“Hmm,” he muses for a moment. “Engines. Cards. Fighting.”
“You’re a regular bad boy,” I tease, even as I feel the bittersweet truth of my words.
“Me? Nah,” Ryland drawls. “I told you, baby, I’m a teddy bear.”
I laugh, remembering our exchange in Vegas. “A teddy bear with a set of brass knuckles and three aces hidden up his sleeve.”
Ryland turns off the highway, down a dusty road. “Even teddy bears need to defend themselves.”
“From who? The stuffed giraffe?” I catch myself, then laugh. “This is such a random conversation.”
Ryland grins. “Makes perfect sense to me.”
I smile and shake my head. “Where are we going, anyway?” I ask, seeing a low brick building up ahead with cars parked out front.
“I figured a girl like you would have some aggression to get out of her system,” Ryland says cryptically as he pulls into the parking lot.
I’m confused for a moment, until I see the sign above the door.
Paintball zone.
“You brought me paintballing?” I exclaim, delighted. “Oh my god, I haven’t done this since I was a kid!”
I leap down from the truck, feeling like I’m seven years old all over again. “It was always my number one pick for birthdays,” I tell Ryland as he leads me to the front entrance. “There was this massive complex outside the city, we’d play for hours and then go for hot dogs and cola floats. I can’t believe you brought me here!”
Ryland grins down at me. “You are fucking adorable, you know that?”
I blink up at him, caught for a moment in the circle of his embrace as he holds the door open for me. His eyes glitter darkly, the sun catches behind his head, a halo of gold against the black tangle.
My stomach does a slow, familiar flip.
Just as quickly, I’m over the threshold and inside. “So.” Ryland turns to survey the counter. “You want the big guns, or the really big guns?”
“Dirty,” I can’t help quipping, and he laughs.“Princess, you can’t even imagine what I’m packing.”
“Sure.” I make a show of rolling my eyes, but I’m laughing too. “Didn’t a girl ever tell you, size doesn’t matter?”
“Oh, it matters,” Ryland smirks, “and what you do with it counts even more.”
I can’t help but glance down at Ryland’s jeans, slung low and fitting perfectly around his hips and ass. I snatch my eyes away fast—but not fast enough. He lets out a hoot of laughter. Busted.
I quickly turn to the racks of equipment, blushing bright red. I can’t believe he caught me looking. But just when I wish the ground would open and swallow me up, I feel his body close behind me, his breath hot on the back of my neck as he leans in to murmur.
“Any time you want a private show, you just let me know.”
“Thanks, but I’m kind of busy right now,” I reply, trying to sound nonchalant. “Kicking your ass in paintball.”
“A fighter, huh?” Ryland steps back, and I hear him chuckle. “We’ll see about that, baby girl. We’ll just see.”
We suit up in the big, baggy overalls, elbow pads, and clear plastic masks, and are turned loose on a massive outdoor obstacle course with a couple of paint guns and bags of pellets. There are other people around…a group of war-crying preteen boys and a collection of twenty-something guys with buzz-cuts and professional weapon grips—but they barely give us a second look as they charge past, hurling themselves over hay bales and ducking into the woods.
“I’ll be kind and give you a head start,” Ryland says patronizingly.
I just hoist my bag of extra ammunition and smile. “That’s so sweet,” I coo. “Now close your eyes and count to fifty.”
His eyes shut. I lift my gun and splatter him with three shots, straight in the chest.
“What the fuck?” Ryland staggers back. He sees my grin and shakes his head. “Oh, you’re asking for it now.”
He reaches for his gun so I take off at a run, sprinting hard across the grass and dirt. I slide behind a hay bale just as a pellet zooms past my head and splatters against the wall. I bob my head up quickly and survey the scene: he’s fifty feet away, crouching low behind a pile of crates. He sees me and fires off another round, so I duck back, roll, and pop off a couple of quick shots before sprinting for the woods.
Stay low, move fast, and never ever let them close enough for a kill shot—the paintball commandments echo in my head as I slip through the trees, looking for the perfect hideout. My lungs are burning from the sudden activity, but there’s a joyful surge in my veins: bright and sharp and free. I haven’t had fun like this in months, years even. I can feel my smile splitting wide across my face as I reload the gun and wait, heart pounding, for Ryland to appear.
Silence.
I watch carefully, but there’s no sign of anyone—
A twig cracks right behind me. I spin around, startled, in time to see him lunge from behind a bush, weapon high. “Miss me?” he calls, letting off a round of fire that splatters dangerously close to my head.
“Too slow, Ray Jay!” I return fire then I turn and sprint away. I feel the impact of a pellet hit my thigh, but I don’t pause, not with him closing fast behind me. I break for the edge of the field, but Ryland is faster. He grabs me from behind, lifting me up and pulling us both to the ground. His body cushions my fall, and then we’re rolling in a tangle of limbs before coming to a stop, breathless and panting in the dirt.