like this.
Smart. Wounded. Funny. Kind.
Sexy.
She needed him to be shallow. Arrogant. Forgettable.
Instead, he was becoming special.
She cursed softly and jammed her helmet down, tugging the face shield into place. The air inside was warmer, stifling—but not nearly as suffocating as the feeling in her chest.
She followed him out.
Two minutes later, the whistle blew, the match began, and all hell broke loose.
Kiki darted left, her heart pounding hard behind her ribs. The air inside the arena pulsed with the sound of hissing CO2, rapid-fire splats, and the muffled thud of feet pounding over rubber-padded concrete. The shadows were deep and fractured, broken by flickering light from overhead panels that hadn’t all been replaced since the lastteam brawl.
She moved fast—low and smooth—around a rusted-out barrel stacked with tires, her paintball marker tight to her chest. To her right, Nikos peeled off toward higher ground, his movements clean, efficient… trained.
She didn’t want to admire it.
She did anyway.
“You didn’t say you were good,” she muttered into the mic clipped to her collar.
His voice came through the earpiece, low and amused. “You didn’t ask.”
“True.”
A shot zipped past her shoulder, paint spraying the wall behind her. She dropped, rolled, and came up behind a low barricade. One kid—Dante, she thought—was trying to flank her.
“Right side. Dumpster. Orange stripe.”
