She stared at him. “You want to teach me to throw knives?”
He brought her up against him, flush to his body so she felt every…hard…inch. His voice dropping enough to make her feel the words to her core.
“You made me fall for you. The least you can do is learn how to protect yourself when I’m not around.”
Her breath caught, and her knees went weak at his words.
Sagging against him, she let them sink in. He had fallen for her too.
Her heart squeezed, and she knew she’d never forget this moment—the dim lab, the quiet, the feeling that the ground was shifting beneath her feet. “Okay,” she managed.
His mouth curved up. “Okay.”
He kept hold of her hand as they left the room.
The basement range smelled like cold concrete and metal. A long table ran along one wall, and Angelo laid out a neat row of balanced throwing knives without ceremony, like this was simply a thing people did on a Tuesday night. Maybe for him it was.
Targets stood at the far end. Painted rings, worn in the center from consistent use.
“Here.” He positioned her in front of the throwing line, clasping her shoulders from behind. “Weight forward. Not a lot. Just shift your center.”
She shifted. He slipped his hand to her hip to correct the angle and she forgot what weight forward meant when all she wanted to do was rub against him.
“Relax your grip.” His mouth was close to her ear, his chest solid at her back. “You’re strangling it.”
She wanted to be clenching her hand around something other than the hilt of a knife.
“I don’t know how loose is right.” She nuzzled his cheek that was close to hers, and he let out a groan.
“You’ll feel it.” His thumb moved along the inside of her wrist. “There. Less than that.”
She adjusted her stance. He made a low sound of approval that did nothing for her concentration and everything for her heart rate.
Her first throw went wide and skittered across the floor. She wasn’t surprised.
“Too much wrist.” He stepped around to face her and demonstrated—a clean, unhurried extension of his forearm that looked effortless and was probably infuriating to anyone trying to learn. “The blade does the work. You’re just the delivery system.”
She lined up the second throw. The blade bounced off the outer ring and though it was a miss too, at least her aim improved.
“Better. Again.”
She threw again and again. After he collected all the knives and spread them out on the table, he swaggered back, steps rolling in a way that had her thighs clenching.
She was reaching for the next blade when he stepped in, turned her face up to his and kissed her. A hard crush of his lips, the kind of kiss that took its time and didn’t apologize for it.
When he pulled back, she was trembling again.
“You did that on purpose,” she breathed.
His expression was perfectly neutral. “Did what?”
“You kissed me right before my throw so I lost my focus.”
His eyes hooded. “I kissed you because I wanted to kiss you.”
“Your timing is terrible.”
“My timing…isexcellent.” He leaned so close she thought he’d kiss her again. Instead, he nodded at the target. “Throw.”
