Taking Shots (Assassins, #1)(124)

Elli took in a sharp intake of breath as the girl moved her hand up to Shea’s cheek before she stormed towards the door, because Shea didn’t pull back.





The damn girl had Shea’s mouth sucked into hers, something that had never happened to him before. When he finally pulled back, he felt like the chick had taking his lips with her. “Excuse me,” he bit out as he wiped his mouth, “Jesus, lady.” He then saw Elli out the corner of his eye, heading for the door.

“Elli!” he yelled moving away from the women, knocking the beer off the bar as he went to go after her, but one of the girls grabbed onto him again. “Sergei, stop her!”

As Shea tried to detangle his self from the crazy starfish women, he watched as Sergei stepped out in front of Elli. She said something and he let her right by. When he finally got the starfish off him, he ran towards the door. “Thanks a lot, Sergei!”

“She said she would trade me!” Sergei yelled back as Shea took off running out the bar towards the elevators. He went inside one, pressing the suite level button and waited as the elevator went up. He didn’t understand why he even stayed and talked to the girls! One of them said something about their bother playing back in Boston and that roped him in. He should have known better. He had been playing with ice bunnies his whole life. He knew their tricks; he had fallen to them many times before. When the doors opened, he ran down to the room number Elli had given him and started pounding on the door, but Elli never open. Bryan’s door did, though.

“Adler, what the hell?”

“I need to talk to Elli,” he said turning his back to Bryan before returning back to the pounding.

“She’s in the shower and it’s too late for visitors, you’ll see her tomorrow.” Shea looked over at Bryan, he stood with her arms crossed, glaring over at Shea, “It’s late Shea, go to bed.”

“I need to talk to her.”

“You can see her tomorrow, bye, Shea.”

Shea shook his head, he couldn’t leave. But if he didn’t, he wouldn’t have to worry about trying to fix things with Elli, he would be off the team before the beginning of the next week. Shea looked at Elli’s door one last time and then walked away, basically making what he thought was the biggest mistake of his life, because when he came back the next morning, Elli was gone.





Chapter 24


The Assassins had won the game that night without the help of Shea. He was playing like shit and knew it, but the guys still came through and won. Which was great. But Shea was hurting, Elli wouldn’t answer any of his calls. He was freaking out that she had given up on him and wasn’t going to let him explain.

Didn’t she understand? He didn’t want that starfish freak! He wanted her!

He left for the airport, still calling her every two minutes, it seemed, and she still wasn’t answering. Unfortunately, he had to wait three hours before jumping on a plane and heading back to Nashville. When he arrived, he took a cab to the condo to find that Elli had left there too and she had taken Adler with her. Shea fell onto the couch and took a deep breath. He couldn’t go running over there at four in the morning. She was probably sleeping and would be mad as hell if he came banging on her door. So he laid down, shutting his eyes.

He was out within two minutes.





When Shea woke the next morning, he had one hell of a back ache and his head was killing him. Damn couch, only good for one thing, and it wasn’t sleeping. He picked up his phone, dialing Elli’s number for the 900th time.

This time she answered.

“What, Shea?” she sounded groggy, which worried him since she had probably been crying since she left. He didn’t like her crying over him, he wanted her smiling, he loved her smile.

“I’m so sorry, baby, please come back to the condo, or I’ll come there.”

“No, don’t.”

“Why, baby? I don’t want them girls, she got a hold of me, sucked my damn lips of my face. I’m sorry, please don’t do this,” Shea pleaded as he paced the living room, “I want you, baby, only you.”

“I can’t do this right now, Shea, I’m not in the mood to talk to-” She started to cough, and it didn’t stop for what seem like a good five minutes.

“Are you okay?”

“No, I’m not. Listen, I need a few days to myself, a lot happen the other night and I just need to be by myself for a while.”

“Elli, please, don’t do that, we can work this out.”

“I can’t right now. I promise I will call you soon, but right now I need me time. I’m not home so don’t go there, I’m at Jodi’s. Just let me be for a couple of days. I promise I’ll call you soon.”

“Like you promised before, huh?”

“I promise this time, text me, I’ll answer. I just need some time to myself. Please give it to me,” Elli said, coughing again, “I gotta go.”

The line went dead, and Shea slumped down into his crap ass chair.

Why was being in a relationship so damn hard? It seemed like things were easier when he was screwing anything with legs, no one to answer too, no one to worry about, and no one to f*cking freak out about! Shea stood up stomping through the house, kicking anything that reminded him of Elli. How could he do this? How could he f*ck up the one thing that made him a better person? Elli was everything to him and he probably lost her. Yeah, life as a single man was great, but life with Elli was spectacular and what he wanted.