Page 9 of Last Shot

‘What the fuck!’

They rolled, trying to disentangle their limbs, but with no sense of up or down, it only served to push her on top of him. Her hair curtained his face and his hands gripped her upper arms, holding her above him becausegod forbidtheir chests collide. He was all muscle. Muscle and gun and stubble and ...

Did she have a concussion? The two wolves inside her, weary but still alive from her academy training, fought for dominance: Run versus Attack.

Attack.

She’d had the element of surprise. He had the element of size.

She lurched off him, but he didn’t let go. Their bodies pitched forward into a frangipani plant, elbows, chest – jaw?

‘Oooof.’

Oh.Nose.

Limbs scrambled, dirt up her nose, her long hair in her mouth. The hard angles of a gun against her hip. An enormous beast of a human pushing himself off her.

‘Hands where I can see them!’ His words were muffled through the hand clutching his nose.

A spear of satisfaction shot through her ribs. She pushed her hair out of her mouth and took him in. Assessing the threat was second nature – in her line of work, making the wrong split-second assumption could be the difference between life or death – and she hadn’t had the chance to view him in the daylight yet, without the shadows curling around him.

Tall ... Scratch that.Enormous.

Wide shoulders pushing through a plain grey T-shirt. Beige chinos. Leather boots. Same clothes as last night?

Stubble. No,beard. No, it was stubble.

Gun. She couldn’t see it, but she’d felt it when they collided.

Life or death?

Brown, glaring eyes. Full lips pressed to a hard, immovable line.

Death.

Her fingertips brushed her pocketknife—

‘NO!’

His bicep against hers, he tried to pitch her forward but he’d clearly assumed she didn’t know a hammer lock when she felt one. He’d been expecting the first elbow to his nose to be the last one.

‘FUCK!’ Both hands were on his nose now.

Her elbow throbbed. ‘Don’t you fucking touch me!’ Her heart thrashed against its cage, like it was still in prison. Like she was back in Jackie’s kitchen, the rumble of the dishwasher and the knife, the smell: sweet and metallic and—

He was watching her like she was a roo he’d hit with his ute and he was trying to figure out if he should whack her over the head with a rock or let her bleed out on the bitumen.

‘Grey!’ a voice called from the balcony. Luca’s ashen face peered down at them, cricket bat in his hand. ‘Are you okay? Do you want me to call—’

‘Everything’s under control!’ Grey yelled, his eyes still on Max as though daring her to contradict him. ‘Go back to bed, Luca!’

‘Go back to ... are you insane?’

‘Stay upstairs and lock your door!’

Luca swore eloquently but the sound of a slamming balcony door ricocheted through the balmy, morning air.

‘What did you do to him?’ Grey had let go of his nose, but the creature inside her purred at the shiny wetness around his eyes.

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