Page 24 of Tate: Gemini King

“Any updates to her story?” I ask, trying to change the subject.

“Nope. I’m taking a big risk betting against Colorado,” Cormac continues, like there is nothing more important in the world than whatever fucking sport he’s talking about. “Nobody expects the Jets to get past them in Round One but… I don’t know…

I’m about to tell him that he needs to shut the fuck up, when I hear barking. Loud, yappy barking. It sounds like Terrorist. Even Cormac shuts the hell up.

“Do you hear that?” Cormac asks, lowering her voice respectfully.

I nod slowly. “Yeah. Sounds like a chihuahua.”

The barking gets louder as we keep walking ahead, moving quietly like we’re hunting a ten point stag. Cormac doesn’t need to be told to shut the hell up this time. Once we progress down the trail, the barking gets louder and louder.

“Timmy, be quiet!”

Blood rushes to my ears. It’s Natasha. And our dog is not named Timmy.

“Back me up,” I tell Cormac as I run ahead on the trail with the lightest footsteps I can muster up. It doesn’t matter how heavy my steps are because I’ll have the element of surprise on Natasha and then Cormac coming up behind me with the pistol. I can hear his footsteps falling behind me. He’s a natural athlete like the rest of his family, so I don’t have to worry about his instincts when it comes to following my lead.

I see Terrorist first. He comes running straight towards me and then I see Natasha behind him. She freezes when she sees me, looking like some kind of evil harpy forest witch. I ignore Terrorist barking around my ankles. Natasha makes eye contact with me and says one word.

“Fuck.”

That’s it?

Natasha turns around and runs. Oh hell no.

“Cormac, get the dog! I’ll get her ass.”

“You will never get my ass, you asshole,” Natasha screeches, but she’s not very fast and she wasn’t an athlete in high school, so I’m already close enough to grab her shoulder. She glances over her shoulder and sees how close I am. She screeches. That’s enough to give me an edge. I throw my arm around Natasha and tackle her to the ground right there on the trail.

I can feel the wind getting knocked out of her body, but the superb tackle throws Natasha off immediately. She can’t even scream as I hold her body against mine and roll with it. I hear Cormac running towards us with Terrorist’s barking coming closer. Natasha looks up at me with wide, frightened eyes because I definitely scared the shit out of her.

I release her from my grasp so she can freak out a little less, but I threw her down so hard, so she looks like she’s almost about to fall unconscious or something.

Shit…

* * *

eleven

Natasha

Everything goes dark for a while because Tate knocked the wind out of me and all the desperate gasping in the world won’t draw air back into my lungs. He’s such a monster. But when I come to, the monster has his arms around me. His ass knocked me unconscious.

“NATASHA! WAKE UP!”

“Chill out, dude,” Cormac says. (I recognize him as a well-known nuisance around town, much like Tate.

“Chill out?” Tate says. “No fucking way.”

Then, he kisses me. Hard. He’s definitely not trying to do mouth to mouth to revive me. He’s just… kissing me. I have never risen to consciousness so quickly. I squeal and shove Tate away from me. He lets me pull away from his kiss, but there is no way in hell I’m getting out of his giant bicep’s tight grasp. Holy fuck…

“No,” Tate says, his gaze fixing on mine. “Stop. I came all this way to find you and committed several felonies to stalk you. Cormac has a gun here so we can kidnap you if you put up a fight.”

“Tate!” I scream, but he stops me with a kiss again and it hurts. Like… it literally physically aches my chest because Tate is such a good kisser. I haven’t had a kiss that sends feelings straight down between my thighs in forever. His lips are way softer than I expected and he kisses me with tenderness that doesn’t seem like it comes from Tate.

His hand brushes my cheek as he pushes hair away from my face and gazes into my eyes so intently that my heart tries to jump out of my chest through my throat. I try to say his name, but he just presses his finger to my lips.

“You’re coming back home with me, babe,” he says. “And we’re bringing Terrorist with us. We’re going to be a happy family.”