“Cut through the noise.”
Because you let me, I wanted to say. Because you never look away when I look at you. Because you’re the one person I can’t lose.
Instead, I shrugged lightly. “Someone has to keep you sane.”
He huffed a quiet breath. “You’re doing a terrible job.”
I leaned in just a little. “You don’t seem that crazy to me.”
His eyes dropped to my mouth. Just a flicker—but more than enough to light a fire low in my stomach. He didn’t move. Neither did I. The engine noise faded. The hum of equipment, the muted voices, the world beyond—it all blurred.
Only him.
Only me.
Only the charged inches between us.
“Julia…” His voice was sandpaper soft. A warning. A confession. A plea.
I touched his hand. Not his wrist, not his forearm—his hand. Fingers brushing, then settling, then threading into his.
His breath hitched.
“We’re walking into something designed to hurt you,” Isaid quietly. “Reese knows how you think. He knows how you move. He knows where to strike.”
“And you shouldn’t be anywhere near that,” he murmured.
“Then I’m exactly where I belong.”
His fingers tightened around mine—hard enough to anchor, gentle enough that I could’ve pulled away if I wanted to.
I didn’t.
“Julia…” he tried again.
“I’m not leaving you,” I said. “So stop wasting energy wishing I would.”
He looked down at our hands. Looked back at me. Something cracked in his expression—subtle but powerful, the kind of fracture only people who love too hard ever show.
Then he lifted our joined hands and pressed them to his chest. Right over his heartbeat. Strong. Unsteady. Too human for the man everyone believed was unbreakable.
“You scare the hell out of me,” he said.
“You return the favor.”
His mouth brushed the back of my fingers—just enough to steal my breath, not enough to be called a kiss. Then he lowered our hands carefully, as if letting go too fast would shatter something between us.
“Thirty seconds,” Aaron called from the cockpit.
The moment broke, but the heat didn’t leave us.
The truth didn’t either. We buckled up, until the plane coasted to a stop.
Hawk stood, offered his hand to pull me up. When I took it, he didn’t let go. Not right away.
“Stay close,” he said.
“Try to get rid of me.”
