A Beautiful Lie (Playing with Fire #1)(22)

“I’m pretty sure I can handle that, Parker. But what are you going to do when we’re walking down an alley and a group of three armed men ambush us and point their guns at your head?” he asked seriously.

Garrett had to swallow back the revulsion he felt picturing Parker with a gun pointed at her. He would do everything in his power to make sure they were never in that kind of situation during this mission. His heart wouldn’t be able to take it.

Parker confidently reached up and popped the first three buttons of her shirt until her cleavage and the edges of her red lace bra were visible. Garrett's eyes immediately flew to her exposed skin, watching her chest heave with every breath she took, her breasts straining against the thin lace fabric covering them.

"Distract man number one long enough to disarm him," she said softly as she removed her hand from the inside of his coat, carefully palming the 9mm SIG M11 she slid from his shoulder holster while his eyes were otherwise occupied. With a straight face she mimed the action of shooting him in the chest.

"When number two comes to the rescue, a double roundhouse kick to the wrist will force his gun out of his hand, allowing me to incapacitate him with a jab cross right elbow to the sternum, knocking the wind out of him long enough for the shot," Parker explained easily, raising the gun a little higher so it was aimed directly at his heart and pretended to fire.

"Shock will be on my side for number three,” Parker continued. “A double sweep kick should drop him where he stands, allowing for the final kill shot right between the eyes," she said, aiming the gun higher so the barrel pointed to the middle of Garrett’s forehead.

"Bang," she whispered.

Garrett hadn't blinked or spoke in the last couple of minutes, and he wasn't sure he'd ever recover the ability to do so. His brain was at war with his libido, and he wasn't positive which would win or which he wanted to win for that matter. Watching Parker hold his gun turned him on and horrified him equally. Listening to her talk about disarming gun-toting killers with such casual nonchalance made his dick hard and baffled him at the same time.

Parker lowered the gun to her lap and watched all of the emotions play on Garrett's face. Some of them confused her, and if she didn't know him better, she might have suspected that her display turned him on. She almost laughed at that idea.

She’d once stood before him in her underwear, practically begging him to sleep with her, and he was completely unaffected. Parker had been upset and drunk at the time though, so her memory might have been a little off.

"Say something," Parker whispered.

Garrett had no idea what he was supposed to say. This was Parker, one of his best friends, the woman who cried when she hit a squirrel with her car, squealed when you gave her a present, and cursed a blue streak when she broke a nail or had to wear pants because they made her feel like a guy.

This woman who sat in front of him right now was not that same person.

"You could have shot me," Garrett protested lamely, unable to come up with anything more intelligent to say.

Parker rolled her eyes at him.

"Don't be so dramatic. The safety is on. At least I didn’t grab the loaded Beretta Jetfire in your ankle holster or the back-up .357 snubnosed revolver in mine."

Garrett didn't bother to try and stop his jaw from dropping.

A few years ago Garrett and Milo had forced Parker to accompany them to the shooting range. She had bitched and complained the whole way there, stating quite firmly that you couldn’t pay her enough to hold one of those “shotgun thingies” and fire it. Milo and Garrett both thought it was quite funny that Parker was raised by a cop and had such an aversion to guns. And the fact that she had thought the small handgun they used was called a shotgun kept them in fits of laughter for the rest of the day. Obviously, the joke was on them.

“What kind of weapon is this?” Garrett tested her, pointing to his other side arm that was carefully placed on the seat across from him. He had a brief moment of hope that maybe he just imagined what had happened a moment ago.

“It’s an MK23 SOCOM pistol.” Parker replied without missing a beat, lifting the gun up to inspect it. “It uses a polygonal barrel design, which improves accuracy and durability. It also features an ambidextrous safety and magazine release on both sides of the frame,” she explained as she held the gun with her right hand, flipped off the safety with her thumb, and used her index finger to click the magazine release, letting it drop into her left hand so she could check the rounds.

Parker smacked the magazine back in place and put the safety back on, turned the gun around so it wasn’t facing him, and handed it calmly to Garrett. Her arm remained suspended in air as he stared at her with his mouth open.

"Who the f*ck are you?" he asked her.

Parker turned away from him so she could reach into the bag next to her, scared to death that this moment was here, yet breathing a sigh of relief that the cloak and dagger nonsense would finally be over.

Garrett watched her rummage through her bag until she found what she was looking for. She turned back to him, holding out a thin, black leather billfold that looked like a passport.

Was she going to tell him she wasn't a U.S. citizen? That would be pretty funny. Maybe she was only marrying Milo for a green card.

He took the square wallet from her outstretched hand and flipped it open, the smile fading from his lips.