Page 20 of Incoming Layne Shift

Her small body landed up against him without so much as shifting his weight on his feet. Gage grinned proudly at her as his hands remained locked on her arms. “Do I get a token of your appreciation for coming to your aid?”

Still trying to catch her breath from the chase, her eyes looked up at him in disbelief that he thought he deserved anything other than a thank you. “Please. I would have had him.”

He leaned over and whispered in her ear, looking for any excuse to get closer to her. “Keep telling yourself that, sweetheart.” Even with a little bit of sweat gracing her skin, he took note of the scent of her perfume lingering underneath it. Gage could already imagine how amazing the mixture of daisies, rain, and her sweat would smell on his sheets after giving her a night filled with his type of pleasure.

The scent of spiced vanilla invaded her senses with Gage leaning in so close to her. She squirmed in his hands to avoid the temptation to lean in and let herself get wrapped up in it. Her arms eventually broke free of his loose hold. “If you want my appreciation, you can drag his ass back to the others.”

Layne didn’t wait for him to agree, she just began walking back to where things had kicked off just outside of the private room. Gage pulled the man who thought he was running out of here to his feet and dragged him back to where Joey had the other three all in their zip tie constraints. He shoved the attempted runaway towards his brother to take care of.

“Have any of them said anything useful?” She eyed the collection of lowlifes before her. Gage hovered at her backside as Joey stood on the other side of the group.

Joey tightened the last tie and gave a shove to the fourth man to join the rest of his comrades on the floor. “No, just a lot of pissin’ and moanin’.”

From behind Gage and Layne, was the sound of a door swinging open. Shit, none of them had checked the bathroom. A man wearing clothes with a little more class emerged from the men’s room. He was dressed in a pair of khakis and a dark purple polo.

Layne spun around to fully give the man her attention, while Gage just peered over his shoulder. She started to step out from behind Gage to take care of this new situation.

There was little time from the moment the new guy came out from the restroom to the point where he saw the gathering of his pals on the floor, a woman and man both masked up, and the club’s owner.

Gage tried to keep his voice friendly. “Italo, man—shit!”

That’s when things took a turn for the worse. Italo immediately withdrew a gun from the back of his pants, raising it in Layne’s direction.

Then shots rang out.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Italo squeezed the trigger with the intent to eliminate one of the masked individuals closest to him–Layne.

The second the jerkoff had revealed the firearm, Gage saw it being lifted in line with where Layne was. Gage stepped toward Layne, who was fortunately still within his arm’s reach. Protectively he wrapped his large arms around her, drawing her in tightly to his chest as he turned his back to Italo so his body curled over Layne’s petite form like a shield.

He ducked down covering as much of Layne’s body as he could, paying particular attention to her most vital parts like her head and upper body. Tightly, using his strength, he clutched onto her like a man fearful of losing a rare treasure to the depths of the ocean.

She had no time to react from the moment Italo became an active threat and when she was suddenly yanked into Gage’s tight embrace. It had happened so quickly that all she could ascertain was that she was cloaked in safety. While the protective hold that Gage had on her was damn near suffocating, it was far better than suffering a potentially fatal gunshot wound. One experience in the whole being shot department was more than enough for her.

Layne felt Gage’s body flinch around her as the sound of the bullet bursting into flight echoed in the air, her hands were pinned between their bodies not allowing her to grab for anything defensively. Being pressed so close to his chest she couldn’t see shit. All she could do was huddle up with him and listen to the sound of his heavy breathing. Quickly after the first shot, that’s when she heard a second round fired, which caused a slight ringing in her ears and was followed by a heavy thud.

It all felt like it transpired over the span of minutes, but it had only taken mere seconds. Even as panic set in at the sound of a body hitting the floor and she began to struggle and push against Gage, he didn’t allow her a single inch of freedom.

Once Gage looked up, Joey was holstering his pistol, and behind Gage was one less regular patron of Cassidy’s Cave.

Joey immediately came over to where Gage was crouched down, his arms locked around Layne. He met eyes with his brother, not needing to say anything as a look passed between them. It was a look from Joey that held something with the least amount of hostility than it ever had in recent history with Gage.

His voice held a gravelly texture to it as Joey spoke. “Let me see her.”

Layne was still squirming against Gage’s chest, only easing up as she felt Gage pull her up with him as he stood. He loosened his arms from around her, allowing her to create space for herself. However, Joey didn’t give her the chance as he immediately pulled her into his arms surrounding her with the familiar woodsy scent of sage and leather.

The hug was brief but just enough to erase the concern from them both. Joey pulled back and looked her over. “Are you okay?”

She nodded and did the same inspection to Joey to confirm he was equally unhurt. “I’m fine.”

Now that the adrenaline-filled moment was over, Gage looked at his arm which had a burning sensation nagging at him. As he moved his arm to take a look, he gave a quiet hiss of pain, noticing a small tear in the curve of the shoulder of his shirt. “Goddamnit, this was a new fucking shirt,” he grumbled.

Gage undid the series of buttons on the dress shirt until he peeled it from his torso. It revealed the white tank top that clung to each line of his bulky muscles and exposed the series of tattoos creeping up his arms. The lines of ink curved into images of roses and various sharp-edged weapons.

He inspected his shoulder where there was a small wound, a line of blood creeping from it. Thankfully, it was only a graze. If he hadn’t pulled Layne to him, it was quite possible she would have been struck down. He would accept this minor inconvenience over the thought of her perfect body being damaged.

When Layne noticed Gage stripping his shirt off and revealing where Italo’s bullet must have skimmed past him, she had a mixture of feelings fill her up inside. Guilt that he had put himself in harm’s way for her and awe that he hadn’t even thought twice about it. Sprinkle a little gratitude on top of all that and she found herself seeing him through a slightly different lens. That lens especially didn’t look half bad when she saw how the thin fabric of his tank top adhered to his fit form and the cut of the muscles of the steel-like biceps that had been clenching around her moments ago.

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