“Two whiskeys,” I say before Mercer can open his mouth.
His head whips toward me, eyes wide. The attendant doesn’t blink—just nods, scribbles, disappears up the aisle. A few minutes later, she’s back, balancing two squat glasses, amber sloshing dark inside. The burn is familiar, grounding.
I pass one to him.
He stares at it like it’s a live grenade. “Captain—”
“Drink.”
For a second, I think he’ll argue. His mouth opens and he looks every inch the cocky brat he pretends to be. But then he swallows, lifts the glass with both hands like it might bite, and tips it back.
The effect is instant. His nose wrinkles, his whole face contorts, and then—
“Christ—” He coughs once, twice, shoulders jerking, his throat working like he just swallowed fire. “What theactual—how do you drink this shit? It tastes like—I don’t know—burnt trees and regret.”
I smirk around my own glass as the burn slides hot and clean down my throat. “Drink it anyway.”
He glares at me through watery eyes, cheeks flushed, curls sticking to his forehead. “Sadist,” he mutters, but he tips the rest back, grimacing the whole way down.
When he lowers the empty glass, his breathing is ragged, his throat red from the burn. His lips part like he’s about to start running his mouth again. I cut him off before he can.
“Go to sleep, pup.”
His head jerks back a fraction. Then he lets out a breath—half laugh, half moan. “You think I can sleep after you just poisoned me?”
“Sleep.”
For a beat, he just stares at me, lashes fluttering, throat working around the fire I made him swallow. His grip loosens on the empty glass, and his body leans sideways, weight tilting until his curls brush my shoulder.
“Bossy bastard,” he mumbles, eyes already sliding shut.
My hand finds his hair, grounding, anchoring him against me. “Good boy.”
He’s out within minutes.
I fucking slept through the whole flight.
No exaggeration. Eight hours, gone.
Okay—notallof it. I woke up once when they shoved food at us, picked at the tray for like twenty minutes while Cole bitched about his pasta being haunted, then…gone again. Face-first into Damian’s shoulder like I’d been shot.
And yeah. I know. Iknow.
But what was I supposed to do? Whiskey plus panic plus his voice telling me“go to sleep, pup”like it was gospel? I never had a chance.
So now it’s morning. Bright, brutal, sun cutting through the airport glass like it wants to skin me alive. We just walked off the red-eye, and my whole body feels like it got beaten with sticks and then shoved through a dryer.
The team’s a mess. Tyler’s pale and twitchy, clutching his backpack straps like they’re a life raft. Mats is yawning into his hoodie, half-asleep while still somehow flirting with a gate agent. Shane’s muttering prayers against jet lag curses. Viktor looks like he’s ready to murder the baggage carousel.
Cole’s wearing sunglasses. Indoors. At eight in the goddamn morning. Loud as ever, narrating our every move like there’s a camera crew following him.
I’m just trying not to combust. Because yeah, I drooled on my captain for six straight hours and somehow survived the experience.
Every time I glance sideways, I canfeelDamian’s gaze. Not obvious. Not sharp. Just there. Heavy. Like he knows exactly how soft I went on him somewhere over the Atlantic. Like he’s filing it away in that terrifying steel-trap brain of his.
We hit the terminal, voices bouncing off glass, fans actually here this early in the morning waving signs and snapping photos. Staff rushing us along. The whole place buzzing too bright, too loud for a team that just flew through the night.
And then, of course, Cole spots me.
