“Yeah, but I know her hot buttons,” Jim pointed out.
“Oh, good,” Dunk said dryly. “If you get me sued, settlement’s coming out of your pay.”
“She’s not gonna sue,” Jim said.
“She’s a lawyer.”
“She’s not gonna—” Jim regrouped. “Senior, just cover your ass, okay? Tell me not to do this, write up a memo about our conversation—”
“Don’t do this,” Dunk said as he pushed himself out of his chair. “Andyouwrite the flipping memo—arrogant asshole officer, givingmepaperwork…? If you really have to do this—but I’ll say it again:don’t—use my computer and printer and leave it on my desk so I can sign it.” He shook his head as he left Jim in his office, but he also muttered “Good luck, goddamn quixotic idiot,” as he closed the door behind him.
Writing that memo had made Jim late.
He now moved his hands down to Ashley’s shoulders—she was wearing one of her tank tops over a running bra—she’d brought a long-sleeved shirt as the paintball rules instructed, but it was so freaking hot out she hadn’t yet put it on. Her sun-kissed shoulders were warm and smooth beneath his hands. And it occurred to him that if, say,Clarkhad been his volunteer, he might’ve put his hands on the kid’s shoulders in this exact same way. Why, then, was this different? Because, God, it was.
“You’re good to go,” he told her as she stood there, hanging onto her marker as she stared up at him through the hard plastic view shield of her mask.
And yeah. All that trust he’d seen in her body language had already transformed to surprise and confusion at his sudden handsy behavior. Not that he was being handsy like Bull or Todd. He most certainly wasn’t grabbing her ass. And yet she now had an electric wariness that almost made her vibrate. But she didn’t pull away. It was possible she was frozen.
All-righty then. Jim kept his hands on her shoulders as he turned her to face the fencing with the outlined targets. There were seven of them—all big, blocky, vaguely male outlines in clean, fresh black paint against the weather-silvered wood. “Aim for the one in the middle, TL.”
As he’d expected her to do, Ashley looked down with some uncertainty at the marker in her hands.
“Step one—before firing for the first time,” he raised his voice to announce to the entire team, “is to check the setting velocity.” He stepped even closer to Ashley—his front close enough to her back to feel her body heat. It wasn’t quite as close as they’d been when going over the cargo net on the mock-O-course that morning, but right now he made it far less impersonal by lightly running his hands from her shoulders all the way down her arms—God damn it, this was not okay, and nope, he wouldneverhave done that to Clark—to help her lift the marker into position so she could view the setting.
“Dunk tests all the markers regularly,” he loudly continued his lesson even as he started to sweat beneath his mask. Because, yeah, Ashley had stiffened—her shoulders were now up and tight, her body taut. So he pressed a little closer—but upper body only, because Jesus. “We fire each marker into a chronograph that verifies the velocity. So your setting should be locked around 280 for outdoor play. That’s feet per second, which translates, again, to about 190 miles an hour. TL, what is your velocity?”
“Two-eighty,” she said.
This was where he’d expected her to pull away from him, or to shrug him off, or at least to say or dosomething, but she didn’t. She just stood there inside the circle of his arms. So he, too, stayed where he was as he continued, “Check the safety—and it should be on.”
It was, but her fingers fumbled as she attempted to flip it, and it was all he could do not to push her hand away and do it for her. Because all he could feel was the smooth heat of her bare arms against the sensitive insides of his own. Thank God she was wearing the kind of mask that had full head cover, or her hair would’ve been against his neck and cheek. As it was, every breath he took was filled with the sweet scent of her soap and sunblock—even her sweat smelled delicious.
“Okay, safety’s off,” he could finally announce as he also finally let her go and stepped back. “Aim for the center target.”
She glanced back at him over her shoulder before awkwardly hauling the marker up into a ridiculously bad firing position. Her feet were close together, and her shoulders were still up and tight. As soon as she pulled the trigger, the kick of the marker—usually not an issue—pushed her off-balance.
Jim was ready for that—but not ready enough as she stumbled back into him with a full body-slam. She was far less fragile than she looked, with a butt that was as tight and muscular as her runner’s thighs. Her abs were equally impressive—while she didn’t have a complete six-pack, the softness of both her belly and her smooth skin covered a core that was solid. And yeah, as he’d caught her, mid-flail, her shirt rode up so that his hand accidentally slipped into the gap between it and her jeans.
His right hand. His left wrapped around her in not quite afullboob-grab, but pretty damn close.
“Sorry,” he said quickly as he made sure she was steady even while he leapt back, away from her. His left hand got entangled between her arm and the marker and he ended up brushing her entire breast with his fingers. “Sorry!”
Christ, after the way he’d touched her arms, she was going to think that was intentional and Jesus,whatwas he doing…?
Except,shewas apologizing tohim. “No, sorry,I’msorry!” She’d stepped on his toe, but he’d barely felt it through his boots.
“I’m too far away,” she said, and for several weird seconds, Jim had no idea what the hell she was talking about, but then realized that she’d turned to look at the fence.
The paintball she’d fired from her marker hadn’t even made it as far as the target. It had landed with a red splash on the small strip of concrete in front of the fence.
He had to clear his throat before he could speak. “No, this is a good distance. If you can only hit your target when you’re close to it, you won’t stand a chance against the other team. You just have to think about the physics. The relatively low velocity, plus the weight of the pellet…”
“It’s likeAngry Birds,” Clark realized. “You know, the video game…? Instead of aiming at where you want the pellet to go, you have to lob it.”
Ashley looked over at her brother. “Lob it…?”
The kid’s own marker was without air or pellets, but he used it to demonstrate, aiming it up and then using his hand to show the pellet’s imagined trajectory—an arc rather than a direct line.
