“Not bad,” he lied. “You’re pointing at the thing you want to shoot, which is the most important part. Let’s fix the rest.”
He stepped close to her and placed his hands on her shoulders, angling them away from the tree she aimed at.
She kept her face turned from him, focused on her target. The line of her jaw was sharp as it bent toward her ear. It belied how soft it was to kiss, how easily she offered her throat to him.
He steadied himself. Keep it together.
“Remember that, in most cases, someone is shooting back at you,” he said. “Angle your body away so that you give them as little a target as possible.”
He stepped behind her to adjust her hold on the pistol. He placed his hand over hers as he gently adjusted her fingers.
“Loosen your grip,” he murmured. “Be firm, but gentle.”
It was her hand over his when she taught him how to hold a pencil, how to write her name in the dirt behind the schoolhouse. Now, it was his hand over hers, him standing just behind her, close enough that he was speaking in her ear. Close enough that her back was nearly against his chest, as it had been when they woke up that morning.
“After you shoot, the barrel will be hot to the touch,” he said. He would not be distracted by how her skin smelled like sunshine. Nor by wondering how warm her cheek would be beneath his lips. Nor by remembering the taste of her mouth on his yesterday. “You’ve only got three shots before it’s too hot to reload. Do you know how to aim?”
“Point at the target?” Nena suggested. Her voice was a bit breathless. It was because she was focused, he told himself. Not because of their proximity.
“This up here is the sight,” he said, releasing her hand and pointing to a small notch on the top of the gun. “Line that up with the target, all right?”
He glanced down. Her chest rose and fell irregularly as she nodded. There was no denying it: being this close to him had an effect on her.
A cocky part of him believed that of course this was the case. He knew his way around women. He knew he was good-looking and he knew how to use that fact to his advantage.
The rest of him vibrated with exaltation at this discovery. This was Nena, the woman who had slammed the door in his face, who he feared would never look at him again. The woman who could drive him mad with nothing but a few brief touches and her words.
Two could play that game, could they not?
“As you shoot, the gun will kick back with force,” he said. “Like this.” He moved his right hand to the barrel of the gun and jerked it upward.
“Oh,” she gasped, stumbling back half a step and colliding with him.
“See?” he said as she stepped forward, color rising to her cheeks. “Let’s try again. Keep your arm loose, but be ready. Brace.”
“How am I supposed to be loose and brace at the same time?” Nena muttered, narrowing her eyes over the sight of the pistol. “That makes no sense.”
“Arm loose, but brace from here,” Néstor said. He slipped his left arm around her waist and placed his palm flat against her stomach, so low that two of his fingers rested over her makeshift rope belt.
This time, he felt her sharp intake of breath as well as heard it.
Two could play this game indeed.
“Make sure your weight is centered over your feet,” he murmured as he took his hand slowly away from her stomach. Perhaps he let his fingers drag more slowly than he ought to have over her waist. Perhaps he should have taken a step away. Instead, he lingered so that he spoke in her ear. “Breathe steadily. The trick is to pull the trigger when you exhale.”
“All right.” Her voice was barely above a whisper.
“Inhale, then aim,” he said. “Exhale and shoot.”
She took a deep inhale through her nose, narrowing her eyes as she focused.
“Steady,” he murmured.
She exhaled and pulled the trigger. A soft click, then silence.
“Bam,” he whispered. “You hit the center of the tree. Well done.”
She looked over her shoulder at him, a smile tugging the corner of her mouth as she lowered the gun. He wanted to cradle her face in his hands and count the handful of freckles across her nose. Wanted to give in to her as he did yesterday. She had tasted of salt, of warmth, and when her tongue swept into his mouth, it was hungry and searching.
God, all he wanted was to give in to temptation. But he needed to tell her what he intended first. That he wanted her now and he wanted her for forever. It was a conversation that needed to take place. Even if it meant denying himself in this moment, when he could tell from the hitch of her breath and the color in her cheeks that resisting was agony for them both.
Maybe he could give in for a brief moment. Nothing more than a brief, sinful taste.
He brought his right hand to her chin and took it in his thumb and forefinger, lifting her face to his.
“Remember, don’t grip too tightly,” he said. “Hold it gently, but firmly.”
Their eyes met. He forgot where they were. He forgot his name.
“Néstor,” she breathed.
He was baptized anew by her voice. He drew his thumb roughly over her lips; then, when she caught it between her teeth, a wicked gleam in her eye, his breath hitched sharply.
Fuck his inhibitions. Conversations could wait.
He—
A shout sounded from the direction of the riverbank.
Néstor wrenched his head up. Dropped his hand from Nena’s face. He listened intently, focusing past the pounding of his pulse in his ears.
There were voices—three, if not more, talking over one another.
Speaking in English.
Nena’s eyes were wide with apprehension, her stance tense and alert as she handed him the pistol. He took it and gestured for her to get behind him. As silently as he could, he moved closer to the trees they had been using as Nena’s target, then dropped to a crouch in the undergrowth. Three soft footsteps; Nena squatted at his side.
He fumbled in his pocket for bullets and loaded one with shaking hands.
The voices grew closer.
Plans streaked through Néstor’s mind, shrieking past like bats. They were separated from the horses. If they moved, they would be found before they could flee. There were too many voices to even imagine fighting. If they stayed, they would surely be found. But where were the voices going? He strained his ears. Were they creeping closer to the riverbank? Would they come up into this thicket, where he and Nena were utterly exposed?
A clink of heavy chains snaked through the undergrowth. The low of cattle pulling something with great effort.
And a scream that was unlike anything Néstor had ever heard.
24
NENA
NENA CLAPPED HER hands over her ears with a hissing intake of breath. The sound felt like knives being driven into her skull. It was like stone scraping along stone; it felt louder than anything she had ever heard but a crash of thunder. Unlike thunder, it had no crescendo and fall; it stayed at a pitch that only a bat could reach for long, agonizing seconds.
It cut off.
Her eyes watered as she lowered her hands.
Néstor exhaled softly to her right. His brow was furrowed as he peered through the undergrowth, searching for answers.
The sounds of metal chains clanging against one another and more voices rose from the riverbank. They were agitated. Brassy, in the way only English was. Demanding.
Closer.
The sound of at least half a dozen people moving through the undergrowth grew louder. Surely there were too many to fight. They had to flee.
She leaned toward Néstor. “Do we run?” she asked, her voice barely a whisper. Barely above the sound of her heart pounding. She felt poised like a hare in the path of a predator, every inch of her trembling and ready to run at a moment’s notice.
He shook his head slowly.
“Wait,” he breathed. Then he was still, head cocked like a dog listening to a distant whistle, finger already on the trigger of the pistol in his right hand.
Wait for what? For the strangers to be upon them? For that scream to rend the afternoon in two again? They had to get out of there. She shifted her weight, anxiously preparing for God knew what.