Strike Zone (18 page)

“We rent tonight.”

Gus showed them to the rental room, where they could select jumpsuits, boots, goggles, and paintball guns. Sloan took his time making just the right selections.

Eve Hannah cut a look at Sloan as she climbed into her black jumpsuit. She tugged it up and over her mauve knit top and white slacks. It fit loosely, with a dozen pockets for paintball accessories. She kept on her white Keds with their rubber soles. There’d be no slipping.

She topped her outfit off with a black baseball cap. She didn’t want her blond hair standing out in the darkness.

She contained her smile as Sloan evaluated every gun on the racks. He tested the weight of a Squadbuster grenade, which contained enough paint to splatter a dozen players.

She had a gut feeling Sloan was out to get her.

“Tommy gun or Tippmann X7 Sniper?” he asked her.

“One-pop marker pistol.”

He laughed at her. “It’s going to take more than one shot to hit me.”

“The pistol,” she repeated. “Red loader.”

She adjusted her goggles as Sloan pulled on his black face mask. He then slid his hands into paintball gloves.

He stood tall and well armed in his jumpsuit and traction shoes, packing two paintball guns and the grenade. He looked like a mercenary, ready to start a mission and take out his mark—with bright blue paint.

Eve was surprised he hadn’t rented the double-barreled clip-fed air cannon or the miniature tank.

“You know the rules?” The manager nodded toward the list posted on the wall. “No blind shooting or construction of booby traps. No climbing the fences or cell phone use.”

Gus looked from Eve’s pistol to Sloan’s arsenal. “No
over
shooting.” He spoke directly to Sloan. “Go easy on the tommy gun. It packs a punch.”

The manager finished with, “Players eliminate each other from the game by hitting their opponent with a paintball. You get shot, you’re out.”

Gus then led them to the narrow entrance to the park. “Once you cross the white line in Black Ops, the game begins.”

Eve looked down. “Where’s the white line?”

“Up here.” Sloan moved ahead of her.

She followed him closely.

He crossed the line and turned his head, pointing down to be sure she saw the white stripe.

She pressed up behind him, her toes nudging his heels.

He turned, looking down at her questioningly.

Holding her breath, she slid her one-pop marker pistol between them—and popped him right over the heart.

Red paint splattered, covering his chest.

“Gotcha.” She blew on the end of her pistol.

“
Got
me? What the hell?” Sloan stepped back and swore a blue streak. “That’s not how paintball is played.”

“We’d both crossed the white line,” she reminded him. “Game on.”

“Ah, she’s right, Mr. McCaffrey.” Gus came up behind them. “Technically you’re out.”

“Technically, my ass.” Sloan stood over her, menacingly tall. His anger came at her, hot and pulsing. “The game’s not over.”

Eve could see that Sloan didn’t take to losing. She caught the stormy narrowing of his gray eyes and the wide flare of his nostrils through the holes in his mask. He looked ready to shoot her with both paintball guns. The impact would send her into the wall.

She held up her hands. “Maybe we could—”

“Run.” His word came deadly soft. “Run, Eve Hannah.”

She blinked. “You’re joking, right?”

The flex of his finger on the trigger of the tommy gun told her otherwise.

Sloan was the Rambo of Master Blasters.

He was ready to blow a hole in her.

She wasn’t afraid of him. She instinctively knew he wouldn’t hurt her. Yet a part of her wanted to see whether he could outrun her. Or whether she could outsmart him.

A shiver ran down her spine. And her heart tripped.

The challenge had been issued.

Winner take all.

“Take this.” Gus shoved a freshly loaded pistol into her hand. “Just in case you get a second shot.”

The manager jumped out of their way.

Eve backed away from Sloan. One step, then two.

“I’m counting to ten.” Sloan’s lips barely moved. “Then I’m coming after you.”

“It’s only a game,” Eve reminded him.

“You cheated.”

“I got you first.”

“I’ll get you last.”

Getting her
sounded sexual.

“One, two . . . ten.” The man cheated at numbers.

He was now after her.

Eve dove into the maze. She could outsmart him here, just as she had at the white line. The man smelled of tomato paste and paint. She’d catch a whiff of him before he closed in on her.

She took the right hallway to Black Ops, then sprinted through a maze of fences and down a side path. The cement floor was uneven. Some walkways slanted sharply.

The shifting ceiling panels portrayed a nighttime sky. Clouds covered stars, then parted for the moon.

Torchlight flared on wooden posts throughout the playing field. Shadows confused her at every corner. Competitiveness was new to her. The adrenaline high from being chased kept her moving as fast as she could maneuver the maze. She could hear her heartbeat in her ears.

Signs for Skull Hill and the Swamp led her in a circle. She ducked behind a bunker to catch her breath, then softly moved down a trench. Mist fans blew moist jungle air.

A wooden fort stood dead ahead. If she could get onto the upper deck, she could peer out over the course and locate Sloan.

Crouched, holding her breath, Eve eased open the door to the fort and prayed it wouldn’t creak. It didn’t. Stairs led to the top deck. She took them quickly.

Her heart had never beat so fast.

Wanting to remain hidden, she crawled on her belly until she found a low slat that looked out over the field. Utter stillness settled around her. She set her pistol down, then removed her goggles for a better look.

A scream escaped her as the wide toe of a boot came down on her fingers.
Sloan.
He applied enough pressure so she couldn’t wiggle her fingers free.

He’d captured her on hands and knees, a most undignified position for a warrior woman.

“Gotcha.” His voice was winner fierce.

Eve closed her eyes, awaiting the unloading of his tommy gun. To her surprise, he gripped the back collar of her jumpsuit and hauled her to her feet. Still behind her, he pressed her to the wooden wall. She was his hostage.

He kicked her pistol and goggles aside.

“You have a second weapon?” he asked.

“You know I don’t.”

“That’s what all snipers say.” His breath heated her ear.

The heat didn’t stop there; it stroked her neck, slid between her cleavage, fanned low into her belly.

She was high from the game, flushed hot for this man.

“Hands up,” he ordered. “I’m going to pat you down.”

She flattened her palms on the wall.

“Spread ’em.” He inserted his knee between her thighs and shoved her legs apart.

Even in two layers of clothing, Eve felt vulnerable. When Sloan began his search, she nearly came out of her skin. His hands were big, his touch slow, as if he’d waited a long time to feel her.

He felt her up and he felt her down.

Her knees nearly gave out when he cupped her butt and slid his hand between her legs.

He then turned her toward him. Eve’s breathing came short and shallow. Sloan sounded winded. They were both charged from the chase and capture.

He slipped off his mask. His hair was mussed, his gaze narrowed on her. “You’re my prisoner,” he stated.

“That’s not part of the game.”

“I play outside the rules. My win. Your consequences.”

Her heart pounded and anticipation took hold, as raw and restless as the man who moved in on her.

Eve backed straight into the wooden wall.

They faced each other then, so close their zippers aligned. Eve felt the man, every flexing muscle, every inch of hardness—including the grenade in his jumpsuit pocket that poked her left breast.

Big and broad shouldered, Sloan blocked out the moon and stars on the ceiling. Darkness held them together.

She remained brave—far braver than she’d ever felt in her life, all because of a paintball game. She’d come alive during the challenge, and didn’t want to come down.

When he tipped her chin up with his thumb, she knew Sloan was going to kiss her. He made his move, a slow, deliberate stalking of her lips.

Eve sank into him, sighing, as he nipped the corners of her mouth, then sealed his lips to hers. His need was evident, yet he waited for a sign that she accepted him.

She gave him that sign. Curving her arms about his neck, she welcomed the deepening of his kiss. Pleasure shivered through her body as he penetrated her with his tongue—a tongue that tentatively traced her teeth, as if he’d never kissed a metal-mouth. Once he was assured there were no rough edges, his kiss grew thorough.

The heat that ignited their bodies was as hot and explosive as the grenade in his pocket.

He controlled. Dominated.

And made her want him.

She wanted him badly. Her body had gone liquid. Her panties were damp.

Her dislike of Sloan was at odds with her desire. They had an insane attraction that neither could deny. Any involvement would prove short-lived. Their time together was limited. The man lived by a three-date rule. Sloan was not a man to go the distance in a relationship. She’d get a gift from his girlfriend closet as he walked out of her life—no doubt another duck. Sloan found humor in her childhood fear.

She felt no fear now, only a skin-hot deliciousness as he kissed her chin and neck and made her forget how quickly he’d leave her.

The slide of the zipper on her jumpsuit sounded loud in the stillness as he slid it down to her navel. He then unzipped his own suit to below his groin. His arousal strained against his button fly.

He worked his hand beneath her knit top, all the way to her bra. He brushed his thumb over the sheer satin, awakening her nipple. Then he exposed more of her skin as he kissed his way down her body like a man in need of a sexual fix only she could provide.

She came undone when he slid his hand over her belly and into the waistband of her white slacks. He slipped beneath the elastic of her panties, touched her with the roughened pads of his fingertips.

The sensation had Eve up on her toes. The man was rapidly bringing her to orgasm on the deck of the fort.

She moaned, squirmed, pressed into his palm.

“I won.” Sloan’s mouth moved against her hip bone. “You’re my prize.”

His prize? He thought he’d won her? He’d kissed her, not blasted her. There’d been no actual winner. The trophy was still up for grabs.

His grip on her ass forced her to shift her stance. Her hip brushed his tommy gun, now within her hand’s grasp.

Desire left her, leaving her fully conscious and again ready for action. Conflicting impulses fought, both accepting and denying what she was about to do.

The warrior woman won.

Catching him off guard, she shoved Sloan back and snapped up the tommy gun.
Rat-a-tat-tat
, she blasted him blue.

Blue from his chin to his shins. The splatter was at close range, thick and messy, and could have covered six men. His jumpsuit would have repelled the mess had it been zipped. Instead the paint now soaked his street clothes and colored his skin.

Smurf blue.

CHAPTER TEN

Sloan McCaffrey jumped to his feet and stared at Eve Hannah. What the hell had just happened? He’d been way into this woman when she’d suddenly shoved him back and blasted him with the tommy gun. His jaw worked, as much in anger as in disbelief.

“Why’d you go kamikaze on me?” he demanded.

She stood straight, her chin angled. “I wanted to win.”

She sure as hell had. He rubbed a blue hand across the back of his blue neck, then looked down at his blue jeans, which were dripping with paint. “It’s not very sportsmanlike to get a man all worked up, then blast his balls blue.

Major mood killer, Eve.”

“The tommy gun got away from me.”

“Freakin’ understatement.” He fought to control his temper. “I need a shower. If the paint sets, it stains.”

She looked down at her own hands, spattered blue from the firing. “Water soluble?” she asked.

“Oil based.” Which meant he’d need more than a hot shower to wash away the blue. He’d need paint thinner to remove the paint that now soaked through his clothes and onto his skin.
Shit fire.

He snatched the tommy gun from her, then collected the Tippmann X7 Sniper. He thought about leaving her in the fort and tossing the grenade up over the side from the ground level, just to give her a taste of an explosion, something similar to the tommy gun, yet not quite so up close and personal.

The tommy gun had power. She’d killed his erection. His balls were blue and bruised. He needed an ice pack for his boys.

The descent from the fort proved slow, his hobble back through the maze even slower. Eve followed at a safe distance. As far as she was concerned, she’d won fair and square. He just wasn’t ready to admit defeat.

The manager of Master Blasters went wide-eyed when he and Eve appeared in the rental room. “You’re in need of paint thinner, Mr. McCaffrey,” he said as he ducked into the storeroom and returned with a quart-size container, several clean cloths, and an industrial-size garbage bag. “The shower facility is down the hallway past the main office.” Gus then offered a pair of navy sweats for Sloan to change into after he’d showered. “There’s no one in the building to bother you.”

Sloan returned the paintball guns and the grenade. He then grabbed Eve by the arm and walked her into the shower room. “You splattered me, and you’re going to scrub me.”

Eve resisted, digging in her heels.

Sloan outweighed her by a solid eighty pounds. One tug and she stumbled in behind him.

“No need to be so rough,” she huffed.

He was feeling rough—and irritable. His skin itched and his balls ached. A man could turn mean when his nuts were cracked.

Inside the shower room, he rolled the jumpsuit off his shoulders, dragged it down his body, and deposited it into the garbage bag. He then started on his clothes.