I hit the kichen island and a stool went flying, making me curse as bruises blossomed up my legs.
“Come on, Spider. Try harder.” Niall called from somewhere to my left and I launched myself towards him, wheeling the blade around and stab, stab, stabbing at the air. I struck something hard and a whoop left me before the microwave beeped indignantly and I cursed.
“Sorry, Michael,” I muttered. “I’m looking for Niall.”
“Over here.” He called from right behind me and I wheeled around, slashing and growling as I tried to get him, but my hand sailed through air time and again. My fist whacked into the fridge and I yelped, almost dropping the knife. Niall caught my arm suddenly, kissing my knuckles where I’d bruised them and I gasped before he let go, laughing as he headed away from me again.
I followed the sound, bumping into what felt like every item in the kitchen, bish, bash, bam. My knees were taking the brunt of it, but as I stubbed my little toe on the way out into the lounge, I squealed in anger and hopped forward in a furious bid to find my mark.
“Niall!” I snapped, slashing the knife through the air.
“Come on, Spider. This is fuckin’ pathetic,” he taunted to my left and I spun that way fast, the knife driving forward and with a crunch, it slammed into something wooden.
“Nice dent ya made in the front door there, but it ain’t gonna kill me,” Niall said. “What a disappointment. I thought you were a good killer, I musta been wrong.”
“Fuck you!” I cried, leaping in the direction of his voice and my head collided with a cabinet, sending me tumbling backwards onto my ass.
“Ow, ow, ow,” I whimpered, rubbing my head and I decided playing victim might be a good angle. I let out a little sob, my lower lip pushing out as I listened to the creak of floorboards as Niall moved somewhere close to my right.
“Alright, lass, no need to cry. Where’s it hurtin’？” He dropped down beside me, cupping my chin and with a grin snapping out across my face, I slammed the blade towards him. It sunk in deep. Deeper than deep. It went into the softness of his flesh right to the hilt and I gasped in utter, delayed horror at what I’d fucking done. At how stupid this game had been.
I ripped off my blindfold with his name tearing from my throat in horror, but I didn’t find him bleeding out, I found him smirking at me with a bunch of bags of flour strapped to his body on leather belts. He must have made them for this game and slipped them on after he put on my blindfold and he looked fucking ridiculous.
“You wore protection,” I gasped as I yanked the knife out from the bag on his side and flour poured from it onto my legs.
He shrugged one shoulder as triumph spilled through my chest. Niall O’Brien, infamous hitman, best killer in the whole damn state, was wearing protection so little me didn’t kill him.
“Am I really that good?” I breathed in disbelief.
“No,” he scoffed, shoving to his feet. “I just planned on havin’ you stab me a lot in the next game. There weren’t no chance of ya getting’ close to me during this game.”
“But I did,” I pointed out grumpily.
“I let ya,” he laughed, getting to his feet and he yanked me up after him as I hung my head, realising I wasn’t as good of a killer as I’d thought.
He knocked his knuckles under my chin then slid my blindfold back over my eyes. “Chin up, love. There’s only room for one perfect killer in this state anyways. You can be second best if ya work hard. But probably not. You’re more like sixteenth at the moment and I don’t see much improvement.”
I ground my teeth together and lunged at him, slashing hard and feeling another flour bag tear open.
“Cheat. I didn’t say go.” Niall leapt away from me as I took chase, hunting him down and crashing into the sofa, going ass over tit and tumbling right onto the floor. Niall was hiding there and I’d landed right on top of him, my face squashed against something hard beneath his clothes and for a second, I thought it was his arm before he ripped me away from it by my hair and I realised that huge thing had been his cock.
“Watch it, ya little hellion,” he wheezed and I tried to drive my knife into another flour bag, but he knocked me away, getting up and making a run for it.
I leapt up, immediately slamming into the coffee table and crashing over it, grasping my calf as I cursed my way through the pain.
“Silly little Spider,” Niall called to me. “Did you really think you could get the best of me?”
My feet bumped into Brutus and strong hands wrapped around my waist from behind, yanking me away from him just before the sound of sharp teeth snapped together near my ankles.
Niall released me and I swung around to get him, but he suddenly wasn’t there again. I slashed and swiped and stabbed, but Niall started moving like a dragonfly, whizzing and zooming around me and my knife only grazed him and his flour bags time and again.
I was panting and bruised, doubling over from exertion as sweat beaded on the back of my neck.
“D’ya give up?” Niall mocked from somewhere close, but he always seemed so close and yet so far.
“Never,” I growled, standing up straight and drawing in a ragged breath.
“You look like a rabbit who’s outrun a fox, little psycho. Yer done.”
“I’m not done!” I protested. “I’ve got plenty of huffs and puffs left in me. I’ll get you this time.”
I stabbed at the air, but Niall’s hand closed around my wrist and he yanked off my blindfold in the next movement, making me wince against the light in the room. He slowly curled one hand around the back of my neck, his flour bags pressing to my side as he held me there, his fingers finding a pressure point in my wrist that made me drop the knife.
“Do you wanna see what the best killer in the U S of A can do when he’s blind, love?” he asked in a growl that sent a tremor down to the tips of my toes.
I nodded eagerly and he unbuckled the belts around his body which were holding the flour bags, dropping them onto the couch before pulling off his flour-covered shirt and tossing it away.
My mouth suddenly felt like someone had stuffed a hairdryer between my lips and turned it on full blast. My eyes ate up every inch of his rippling muscles and the ink covering them. The clown on his chest grinned at me and I fluttered my lashes unable to help flirting with it just a little. Niall grabbed the belts again and disappeared into the kitchen with them, leaving me with the lasting impression of the ink covering his back.
When he returned, he had new bags strapped to the belts and he smirked at me as he approached, jerking his chin in a command. “Arms up like yer a solider of war.”
I did as he asked and he started strapping the belts all around me, cinching them tight so the flour bags covered all of my fleshy bits. They were kinda heavy though and it was a little awkward to move about, putting me at a definite disadvantage for this game. I was sure he hadn’t had this many on him and he had a huge amount of upper body strength for the ones he had been carrying around, but I wasn’t gonna start complaining and making out I couldn’t handle the pressure. I was an elite killer in the making, and this was all part of my training.
Niall pushed the blindfold into my grip as he finished tightening the belts. “Cover my eyes then. Nice and tight, don’t let me cheat. A man with a soul as dark as mine can never be trusted.”