Page 38 of Ruthless Reign

It missed the target entirely. Awesome.

Hardin was already halfway over to me before I’d realized he moved. I bit the inside of my cheek.

“What?” I asked as he approached, his black eyes boring into me.

He gestured to the target, for me to focus there, so I did, ignoring the heat of him as he came up behind me, adjusting my stance, lifting my arms just slightly.

My lips parted as his hand wrapped around my waist, snaking up to my chest to rest right against my heart. “Don’t hold your breath,” he ordered.

I felt my chest rise against his palm.

“Fire on your exhale.”

I gave a little nod and his hand dropped away, leaving my chest cold without his touch.

It took three tries with him there watching me, but I felt the shift. The steadiness of letting the weapon flow with my breath and using the exhale to pull the trigger as if I were the one breathing lethal lead.

The third shot didn’t just hit inside the first ring, it hit the marker line of the second. Mere inches from the heart. I knew better than to think I could repeat it, but it was a start—a step in the right direction.

“Guess I’m not as helpless as you thought,” I found myself saying, turning to find Hardin with his lips pressed into a thin line.

“Is that what you think?”

“A moth?” I scoffed.

He shook his head. “Becca, I called you Hawk because that Death’s head Hawkmoth Kaleb told you about was the most badass—most beautiful—thing I’d ever fucking seen.”

His words hit me like a physical slap and my toes curled against a wave of anxious fluttering low in my belly. He thought I was badass? Beautiful?

I blinked, realizing Hardin hadn’t stuttered once just then. He seemed to realize it at the same time, eyes widening and then darkening again as he reached out for me, rough hands gripping both arms as he crushed his lips against mine in a feral kiss.

A moan bloomed in my chest and I felt in his kiss everything else he couldn’t say. His anger at what he found in my painting. His promise that he wouldn’t ever let that image become reality. When he pulled me back, his jaw flexed. I opened my mouth to apologize but no words came out. I realized I didn’t need to say sorry.

Neither did he.

“Uh, what did I miss?” Kaleb asked as he came back over, glancing between us. Hardin released me, but didn’t leave.

“You guys finally kiss and make up?” he asked, lifting a brow.

“Yes,” I answered honestly, a wicked smirk pulling at my lips as an idea took root. I went with it, flicking the safety back on my weapon before adding it to the others in the bag Kaleb brought. I hefted the bag from the top of the steel table onto the floor.

Taking Kaleb’s hand, I led him past his brother to the table and then lifted myself into a seat atop it with him positioned between my legs.

“Vixen?”

I gave him a look, trying to remind him of his promise. That we would teach Hardin to share.

“No talking,” I ordered, my chest tight and fluttering with nerves as I tugged Kaleb close, pressing a kiss to his mouth. I heard Hardin’s soft growl behind him, but he did nothing to stop us. And he didn’t leave. Kaleb deepened the kiss and I felt his pulse spike against my fingertips on his neck. I felt something else, too. The growing erection in his pants as I wrapped my legs around his middle to draw him closer.

“Vixen, anyone could walk in.”

I shrugged, letting a hand fall lazily down the front of his chest and past his Adonis belt. “Let them.”

Steeling myself, I lifted my gaze over Kaleb’s shoulder, reaching out a hand toward Hardin.

Was this too far?

I knew they knew I’d been intimate with both of them, but knowing it and seeing it were two different things. They may have accepted it, well, to a point, but maybe this was too?—

---