I can’t help but grin at him as he picks up a stick and then pokes me with it. “Stop!”
“No heavy breathing… face isn’t flushed…” He pokes me again. “Bear, I think he might have the sickness of being a liar.”
“No! I’m not a liar! I just wanted to enjoy life. Smell the roses. We might be leaving tomorrow.”
As soon as Bear rolls off my body, Shepherd sits down right on my gut.
“Ow! I’m being crushed.”
He grinds his ass bones into my body. “Stop your whining, I don’t want to get bugs crawling on me if I sit on the ground.”
With that new thought burrowing its way into my mind, I try to sit up but he pins me down. “Wait? There are bugs? Where?”
“Everywhere,” he says as he pretends his hand is a bug that crawls up my side.
I cringe away while trying not to laugh. “Stop! I don’t like bugs! Nature is terrifying.”
“Don’t be a wuss. Hold on… wait… is that a… tick?” he asks before jabbing me in the ear.
“Damn you,” I say as I try to throw him off but as he watches me with not a concern in the world, it’s clear I will never be able to best this man. He will likely torture me for years to come. It probably doesn’t help that the moment he looks away, I go and read a book.
He taps my face. “Get your arms up. Will you just let someone hit you if you’re in this position?”
“I feel like we shouldn’t be rolling around when you forced me to bring a gun,” I say as I nod to the holster on my side.
“Do you have the safety on?”
“Yes.”
“Then it’ll be fine.”
I’m not convinced but he’s reaching for my face again, so I try to block him but he gets in on the other side. “Most people kiss and stuff, but no, we chase each other through the woods and then you pick on me when I’m defenseless.”
“Yeah, but I’m trying to make you strong and show you why you need to keep working,” he says as he easily pins that arm and shows that he can smack at me with his free hand.
“No! Just give me kisses! Tell me I’m your soulmate or something.”
“Killian,” Shepherd says as he peers down at me while my hands are hovering, prepared to stop his vicious attack.
“Yes?”
“You, my dear, dear Killian, are my soulmate,” he says and then delivers a gentle smack to the right side. “But my god, you need to learn how to block. Get those arms up.” He grabs my arms and pulls them up. “Protect your face.” He goes to smack me again, but this time I manage to block him. “See? I don’t want you letting anyone get near your face, got it? You need to try your hardest to protect yourself. Now hook my arm and hook my leg. Give me a good ol’ fucking pelvic thrust.”
“What?” I ask because my mind automatically goes blank when talking about pelvic thrusting.
“Just air hump me forward to knock me off balance.”
“You’re making this weirdly sexual, and now I’m not sure if I should be turned on or afraid.”
He grins down at me. “Good, I like you on your toes,” he says before poking me right in the cheek, since I guess I forget how to block when I’m turned on.
I hook his leg and arm like he says, then push my hips up and he surprisingly is thrown off balance.
“Now ram into me,” he says.
So I do which throws him onto his back and puts me into the position he was just in.
He beams up at me and for some reason I feel extremely pleased by his reaction. “See? Simple as that. Now you can smack me or kiss me or whatever else you were whining about.”
Instead of doing either, I lie down on top of him and he wraps his arms around me, hugging me to him. And I realize that all of the torture he put me through this morning was worth it for this moment.
“This is a new kind of attack,” he says.
“It’s called a ‘the sun is kind of warm, I’m already tired, and I kind of really like you’ attack,” I explain, pleased as hell with my secret art.
“I hope you don’t use this attack on anyone else,” he says.
“Just for you. It’s my secret attack that makes you stop working me to death.”