Page 93 of Hard Bargain

Knox’s answering breath was nearly a groan. “That—” He swallowed. “That isn’t helping.”

“It’s not meant to.” Dominic let the smallest smile pull at the corner of his mouth. He’d already shoved past every sensible boundary he’d set for himself. One more breath of recklessness wasn’t going to tip the scales. He leaned in again, lips grazing Knox’s ear. “Focus, Wolfe. Pretend I’m not here.”

An incredulous laugh slipped out of Knox. “Impossible.”

“Try.”

Dominic eased back half an inch. Just enough room for Knox to move the way he needed. But he kept his palm flat over Knox’s stomach, fingers curving into muscle that flexed under his touch.

Knox drew a shaky breath and pulled the trigger. The shot went so wide it didn’t touch the silhouette.

Silence stretched a heartbeat.

Then Dominic laughed—a real one, sudden and unguarded, startling even himself.

Knox twisted in his hold, cheeks flushed, but the mortification lasted only a second before it crumpled into reluctant amusement. “Congratulations,” Knox said, lowering the pistol. “You’ve officially ruined my aim.”

Dominic’s chest still shook with the aftershock of it. It felt dangerous, like tasting a drug he’d had the sense to avoid for a long time, and discovering he liked it far too much.

Stop now.

He skimmed his knuckles beneath the hem of Knox’s shirt instead, enjoying the way the boy’s breath hitched at the contact.

“Maybe the problem isn’t your aim,” he murmured. “Maybe you just need a better example.”

Knox arched a brow, bravado creeping back into those ice-blue eyes. “Then show me, Rivera.”

The challenge lit Dominic’s blood. He didn’t reach for the rental. If he was proving a point, he’d do it with the gun that felt like an extension of his hand. He reached to the small of his back and drew his own pistol—sleek black steel, clean-lined, and perfectly balanced. “Watch,” he said as he flicked the safety off with a click.

The range fell away until nothing existed except white silhouette and its dark heart.

Crack.

Crack.

Crack.

Three shots, one obliterated center. He thumbed the safety back on and put it away.

“Show-off,” Knox said, but the grin that followed was pure admiration. The pleasure that rolled through Dominic at that look was immediate. He shouldn’t care what Knox thought, yet the spark in those eyes hit harder than the recoil.

He meant to look away, to pull the moment back to safer ground, but the stare caught him like a hook. The range, the targets, the spent casings on the floor—all of it slid out of focus until there was only that.

Walk away, some part of him ordered.

The command never reached his muscles. Every rule and every warning fell mute in the space between them, and there was only Knox.

He couldn’t look away.

Chapter 24

Knox

Get it together, Wolfe.

He forced air into his lungs, but it went nowhere useful. He swallowed hard, his mouth suddenly dry. He’d never considered himself the type to be turned on by competence, but apparently, all it took was watching Dominic in his element to awaken a competence kink he didn’t know he had.

One step carried him forward. Not a decision, just his body moving. Another step erased the safe distance between them. Dominic watched him come, dark eyes steady and completely unreadable. Knox walked straight into that stare like he had no instinct for self-preservation at all.