A smile twitches at the corners of his mouth. “Kidnapping, maybe. Having a gun pointed at your head, sure. But this? Me, uncut and uninhibited? Not holding back? I don’t think so, sweetheart. I think you’d be terrified.”
He neglected to mention Raphael. After Raphael, nothing will ever scare me again. Certainly not Rebel. He told me himself that he would die to protect me. Common sense dictates that he would then be the last person to hurt me. Intentionally, at least. I smile, pouting a little. “I guess we’ll see then, won’t we?”
Rebel stands at my side like a statue carved out of marble as I line up my first shot. He doesn’t look at the tin can waiting to be knocked off it’s post; he stares at me instead. The heat of his gaze is palpable. Swallowing, I take aim, adopting the stance he had me shoot in before. Both my hands are on the gun, even though I can probably make it with just my right hand for support.
“Don’t miss, sweetheart,” Rebel says. “I promise you, I’m holding you to this deal. Whatever the outcome, you’ll have to deal with the consequences. Do you agree?”
“Sure. Why not.”
“All right, then. Better get to it.” He holds out his hand, palm up, an invitation to get my ass in gear and get firing.
I try to be too cocky as I let off the first round. The can makes a high-pitched, metallic tinging noise and leaps into the air. Dad would have given that a ten. The second shot is only an eight. The bullet hits the can slightly off center, but the impact sends it flying all the same. Rebel clears his throat. “Nerves getting to you?”
“Nope. You’re just standing way too close, soldier boy. Why don’t you back up a little?”
Rebel laughs. “Afraid you might hit me?”
“Perhaps. I mean, I doubt you could take any more injuries at the moment. A gunshot wound to the leg would likely finish you off.” I make a show of aim the gun at his right leg, but the bastard doesn’t seem concerned. He paces toward me instead of moving out of the way, until he’s standing right in front of me. For some reason, following him with the gun seems like a smart thing to do. The muzzle ends up pressing into his chest, and he’s not blinking, breathing, moving. He’s staring at me and it feels like the whole world has stopped.
“If you’re planning on shooting me, you should probably do it now, Sophia.”
“Why now?” My hand shakes. It feels as though I have a jackhammer pushing blood around my body and not a fragile human heart.
“Because today…today has been one of the worst days of my life. If you wanted to put me out of my misery right now, I wouldn’t stop you. On the other hand, tomorrow I might wake up full of piss and vinegar and want to go hunt down Hector Ramirez. I might decide to go round two waterboarding the woman we’re hiding under the barn. And I might just feel like asking you to marry me. A good night’s sleep can really change a man.”
“You waterboarded Maria Rosa?”
Rebel lets out a bark of laughter. He looks away, scanning the horizon. A dimly burning sliver of copper, rapidly disappearing below the rocky ridgeline in the distance, is all that remains of the sunset. He squints at it, frowning. “I just implied that I’ve been considering asking you to marry me, and you object to the fact that I dumped a bucket of water over a woman who threatened to kill you not only seven hours ago.”
“Yes, but you were joking about the proposal part. I know you were, asshole.” He has to be joking. Has to be. There’s just no way he’s being serious.
He steps forward just a little so that the gun digs deeper into his chest. There’s a weighty look in his eyes. I don’t know what to make of it, of his body language, of anything that’s happening right now, but I know I’m beginning to feel a little freaked out. He’s so close, I can smell him—entirely natural, and yet addicting at the same time. I can’t get enough. “Why am I not being serious?” he asks. There’s no doubt that he’s looking and acting very serious, but my brain just won’t comprehend the prospect that he’s not fucking around.
“Because! You know. You’re a smart guy. There’s no way you’d ask a girl to marry you if you’d met under the circumstances we did. Especially only a month after that meeting, too.”
“Why not?”
Oh my god. I’m beginning to think he’s lost the plot. “Because you’re meant to date for a couple of years, see if you like someone before you marry them, Rebel.”
He pulls a dismissive face, rolling his eyes. “It takes you years to know if you like someone? Sounds like horse shit to me.”
“Of course not. That’s not what I—” I pause, take a deep breath, then start over. “There are steps you’re meant to follow. You’re meant to live together first.”
“You’re already living with me.”
“You’re meant to meet each others’ parents.”
“You’ve met my dad. He’s a total ass-swipe but you’ve met him. And anytime you want, I’d be happy to meet your folks. You know, I scrub up well in a good suit.” He winks at me.
I ignore him, because this is all far, far too absurd. “You’re out of your damn mind. You’re being a jerk, pushing this because you know I’ll say no and you just want a reaction out of me.”
“If thinking that makes you feel better, Sophia, then that is totally okay. Though, I think in the profession you were studying back in Seattle, the way you’re acting at this moment might be termed as avoidance.”
“Get the fuck out of the way, Rebel. Am I supposed to be shooting these cans or not?” Even as I snap at him, I realize that what he’s saying is true, though. I am deep in the grips of avoidance. But, hell, shouldn’t I be? I mean, what a crazy, half-baked, insane thing to bring up. We barely know each other. And I’m more than a little intimidated by the man. If and when I get married, it’s going to be to someone who didn’t pay a considerable amount of money to buy me from a Mexican skin trader. I’m going to know my future husband intimately. I’m going to know his favorite color and what he thinks of Stevie Knicks. I’ll have heard stories from his childhood so many times already that I’ll know them by heart. We’ll have traveled together and explored different countries, seen and done so much together that…that it will feel like we’ve already had all of our adventures? That we have nothing left to learn about each other?
It hits me like a punch to the gut. People place so much emphasis on getting to know your partner before you agree to spend the rest of your life with them. Perhaps…god, I don’t even want to think it, but I can’t seem to stop myself. Who ever said knowing someone inside out is a good thing? Could that be why so many marriages fail? Because there are no adventures left to be had? No secrets to be uncovered? No mysteries left to untangle?
I shake my head, forcefully shoving the thoughts out of my mind. What the fuck is wrong with me? My father would have conniptions if he knew what was going on in my mind.
Rebel’s wearing a shit eating, I-know-what-you’re-thinking-and-I-like-it look on his face when I climb back out of my head. “You wanna shoot the cans, that’s okay with me. You forget…I get to strip you naked either way, though, Sophia. It’s win/win for me.”
A shiver crawls up my spine, my skin breaking out in instant goose bumps. This bet is a win/win for him, but does that mean it won’t be a win/win for me, too? Would obeying him, doing what he tells me to do without question, be that terrible for me? I somehow don’t think it would. “Maybe I’m…maybe I’m curious,” I whisper.
“Then why bother with our little shooting lesson? You’re clearly a crack shot. Why not just say, ‘Jamie, I want you to take me back to the cabin, and I want you to show me what it means for you to be my master.’”