She lowered her eye to the sight again, and when Commander Kettering cleared the firing line and gave the order to shoot, she imagined herself aiming at enemies trying to run over her SEAL team’s position. It lent a grim seriousness to the training that she’d failed to grasp before.

She shot eight out of ten again.

That was when Griffin lay down beside her, his body spooning against her side, big and hard and hot.

“What are you doing?” she squeaked.

“Teaching you how not to shoot like a girl,” he ground out. He sounded nearly as uncomfortable as she felt. His arm came across her back and tucked under her right arm, draped across the rifle stock.

“You’re not settling the rifle against your shoulder closely enough. It has to feel like an extension of your body.”

Right. Kind of like he felt at the moment.

“Wiggle it tight against you. Like this. See how snug it feels now?”

Okay. Was she the only one hearing the double entendre in his words?

Trevor coughed from her other side, where he stood behind Anna. Nope. Not just her.

“Shut up, Fog Breather,” Griffin growled.

Trevor chuckled, apparently enjoying Griffin’s discomfort.

“You were saying?” she asked blandly. “Tuck it in tight. Nice and snug. Then what?”

His lips moved against her ear. “Smart-ass.”

She smirked, her cheek rubbing against the trigger housing.

He muttered, “Exhale long and slow as you acquire your target in the sight.”

“My target’s definitely acquired,” she purred.

“Stop it.”

She pulled her eye away from the rubber cup of the gunsight. “Stop what?” she asked innocently.

“You’re playing with fire, little girl.”

“Go ahead. Burn me up,” she whispered.

“Jeez,” he breathed. He shifted uncomfortably against her back.

She turned back to her gunsight, delighted at having made the big bad SEAL squirm. “I exhale and acquire the target. Then what?”

She felt his rib cage expand with a long breath in, which he held for several seconds and then let out. His voice was calm, devoid of emotion, when he said, “Draw your trigger finger toward you slowly. Your goal is to touch the trigger guard, not to actually pull the trigger. You want to exert as little pressure on the trigger as you can and still have it shoot. That way you won’t dislodge your aim.”

She murmured, “I’d hate to dislodge anything, particularly when I already have it lined up right where I want it.”

“Shoot the damned target already.”

Laughing a little, she lowered her eye to the sight, breathed out the way he’d shown her, and pulled gently through the target.

“Bull’s-eye,” Trevor announced, peering downrange through binoculars.

“See?” Griffin muttered in her ear. “Just do what I tell you, and we’ll both get through this.” He stood abruptly.

She eyed him, looming above. “I can’t wait to see what else you teach me.”