He kisses me again. Softer this time. His hand loosens in my hair and strokes down my neck, over my shoulder, down my arm. He laces his fingers through mine and lifts my hand to his mouth. Presses his lips to my knuckles. The tenderness of it after the intensity of everything before cracks something in my chest.
"Okay," he murmurs against my hand. "Okay. We slow down."
I exhale. Shaky. Uneven.
"Not because you're right about the judgment call," he adds, his thumb tracing circles on the back of my hand. "But because when this happens, and it's going to happen, Lex, I don't want you waking up the next morning with an excuse to push me away."
He steps back. The cold air rushes into the space his body left, and I feel the absence in every nerve ending. He's flushed. His lips are swollen. The front of his thermal is stretched from where I grabbed it, and the evidence of his arousal is visible against his jeans. He makes no effort to hide it.
"Lock the door behind me," he says. His voice is rough. "I'll be forty yards away. And I'm not going to sleep tonight either, so don't feel bad about that."
He walks to the door. Opens it. Pauses.
"For the record," he says without turning around. "When a woman who runs a Fortune 500 company, who performed cardiac surgery, who built an empire from nothing, says my name the way you just said it? That's not a terrible idea. That's the best sound I've ever heard."
The door closes behind him.
I stand against the wall for a long time. My lips are swollen and tender. My body is wound tight, pulsing with need that has nowhere to go. The spot on my neck where his mouth traced a line from my jaw to my collarbone feels branded.
The financial reports are still spread across the kitchen table. My wine is warming. My phone has three missed calls from board members and a text from Warren marked urgent.
I touch my mouth with trembling fingers.
I'm under threat. I'm trapped on a mountain with a man who just kissed me against a wall and told me I'm exactly what he wants, and I believed him. Not because he's charming, although he is. Not because he's attractive, although God, he is. Becausehis hands were shaking. Because his voice broke on my name. Because a man who can jump from helicopters into combat zones stood in my kitchen and trembled when he touched me.
That's not youth. That's not overconfidence. That's a man feeling something he can't control, and having the maturity to step back instead of pushing forward.
I finally move. Close the curtains. Lock the door. Lean against it, exactly like I did on the first night, and stare at the warm light of his cabin through the gap in the fabric.
His light stays on all night.
So does mine.
5
HAYES
The perimeter alarm goes off at oh-three-hundred on day eight.
I'm out of bed, boots on, sidearm drawn in under twelve seconds. The alert on my phone shows sensor trip on the northeast quadrant, two hundred meters from Lex's cabin. Could be wildlife. Deer trip the sensors every few weeks, and last month a black bear set off the entire north grid and gave Sully a heart attack.
But the timing is wrong. Deer move at dawn and dusk. Bears are still in their dens in March.
I'm out my door and moving through the tree line before Sully's confirmation text comes through.Two heat signatures. Human. Moving southeast toward guest cabins. Deck and Mace mobilizing.
My blood goes cold and focused at the same time. I cut through the pines on a line toward Lex's cabin, staying off the gravel path, moving on the soft pine needle ground the way Wolfe taught me. Silent. Fast.
Her cabin is dark. Good. She's asleep, or at least she was before the alarm. I clear the perimeter in a sweep, check the tree line, and position myself between her front door and the direction the intruders are approaching from.
My earpiece crackles. Deck's voice, low and hard. "Hayes, status."
"On Lex's position. Holding."
"Copy. Mace is flanking north. I'm coming from the west. Sully has them on thermal. They've stopped moving. Two hundred meters northeast, just inside the tree line."
"Rules of engagement?"
"Observe and contain. If they advance on the cabins, neutralize."
