“Keep them closed,” he reminds me, his voice softer, closer. The cushion dips beside me. “Come on.” He grips my forearm, helping me until I’m between his legs, my back against his hard chest.
He cinches his arm around my middle, a fistful of my dress grasped in his hand. A soft kiss lands on the nape of my neck, sparking a pleasant shudder, and I lean back against him.
I didn’t realize how tightly I’d wound myself up until that kiss dissolved the tension.
“Open your eyes,” he says, his breath warm against my skin, his arm molding me harder into him.
My eyelids flutter open. He holds his free hand out, the gun resting on his palm. The cold metal gleams in the daylight. It’s smaller than I remember. Either my imagination’s exaggerated the size, or this isn’t the same gun.
My breath catches in my throat at the absent serial number. My dad’s a cop, I’ve seen guns before.Legalguns. This doesn’t fall into that category.
The chill that was lurking in my spine spreads quickly. Questions multiply, dancing along my vocal cords, but I swallow them all. I can’t ask. And to be perfectly honest... I’m not sure I want answers. Not yet.
One thing at a time.
My hand inches toward the shining steel, led by curiosity and hope that touching it might trigger a memory, but before my fingers get anywhere near it, Nash draws away, gathering more of my dress into his hand.
“Careful, Hailey. It’s loaded.”
I hold my breath when he moves his hand back, letting me drag my index finger along the barrel.
Nothing happens.
Undeterred, I grasp the handle. The gun’s heavier than I anticipated but feels oddly good. Cold and deadly, butgood.
Still, no flashbacks.
A pervasive sense of failure catches in my throat, swelling into a lump of frustration. I thought it’d work. I thought touching the gun would be enough to unlock those firmly shut doors in my mind.
“Nothing,” I whisper. “I guess it was too easy.”
“You can’t force it.” Nash takes the gun, leaving it on the armrest, out of reach, his arm around my waist relaxing.
I close my eyes and the first thing I see is that memory. A chubby finger pulling the trigger, the bullet leaving the barrel as if in slow motion, a small explosion puffing around it.
An idea strikes me. Desperate but clear.
“Could you... could you shoot something?” I ask, the words tumbling out before I think them through.
Nash stills behind me, his chest expanding as he takes a deep, measured breath, his shoulders squaring.
I turn, climbing onto his lap, straddling him again. “Please.”
“No.” He spits the word out the same as when I first ran into him in the cafeteria. “No fucking way.”
“Pretty please? The flashback I had... it was concentrated around the bullet. Maybe if I see that again, if I see itnow, not in my head, it’ll trigger more.”
Epic poems could be composed about the conflict burning through Nash’s face. About his clenched jaw and the turbulence in his dark, unforgiving eyes.
He’s always so confident, so unshakably in control, but now, a flicker of doubt shines through. A battle rages in his mind. Isee it clearly. A battle between his overprotective instinct and the part that wants to help me reconstruct my past.
That’s a perfect opportunity to strike again.
I lay my hand against his chest, over his heart, over the piece of me he has tattooed there. “I’m tired of guessing. None of the small pieces fit together. This is the only idea I have. I can’t go home, I can’t see Alex, I don’t have anything else to release the memory I’m after, butthis...” I glance at his gun. “This might be it. I need this.” I lean over, my thumbs swiping the soft skin under his eyes. “Please. One shot.”
For a long moment, he studies me, searches my face, that battle raging inside him escalating to all-out war. Then, slowly, he exhales, breathing out a silent surrender.
“Fuck,” he grits out. “You’re a pain in my ass, you know that? One shot, pretty girl. And you follow my every order.”
