Her jaw drops. “You wouldn’t dare.”
I look at Damon. “Do it.”
Damon hesitates for a heartbeat, then nods. “You heard the man.”
Gunnar starts toward the small storage trunk, lifting out her duffel bag. Reese lets out a sound that’s a mixture of frustration and disbelief.
“Don’t you dare touch my stuff!” she snaps, rushing over to intercept him. “This is insane.”
“Insane is staying unguarded in a compromised zone,” Gunnar adds, unfazed as he packs.
Jagger is beside him, folding clothes into the bag with exaggerated care. “You know, you’ve got a lot of cute underwear for a war zone.”
Furious, she storms across the room and tears the tiny pink fabric from his hands as he mutters something about it just being a joke. After spinning on her heel, she turns to face me, and I’m met with her flushed cheeks. “Make them stop!”
“You had your chance,” I lament, though my voice sounds foreign.
She glares daggers at me, then freezes when I reach for the camera on her desk. It’s old and worn at the corners, the same one she used to carry everywhere. I turn it over carefully in my hands, my thumb brushing over the familiar scratch near the lens. “You still have this?”
“Of course I still have it.” Her voice trembles, but this time it isn’t with anger. “It was my dad’s.”
I nod, remembering the story she once told me. It is one of the few things she has left of him. I step closer, holding it out to her. “Keep it with you.” Her hand brushes against mine as she takes it. Just her fingers—and just for a second—but it hits like a flashbang.
Tenyears of distance, gone in an instant. The ghost of her scent—amber-spiced vanilla—wraps around me, and I seemy Reeseagain: twenty-three, laughing as she balanced on the hood of my Jeep with that same camera in her hand, snapping photos and telling me to “look less grumpy.”
She doesn’t move, and neither do I, as the air between us crackles with electricity. I pull back from her and grit my teeth. “We move in five.”
“You’re unbelievable,” she growls, snapping the camera from my hand and pressing it tightly to her chest.
“I’ve been called worse.”Probably by her.She stands off to the side, arms crossed, fury radiating off her like heat waves as the guys finish. I can’t blame her. If I were her, I’d hate me, too.
“Boss,” Gunnar says quietly as he secures the last of her things into a crate, pausing before stepping outside. “You good?”
“Fine.”
He studies me, unconvinced. “You don’t look fine.”
Reese brushes past me, joining Gunnar outside, with the camera still clutched in her hand. “I had to leave, Reese.” The soft words slip out before she exits the tent, but she doesn’t look back.
“Then leave.” Her voice cracks, and I can feel her pain.
For ten years, I told myself I did the right thing. Now, being this close to her, I’m not so sure anymore.
If looks could kill, I would have murdered the four of them—and probably half the camp—by now.
When we reach the new tent, I’m already sweating through my shirt and growing more annoyed with this situation by the second. Jagger steps aside, sweeping his hand toward the entrance like a showman. “Welcome to Casa del Chaos. We’ve got air that’s occasionally breathable, sand in all your cracks, and the sweet symphony of snoring after 2200 hours.”
“Sounds like heaven,” I mutter, rolling my eyes and ducking inside. The “tent” is more like a glorified canvas box, barely enough room for four men, much less four menandme. Two cots line one wall, three on the other, and a small crate serves as a table in the middle with the remnants of a deck of cards spread across it. The hot air is stale, smelling like sweat, canvas, and testosterone.
Jagger drops my duffel bag, and it hits the ground with a thud. It is followed by another as Gunnar drops a box ofequipment that definitely contains my underwear. “Hey!” I bark, stomping toward them. “Careful with that. Some of that’s fragile.”
“Yeah, we noticed,” Jagger teases with a grin that makes me want to punch him square in the throat. “You’ve got a whole arsenal of lace in there. Real dangerous.”
“Touch it again and you’ll lose a hand,” I snap.
Gunnar snorts, his gaze falling on me. “You’ll fit right in.”
“Right,” I grouse, crossing my arms. “Because this was always my dream. To be stuck in a sandbox with four overgrown toddlers.”
