McCoy (Golden Glades Henchmen MC 3)

The woman shot me.

And yet I couldn't seem to make myself look away.

Even with those striking eyes closed, she was almost obnoxiously pretty with her full lashes sitting gently on her cheeks.

My gaze slid down her chest, watching her breathing, finding it slow and even, before continuing down.

She wore a simple, delicate, golden bracelet with two entwined circles around her wrist and short, neat French-tipped nails. Her toenails matched her fingernails, nothing over-the-top or attention-grabbing.

Everything was simple and understated from her clothes to her barely-there makeup.

What would make a nail tech decide to pick up a gun and shoot a complete stranger?

I had no idea.

But I would be right there to ask as soon as she woke up again.

Chapter Three

Shy

I shouldn't have been able to sleep.

Not with the fear and disappointment coursing wildly through my system.

I guess, at a certain point, the body just had to shut itself down.

And after the plan failed, I just... I lost it. There was no other way to put it. I absolutely freaked out. I didn't even feel in control of any of it. It was some weird, out-of-body breakdown, leaving me feel like I was watching what happened instead of fully experiencing and participating in it myself.

Then, well, all the world had for me was darkness, a blissful oblivion that gave my mind and body a short break to pull myself together again.

I was awake before my eyes opened, giving me a long moment to try to take in as much as possible about my environment without the benefit of sight.

First, I was in a bed. It was too soft and big to be anything else. Second, there was a blanket over my body. A blanket. Like someone who had felt concerned enough about me being cold to put something over me even though I'd just shot someone. Third, I wasn't chained in any way.

Weird.

All of that was weird, right?

Shouldn't an attempted assassin be thrown in a cold, dark room somewhere, chained arms and legs to something unbreakable, and having something incredibly painful being done to them?

This reality was almost more unsettling to me, like maybe they were trying to give me a false sense of security before starting to pry off fingernails and break kneecaps.

My stomach rolled as I made the decision to open my eyes, knowing it was no use to put off the inevitable for too long.

There was a bright light streaming into the room, too bright and yellow to be anything other than the sun.

The sun.

How long had I been asleep?

The room itself was the one I'd run through in search of a place to get sick in. I hadn't taken it in before, but I let myself then.

The walls were painted a deep green that should have felt too dark and oppressive, but somehow felt oddly comforting. The dresser beside the door to the hall was stained dark. There was no TV above it, but instead a record player on it. Beside that was a record holder full of vinyl.

My gaze slid over the door to the far wall, finding a gallery wall of mismatched artwork in many different styles.

It wasn't long before my gaze landed on a green chair in the corner of the room across from the bed.

Or the man occupying it.

The same one I'd put a bullet in hours before.

He looked exhausted, like he'd been awake the whole time I'd been asleep.

He still wore the same shirt he'd had on before, the blood from his wound drying dark on the sleeve. When he shifted forward to rest his forearms on his long legs, I caught a glimpse of what looked like stitches peeking out.

"Did you—" he started, getting cut off by the words that burst out of me.

"I'm so sorry," I said, voice sounding choked and unfamiliar.

"Whoa, alright," he said when I tried to fold up. He reached out as though he was going to put a hand to my shoulder to press me flat again, but he seemed to forget about his wound for a moment, and tried to reach out that hand, letting out a loud hiss as he yanked his arm back.

"I'm so sorry," I repeated, scooting back against the headboard, pulling my knees into my chest, making myself small, unthreatening. Which was exactly what I was when I was stripped of a weapon I'd barely known how to use to begin with.

"We'll get to that," the man said, cracking his neck a bit like that action might somehow ease the sting he must have been feeling in his arm. I had no idea what it might feel like to get shot. But I did know that if I so much as nicked my fingertip when cutting up veggies that I was a big baby about it for at least twelve hours. So, yeah, I couldn't even imagine what it felt like to have something jabbed into your body at a high speed, then lodge there, then need to be yanked back out of there, and stitched closed again. "But first, did you take anything?" he asked.