Scary Hot

“I won’t tell July,” he promises with a soft smile and a pat to my shoulder as he walks past me to Z. “How long did ya make it this time, old friend?” He grins at his biker brother.

“Name’s Z, and before tonight, I hadn’t been shot in two hundred and twenty-one days,” he jokes as if he’s introducing himself at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. Both of them glance at me when I gasp, and I shake my head.

“How can y’all be joking about something like this? And it’s a running joke? How many times have you been shot?” My voice rises in pitch with each question until it’s squeaky and loud.

Z chuckles, making my nipples peak. “This makes lucky number seven, kitten.”

My knees almost buckle. “You’ve been shot seven times? And you’re alive?”

“Not all at once.” He shrugs his uninjured shoulder nonchalantly.

I can’t take any more mind-boggling revelations from these two. Suddenly feeling exhausted, my adrenaline probably waning, I tell him, “Well, again, sorry for shooting you. Hopefully you’ve learned your lesson about sneaking in through people’s windows. I’m going to bed.”

Wes stands by as Z lifts himself out of the dwarfed dining chair, reaching out to steady Z when he wobbles slightly. Concern fills my chest, but I force myself to continue on to my bedroom.

2

Z

“Open up!” Wes shouts, banging on July’s door.

“Bro, chill. You’re gonna scare the poor thing,” I tell him, my uninjured arm around Wes’s shoulders, since the blood loss is definitely getting to me.

“What’s going on?” July asks sleepily when she opens the door.

“He got shot,” Wes tells her, and July’s eyes come to me then go round as saucers when she sees blood soaking through Kayan’s kitchen towels strapped there.

“You need to go to the hospital,” she squeaks.

“Can’t,” he says shortly.

“Wes, I’m a vet, not a doctor.”

“Jesus,” I grumble, my head swimming, and Wes gently moves July out of the way as he walks us into the house and helps me get seated in one of her white kitchen chairs that creaks under my weight.

“Baby.” Wes turns and stands in front of her, his palms gently going to her cheeks to make her eyes focus on his and not me. “I need you to help him. The wound is clean through, so all you need to do is sew it up.”

“Wes,” I hear her whisper, and she peers around him to peek at me.

“Look at me.” His voice raises, and I see him lower his face toward hers. “I need your help, baby.”

She seems to search his face before she finally whispers, “Okay,” then she clears her throat. “I need to go to the clinic and get supplies. I don’t have anything here.”

“I’ll take you,” Wes tells her.

“No, you stay with him. I’ll go and be back quickly.” She goes to what I assume is her bedroom, because when she returns, she’s wearing a pair of jeans, a sweatshirt, and tennis shoes. She walks past us and heads out to what I see is her garage when she opens the door, immediately noticing she’s blocked in by Wes’s SUV.

“I’m driving you,” Wes says, stepping out into the garage. He gives me a chin lift before closing the door behind them.

The house is too quiet after they leave, so I stand, holding onto the table and then the countertops as I open her refrigerator, looking for something to drink. Nothing, not even beer. So I rummage through her cabinets, sighing a “Thank fuck” when I discover a dusty bottle of Jack.

I ease myself back onto the chair, swiping the dust off the bottle before unscrewing the cap and lifting it to my lips for a swig, breathing out as I think about the past half hour. I can’t help the smile that tugs at my mouth, thinking about the tiny woman who shot me.

You couldn’t have paid me to believe that Kayan not only knew how to shoot, but owned her own gun to protect herself with. And not some pussy-ass gun neither, like a .22 or some shit. A .38 revolver she held straight and steady. Before I could move out of the way, stunned into freezing my position in her living room at the sight of her naked form pointing a gun at me, I saw the split-second decision she made to move her aim from my head to my shoulder. I have no doubt I would be dead right now without her last-minute change of heart, because her aim was true. I’d have to have a talk with her about that. If it were anyone else, she’d either need to shoot them dead or choose somewhere more debilitating than a shoulder, so the intruder wouldn’t be able to come after her like I easily could have.

Thinking of her perfect naked body, my cock swells inside my jeans, and I reach down to adjust it, the movement making the dining chair creak once again. I can’t remember the last time a woman affected me the way Kayan does, if ever. It was an instant attraction. No, not just an attraction. A connection. As soon as I looked into her gorgeous eyes, everything inside me growled, “Mine.”