Author's Note: Many thanks to everyone who has reviewed and favourited. These are definitely all things that keep me going, well those and ozhawk who is an awesome beta and keeps my crackhead muses working by feeding them pictures of muscly hot guys from the MCU.
So this is possibly a little later but I wanted to let you guys know how exactly I visualise Tyler and Shay.
Tyler I see as Liam Neeson from the Taken movies, he is essentially Shay's adopted father and the reason she is alive and on the straight and narrow.
Shaylyn in my head I see as Kristin Kruek, she has a dark past which gets briefly explored later on in discussions with Clint.
Chapter Three: Sexy and he knows it
As storm grey eyes drifted open blinking to regain focus, the last thing he'd expected to see was a wave of brunette hair falling just above his stomach. It took him a minute or two for his vision to clear enough to realise he was lying prone in a hospital bed, the hospital gown he was wearing hiked up to his waist, the blankets and sheet drawn back just enough to keep him decent.
Feeling trembling fingers brush across the skin of his groin, licking his lips he tried to regain some moisture in his mouth. However his voice still came out rough and gravelly as he rumbled "I know I'm sexy, but generally I do like girls to buy me dinner first before I let them get into my pants."
Brunette hair whipped around so fast he was surprised that the owner didn't suffer whiplash, his storm grey eyes locked and held startled chocolate ones before dropping down towards where her fingers were still resting upon his skin.
His gaze narrowed briefly to inspect the strange tattoo, barely two inches high, of an ornate, filigreed heart pierced by an arrow, which marked the skin of her right inner wrist. As his gaze drifted down along her hand to where her fingers rested, he caught a brief glimpse of the same marking upon his own flesh.
Bolting upright in the bed, which in his current condition probably wasn't the wisest move as pain bloomed in a sharp burst in his shoulder, as the woman stepped back from the bed he lurched from the bed after her his fingers curling gently yet firmly about her wrist.
In his lifetime, he'd seen some bad things happen between soulmates and had never really wanted to or had even considered he would ever find his soulmate. Yet here she stood, just barely six inches shorter than his five ten with flowing brunette hair that fell just past her shoulders.
Chocolate eyes slightly wide with uncertainty darted from his gaze towards the door, causing a low rumble of warning to reverberate through his chest "What the hell is going on here? Who are you and what the hell gives you the right to mark me?"
He couldn't help the slight smirk that curved his lips when her chocolate gaze shot back to his. In their depths he saw the faintest flash of anger flare before her shoulders straightened and she wrenched her wrist from his grasp.
"Just who the fuck do you think you are Jason? It's not like I dragged your unconscious, wounded ass to the nearest tattoo shop and got this," Here she raised her wrist and waved it past his eyes, which gave him the chance to recapture the wayward limb so he could stroke a calloused thumb along the marking. "Slapped on both of us. I never asked for this, I never wanted this."
Drawing his gaze from her wrist the smirk he'd been wearing twisted into a scowl as the past few days suddenly flashed back before his eyes. He recalled an investigation he'd been conducting into a corrupt cop in the Precinct where he was stationed going sour and ending in a confrontation, from which he had apparently not walked away under his own power. "We have to go. Now."
"You're in no state to go anywhere. Ty, a little help here?" The concerned tone lacing her voice and the worried expression she suddenly wore caused his heart to do a strange little flutter in his chest, which is something he would be examining just a little more closely once he was sure they were both safe.
Hearing the soft thud of boots moving towards them from behind the curtain, he dropped her wrist quickly, turning to lunge at the shadow as the curtain shifted slightly his solid body slammed into the six foot four man that came into view. Big, he assessed rapidly, strong, but unprepared and untrained to face someone like me.
His momentum drove them both into the wall beside the door, his arm pressed firmly against the bigger man's throat before he'd been able to make a move. Storm grey eyes darted from his captive to the woman now standing behind him as the sound of a soft gasp caught his attention.
It was the slight flush in her cheeks and the way her gaze darted suddenly from his back to the man whose airway he was currently blocking that told him he was wearing one of those ridiculous backless hospital gowns with nothing else underneath. That and the breeze on his bare ass.
Turning his gaze back to the taller man he eased up the weight on the other man's throat before leaning in to growl menacingly "I'm going. And she's going with me. If you know what's good for you, you'll stay out of the way."
Before the man could even make any form of response to his threat the door beside them burst open, and from his peripheral vision he saw the muzzle of a semi automatic pistol moments before the sound of gunfire filled the room and a spray of bullets tore through the mostly shut curtain towards the bed he'd just recently vacated.
Letting the taller man go he spared a momentary glance towards his soulmate who'd hit the floor with her arms over her head. As the shooter went to step further into the room he flew into motion, easily disarming the unsuspecting gunman with a sharp blow to the wrist that sent his gun skittering across the floor to come to a stop by the woman's head.
Spinning sharply with a tight grip on the shooter's arm he manoeuvred him face first into the door, as the gunman dropped to his knees with a grunt he moved easily behind him to disable him with a choke hold. Dragging the unconscious form out of the doorway he heard heavy footsteps rushing towards them and quickly pulled a hunting knife free of the sheath on the unconscious gunman's belt.
Just as the second gunman manoeuvred through the door he flipped the knife in his right hand so that the spine was resting against his forearm, with a simple flick of his wrist the blade flashed swiftly across the shooter's carotid artery. As the lifeless form toppled to the floor he moved away towards the unconscious attacker, kicking the door shut on his way past.
"Who the hell are you?" The awed tone drew his stormy gaze from the unconscious body that he was stripping the gear from to the other side of the room and to his soulmate who was in the process of pushing herself up from the floor. Making a mental note to actually find out her name at some point, he set the tactical vest aside and began the process of removing the unconscious guy's boots and pants.
"Who I am, really isn't important right now. But we really need to go." Straightening from where he'd been crouched removing the unconscious guy's pants he leant forward slightly to pull the pants on and up beneath the gown, once fastened he reached behind him with his right arm to undo the ties at the back of his neck.
Pulling the gown off he tossed it across the room and gathered the tactical vest and slid it on over his shoulders before zipping it up. Having cleaned the hunting knife on the fallen man's shirt he leant down to tuck it into the combat boots he now wore. Turning to cross the room to the other body it didn't escape his notice that the first shooter's gun was now in the taller man's hands and aimed in his direction.
As he set about collecting the dead man's weapons and stashing them on him, his gaze moved to his soulmate, watching her reactions intently. Taking the dead man's magazines he put them into one of the pockets on the tactical vest before picking up the pistol and ejecting the magazine to check the rounds. Slamming it back home he pulled the slide to load a fresh round before flipping the safety on and tucking it into the waistband of his stolen pants.
Crossing the room he stopped in front of the pair, sparing the taller man with the gun pointed at him a brief glance before moving his gaze back to the woman. Extending one hand out, he said "I'm not leaving without you." He simply stood there, hand held out to her and watched the emotions flicker in the depths of her chocolate eyes. He barely contained a growl when her gaze darted momentarily to the man beside her moments before her hand tentatively settled into his.
"Shaylyn, you can't seriously be thinking of going with this guy! He just killed one man in front of us and knocked out another. This guy is dangerous."
Turning an icy glare onto the taller man, he went to take a step forward into the other man's personal space only to find his path blocked as the woman whose name he now knew was Shaylyn slipped between them.
"Tyler, you are not helping right now." Her frustration with the other man was evident to him in the tone of her voice. When he felt the slightest squeeze of his hand his stormy gaze turned back to her. "There are people coming after him, Ty. We can't just leave him here. Now would you please point that gun somewhere else?"
Hearing the faint click of the gun's safety engaging, he cocked one eyebrow in her direction. Her mouth curved into a wry smile as she shrugged one shoulder.
"If he's done trying to be an over protective watch dog we really need to go. These won't be the only two here looking for me."
Her hand slipped free of his grasp as she moved for the door. Deftly reaching out to curl his hand into the back of her hoodie, he pulled her to an abrupt stop before stepping forward lowering his head so his mouth was by her ear while murmuring "What do you think you're doing?"
"Well, I was going to go check the route to the elevator to see if it was clear? I figured they'd be looking for you not me." The low purr of her voice sent a shiver down his spine and had heat pooling low in his belly, turning his head slightly he inhaled sharply and was met with the aroma of apples.
Nuzzling into her hair he groaned quietly as his mind wandered into dangerous territory, he was so close to pinning her against the wall and tasting the delicate skin of her throat it wasn't funny. In fact the only thing that stopped him was the sound of a throat roughly clearing behind him.
Taking a step back he shook his head slowly as he tried to rein his libido in and clear the lust filled haze from his head. When he thought with his head he had to admit that her suggestion held certain tactical advantages, but this new-found part of him that insisted she was now the most important thing in the world was screaming an emphatic refusal to let her out of his sight.
There was absolutely no way known he was letting her set one foot outside that door without him being either in front of or beside her. "No." He actually hadn't meant to say that out loud. The moment she turned and he saw the tight set of her lips and the slight flash of frustration in her eyes, he inwardly kicked himself.
"No?"
The icy tone of her voice made him flinch just the tiniest bit and he knew by the slight twitch her lips made that she'd caught the flinch before he could fully conceal it. Raising both hands slightly he stepped forward back into her personal space to settle his hands on her shoulders as he murmured "Let me rephrase that. We need to stick together."
Whatever painkillers they'd had him on were obviously starting to wear off as pain radiated from his shoulder and belly as he moved. Tensing his jaw he tried his best to not show the pain. Though when one of his hands unwittingly tightened on her shoulder he watched her brow furrow and knew that his pain was evident to her. When soft warm hands curled around his biceps he saw the flash of concern flare in her eyes shortly before she stated "If we're going then we need to go now! But we need to make a stop first."
Shifting his attention from her to her friend he found them both watching him a little too intensely for his liking. "What kind of stop?" He asked curiously, his question not aimed at anyone in particular.
"Supplies," was the sudden gruff answer from behind them which had him turning his head to look at the older man curiously, it was just a little disconcerting that this man seemed to know straight away what his mate was talking about. From the expression on the older man's face he assumed there was some kind of silent conversation occurring between the two, this was confirmed when his gaze returned to her and he saw the icy glare she was giving her friend.
What exactly was there between his soulmate and this older man who seemed to know her so well? He tried hard to tamp down a hot flare of jealousy. Don't jump to conclusions.