Busy? If I was busy then he’d already know about it. “No, why?”

He cleared his throat, rubbing at the back of his neck absentmindedly. “How about we make Friday nights our date nights?”

My ears picked up the plural of that sentence. Did he mean every Friday was date night?

He grinned. “I was thinking dinner and a movie. That’s a good first date, right?”

I smiled at how unsure he looked. “What would you normally do with a girl if you took her out?” I asked, curious as to why he seemed to be asking for my input.

He grimaced a little. “Er, a bar then her place, probably.”

“Wow, and you don’t think you’re a player?” I teased. “Why her place? So you can leave when you want and don’t have to stay the night?” I continued, giggling at how uncomfortable he looked. I had completely hit the nail on the head; clearly that was the exact reason. “So, what would you do for a second date then? Because, technically, the lake was our first date, you said so yourself,” I said matter-of-factly, enjoying him squirming.

He cleared his throat. “Well, on a second date, we’d probably skip the bar and just go to her place.”

“And the third?” I inquired, grinning.

“I’ve never been on a third date,” he shrugged, shovelling his food into his mouth.

My mouth popped open at this admission. “Seriously? When you said you’d never had a girlfriend, I thought you meant like a serious one, not like you’d never been on more than two dates.”

“I’ve never met a girl I wanted to date. I told you that,” he replied, finishing his food in record time and heading over to the sink.

I rolled my eyes. “Right, I know, you’re not a player, just misunderstood,” I mocked, grinning as I finished up my food too. I held out my empty plate for him to take. He seemed remarkably domesticated, aside from cooking; he was very adept at tidying up after us both.

“Hey, you want to go shooting tonight? While I was on the net last night, I found one that’s not too far away. We could go join,” he called as I walked to the bedroom.

I gulped. I wasn’t actually sure if I could see a gun again after my dream last night, but I didn’t want to have to explain that to him. “Um, sure.”

School was good, just like the day before. As promised, Ashton’s presence kept all of the guys away from me so I didn’t need to worry about anything. Again, we had lunch with what was fast becoming our group of friends. Before the end of lunch, I exchanged numbers with Rosie. I could see the disapproval on Ashton’s face – probably because of the ‘safety factor’ as he so often called it, but to me it was no big deal. Rosie was actually a genuinely nice girl, I liked her.

Throughout the day, Ashton kissed me a few times again. Each kiss seemed to spark something deep inside me. It was like some sort of age-old primal instinct that I had no control over. I both liked and hated it at the same time.

Too soon though, we pulled up at the shooting range that Ashton had found. Nerves were churning in my stomach, and I wrung my shaking hands, chewing furiously on my lip as he cut the engine in the parking lot. I wasn’t sure I could get out of the car. My whole body was stiff, frozen in place as Ashton climbed out and walked around the car to my side.

This was all because of the dream last night. The dream was the whole reason that I was terrified of guns. During my time with him, I’d seen Carter shoot people, but that was the only time I’d ever had a gun put into my hand. The experience had scarred me deeply.

“You okay?” Ashton asked, as he opened my door and bent down to see why I hadn’t moved to get out. I shook my head in answer. He reached in, unbuckling my seatbelt before taking both of my hands and squeezing them gently. “I promise it’s fine,” he cooed.

I flicked my eyes up to his face, seeing the concern in his eyes. “I don’t think I can,” I whispered, shaking my head.

Without answering he leant forward and planted a soft kiss on the corner of my mouth, squeezing my hands again. All of my worries seemed to melt away as his warmth and safety washed over me, giving me the confidence to move my heavy legs and let him help me out of the car.

“You can,” he replied, nodding sternly. “But if you don’t want to, then we’ll just go home. It’s your choice.”

I closed my eyes, taking a couple of deep breaths before clasping his hand in a vice-like grip as I nodded in agreement. With him at my side, I could do it, and if I couldn’t, then I’d just ask him if we could leave. “I want to. Just don’t let go.”

“I won’t,” he promised. I gulped, swallowing the squirming terror that was building in my chest as he led me inside.

I pressed into his back as he filled out a couple of forms, signing us in and setting us up a membership so we could go whenever we wanted to. When he was finally done with the paperwork, the guy led us to one of the lanes in the middle. Thankfully, we were the only ones in there, so it was quiet apart from the radio humming old eighties tunes in the background.

I whimpered and turned to Ashton, watching as he sent off one of the little target sheets the same distance away as I had it last time. When he was satisfied with the sheet, he turned and put my goggles on for me before he covered my ears with the headphones. He smiled and reached behind him, unclenching my hand that I had fisted onto the back of his shirt, holding him tightly.

“You sure you want to do this?” he checked, rubbing my knuckles with his thumb as he straightened my aching fingers for me. I hadn’t even known I was holding him that tightly until then. I nodded weakly, eyeing the door warily as I decided if I should run or not. Before I could make up my mind, he moved behind me, pressing his chest against my back as his arms wrapped around me tightly. “Breathe, Anna,” he instructed. I gulped and sucked in a ragged breath as he picked up the little, black handgun from the box he’d been given. Immediately, I shrank back away from it, trying to melt into his chest. He rested his chin on my shoulder as he held the gun out in front of me. “Take it when you’re ready.”

My hands were sweating, so I had to wipe them a couple of times on my jeans before I reached up and let him put the heavy gun into my hand. “Oh God,” I whimpered.

His hands closed over mine, holding them tightly. “Remember the safety button, and whenever you’re ready, go.”

I took a couple of deep breaths to try and steady my nerves. When I realised that it wasn’t going to get any better, I flicked the safety off, aiming for the target and shot all six bullets in steady succession. It actually wasn’t as bad as I had expected it to be. The whole dream thing must have distorted it in my head. Deep down though, I knew that having Ashton there was the key, he was the only thing keeping me together.

Wordlessly, he took the gun and changed the cartridge for me. The whole time, his arms were around me securely. After shooting another six rounds, I finally put the gun onto the counter and breathed a sigh of relief. Ashton turned me around and hugged me tightly, grinning from ear to ear. “I’m so proud of you. I didn’t think you’d be able to do it when we were at the car,” he congratulated.

I smiled back. “Neither did I.”

“Let’s see your skills.” He pressed the button, calling in my sheet. I smiled, not actually that bothered where my shots had gone, I was just happy to have overcome my fear and not crumbled under the pressure of it. As it turns out though, I’d done pretty well considering my hands were shaking. Almost half of my shots were within the outline of the body.

“Are you gonna have a go?” I asked, eyeing the gun cautiously. It was weird but I wanted to see him in action. The couple of times that I’d seen him with a gun he’d looked menacing, yet sexy in a weird way.

He shook his head. “Nah, it’s okay,” he replied, shrugging.

I wasn’t expecting the disappointment that settled over me. “Oh come on, I haven’t seen you shoot yet.”

His head cocked to the side, regarding me curiously before he finally nodded. “You,” he pointed to me, “there,” he continued, pointing to the side of the booth where we were standing.

I grinned at his order and did a mock salute. “Yes, sir.”

He laughed and walked over to me, taking my ear defenders and putting them back on for me before trailing his fingers across my cheek softly. “Don’t move.”

I gulped and nodded in agreement as he walked back to the counter, sending off a fresh target off into the distance. He didn’t stop it at the point I had mine at; instead, he sent it all the way back to the other wall, a solid sixty feet away.

The way he stood was sexy as hell: one leg back, knees a little bent, slightly turned to the side and arms out front. I could just imagine him standing like that in his uniform that I’d seen in that photo. Talk about mouth-watering, I mused.

I saw him glance at me from the corner of his eye before he picked up the gun, aimed and squeezed off six shots, changed the cartridge and then shot the other six, all in the space of about fifteen seconds.

My mouth popped open in shock because it had all happened so fast. He turned back to me and laughed. I was vaguely aware that my eyes were wide and that my mouth was hanging open in awe of what I’d just seen. I’d actually never seen anything so sexy in my life.

He put the gun down and motioned me over to him. “Go on then, pull it in.” He nodded at the recall button.

I pressed it and we waited while the paper made its way all the way back to us. When it stopped, I was a little lost for words. Every single shot that he’d made was on point. In fact, he had made two little groups of shots, one on the centre of the chest and the other in the centre of the head. He had grouped the shots so closely that it actually looked like two large holes instead of twelve little ones.

“Holy shit, that was incredible,” I gushed, still looking down at the paper in awe.

He shrugged as if it were nothing. “You forgot I was a badass?”