Chase Jones wanted to know who he was messing with? She could oblige.
She squeezed the trigger in short pulses, one after the other, as she carefully moved the barrel a fraction of an inch. By the time she’d run out of ammunition Marcus had already begun to laugh. She slammed the safety home and stood, passing the rifle to Marcus as the target fluttered its way to where she stood.
“Damn, you’re good,” Marcus muttered in admiration. “Only you could shoot fuck off onto a target.”
Gillian unclipped the paper and brought it with her as she closed the distance between her and Chase. She was tall enough he didn’t hover over her, but he was so damn big she still felt dwarfed.
His gaze held nothing but admiration. “Gillian. Fancy meeting you here.”
“Chase.” She handed him the target, ducking around the barrier of his body and heading for the exit.
It took him a second before he laughed, a big booming sound that sent a shiver down her spine. The ghost of a smile played on her lips.
Okay, maybe he would be worth the effort. Maybe. Didn’t mean she was going to make it easy for him.
She grabbed her coat from her locker and headed outside into the cool night air, jingling her keys as she happily strolled to her car, imagining the expression on his face, the line of his firm jaw stretched in amusement. Yeah, Chase might be worth a tumble, or two.
When she drove out of the parking lot a moment later, she caught a glimpse of Chase leaving the building, the target she’d handed him dangling from one hand as he gazed at her car.
Their eyes locked as she drove past him, and the expression in his eyes told her she hadn’t fazed him at all.
If anything, she’d poked the sleeping bear.
Game on—she loved a challenge.
Epilogue
Why on earth did women need so much stuff? And what was wrong with him that the sight of all of Emma’s shit strewn around their new apartment made Dean grin from ear to ear?
“You want a glass of wine?” Emma poked her head through the kitchen door, swinging a bottle of chardonnay in the air.
Dean stopped what he was doing instantly, grateful for the perfect segue to his real plans for the evening. “Does this mean you’re done with work for the day and it’s time to play?”
She smiled. “I suppose.”
He wanted to rub his hands together. “I vote for naked Parcheesi.”
One brow lifted. “We don’t own Parcheesi.”
“Naked Monopoly?
“Nope.”
“Just naked works fine as well.”
Emma laughed. “Come pour me a drink and we’ll discuss naked terms…”
“A toast! That’s what we need.” He followed her, pulling the bottle from her fingers and clicking his tongue with disapproval. “No, no, no, this will never do. We need something a little more spectacular for our first official toast.”
She rolled her eyes, but waited as he reached into the fridge and pulled out the champagne he’d hidden there earlier.
She glanced at the bottle, a gasp of excitement escaping her lips. “Wait—don’t we need to break it against the counter or something?”
He stuttered to a stop in confusion. “Why the fuck would we do that?”
“That’s what you do to christen a new place,” she insisted, only this time he caught it, the flash of amusement in her eyes. She was totally jerking him around.
“A boat, Em! You do it to christen a new boat.”
Emma lost it, laughing. “Almost the same. We can see the ocean from the window.”
Dean chuckled as he loosened the wires on the cork and aimed toward the corner of the room. “Sure, babe. Come over here and I’ll check your rigging.”
The cork shot off with a pop, Emma cheering as he turned back and raised the bottle high in celebration.
A part of him still couldn’t believe she was actually here. In San Francisco. In his arms every night. He was so proud of her for cutting ties with Lorenzo. Dissolving a successful design label would have felt like a step backward for a lot of people, but Emma treated it as a step forward, a new adventure.