Brody exhaled slowly, squeezing the trigger as he emptied his lungs. Through his 1,000-yard scope, he saw the head of the targeted plywood cutout explode as his bullet struck its center with unforgiving force.
“Damn, brother.” Rocky lowered his tactical binoculars and shook his head. “You got a beef with someone or something?”
Flipping up the weapon’s metal stand, Brody pushed himself back up to his feet. “What makes you say that?” he asked, dusting himself off with his free hand as he started for the covered pistol range to start packing up his other weapons and ammo.
The blond explosives expert stood as well, easily catching up and walking beside him. Christian and the others had all called it a day about forty-five minutes earlier, but he’d needed a few more kills to ease the tension still rolling through him.
When Rocky volunteered to stay with him, he didn’t want to be an ass and say no. Not like he owned the place.
“Just seems like most of your shots today have been a little…I don’t know. Overkill.”
Brody raised his scope and studied the demolished target through its lens. He’d pretty much annihilated the innocent piece of plywood.
That one. The one before that. The one before that…
“You’d rather I slap the enemy’s hand and make them pinky promise to be good?” Brody snapped back. Almost immediately, he muttered a curse and offered his teammate and friend an apology. “Sorry. Didn’t sleep well.”
Seems like that’s your excuse for everything today, isn’t it?
He’d used that same line earlier in Megan’s shop. With Ro.
Aurora.
Christ, he’d been such a stuttering, stumbling fool around her today. Hesitant in his answers, knocking the damn straws every which way. But fuck. He hadn’t expected to walk into Cup of Joe and see her there. Not that late in the morning.
Ro’s habitual morning coffee was a routine you could damn near set your watch to. It’s why he’d purposely waited until the last possible minute to put in the team’s order, knowing Ro typically hit the shop by nine most mornings.
Brody had beensurehe was in the clear. He, as it turns out, was not.
Not only did he see the very woman whose face—and lace-clad breasts, and lips, and talented tongue—had been running through his mind since that mind blowing kiss… She apparently had zero recollection of the entire, intimate interaction.
Which was great news. At least, itshouldhave been.
Learning Ro’s memory of the kiss was non-existent should have been a massive relief. The perfect excuse to forget it ever happened. Only…
The harder I try to forget, the more I want to taste her again.
But goddamn it, he couldn’t be thinking that shit. He just couldn’t. Not about Ro. Any other woman in the entire fucking world, fine. But not her.
Small clouds of dust kicked up beneath his pounding boots as he reached the pistol lane he’d been shooting from earlier. Stepping beneath the metal roof onto the concrete slab, Brody moved with rough, almost angry movements as he began refilling the mags he’d brought with him.
Always keep ’em loaded and ready.
The voice from his past took him a bit off guard. It had been ages since he’d thought about his former SEAL team leader. Fleetingly Brody’s mind wondered what the man was up to and mentally wished him well.
But just like every other time he tried thinking of something other than Ro, memories of her sweet taste—and the way those soft, plump lips felt against his—stormed in, threatening to take out every last one of his good intentions with the same speed and accuracy as his MK12.
And the kickass Special Purpose Rifle shot its MK262 MOD 1-C 5.56mm rounds at two-thousand, seven hundred-fifty feet per second.
“Sorry you didn’t get much sleep.” Rocky’s deep voice broke through as the other man went to his own lane. “Not surprised, though. Heard Ro kept you up all night.”
The 9mm hollow point pinched between Brody’s thumb and index finger shot out, flying across the three-foot table and falling onto the ground on the other side. With a sigh, he left the sheltered area, walking around to retrieve the bullet.
Bending down, he picked it up, blew it off, and returned to his previous task.
“Ro didn’t keep me up all night,” he growled, shoving that same round into the mag. “Her hard ass floor did.”
It was more or less the truth. Ro’s floorwashard. And technically, since she’d been passed out on the couch the entire night, she hadn’t kept him up, either.