Tall. Native. Unapologetically beautiful.
Long, lean muscle under a gray T-shirt, black braid falling over one shoulder, face carved in bone and legend. Her heart stuttered.
He looked like Bear. Same eyes. Same gravity. She flicked her gaze to Bear, then back to the young man. Her mouth parted, words failing.
She had so many damn questions, she couldn’t even form the first one. Her skin was burning with embarrassment. Her home was wrecked. She was wrecked. Now she had witnesses?
Her dignity screamed. Her pride reared. “Out,” she managed, low and furious. “All of you. This is an invasion of my privacy.”
“I don’t give a goddamn,” Bear growled.
The sound of it slithered through her, dark and sure, like the ancient voice of something older than anger and deeper than protection. She had never heard him speak like that. Not to her. Not to anyone. It wasn't just defiance.
It was a vow.
A line drawn in sacred earth.
He wouldn’t leave her again.
Despite every rational reason to push him out, to shield herself, to maintain the illusion of independence…she couldn’t stop the way her body leaned into his shadow.
Like maybe, just maybe, she didn’t have to do this alone anymore.
Her voice cracked again, sharper this time. “I said, out. You don’t get to just show up and take over my life. I didn’t ask for this.”
Bear’s gaze cut to hers, hard, unyielding, as if her words had struck something deep inside him.
“No,” he said, his voice low. Steady. Deadly calm, like a man who had found the voice inside him, let it free, and had no intentions of stifling it again.
Then, for the first time since she’d met him, Bear raised his voice.
“Sit. Down.”
The command cracked like thunder through the living room, not cruel but immovable. Her eyes went to the three young men. They took a couple of steps back, looking at each other.
Bailee flinched, sharing their sheer disbelief. That voice wasn’t a request. It wasn’t a suggestion. It was the voice of a man who had led men through fire and dragged them home bleeding, a voice trained to be obeyed because lives depended on it.
She stared at him, lips parted, too stunned to argue.
“No more orders from you,” he continued, his tone fierce, eyes locked on hers. “No CIA liaison. No bossy words. No distance. You’re not giving me instructions, Bailee. Not this time.”
He stepped closer, and the heat from his body chased away the cold that had settled in her bones since the night she’d kissed that stubborn mouth.
“I am not leaving you alone in this state, in this damn house, because you’re too proud to ask for help.” His voice was rough with something that sounded almost like grief. “You fought like hell out there. You held the line. Now it’s my turn.”
Bailee’s mouth opened, a protest already forming, but then his tone changed. Just like that, he dropped the steel. His voice softened, deepened. “Don’t fight me.” It wasn’t a command this time. It was something closer. A man unraveling. “I just need…to be here for you. Let me, Bailee.” His hand hovered near her arm but didn’t touch. “You don’t fight alone in the field. You don’t fight alone here. Ever.”
The final word settled over her like a prayer. Or a promise.
Something inside her trembled. She wanted to tell him no. She wanted to cling to her pride. But she didn’t really want him to leave. She had called out to him in delirium in the rescue chopper, needing him. Maybe that was what scared her the most. How much she needed him.
She looked into his face and saw nothing but his determination to follow through. “Freaking Navy SEALs. You never know when to quit.”
“Never,” four voices responded in unison.
Fly said, “Than, yard and lawn. Shamrock, kitchen. Let’s move.”
She turned her face away, tears forming behind her eyes, welling up against her will. For the first time in weeks, she gave in to her pain, her trauma, her healing, and him. She gave in to him.
