“Or a bad attitude,” Boomer added.
Blair glanced over her shoulder.
The SEALs filled the center aisle like they effortlessly owned the space, dressed and ready to ride in their functional gear.
Ice was farther down, talking with Tyler and Beef near the tack room, going over search grids to find the absent cartel. Kodiak and GQ stood near the empty stalls reserved for spare mounts, both men assessing the available horses with the instinctive eye of people who knew what they were looking at. Skull was hovering at a safe distance from Jet, which made her mouth twitch despite herself.
Then Breakneck stepped in, and the barn seemed to recalibrate around him. It felt as if she did, too.
Her eyes went over him slow, easy, and tight. The sight of him landed like a physical blow, a silent rush of heat blooming low in Blair’s belly and spreading through her veins like warm honey.
He didn’t crowd the aisle the way some men did. He simply…entered, his presence settling in like a weight, calm and contained. He moved slower than the others in that measured, efficient way she’d noticed in the conference room and in the firefight. The kind of lethal grace he’d been honing for most of his life.
Her breath sucked in, her mind stalling, time stretching the way it had during the RPG attack. There was danger in that moment, with her and the team hovering between life and death, and without Breakneck’s split-second precision, she wouldn’t be standing here now, watching him like this. He’d neutralized that strike without hesitation. Here, there was no such release, and God help her, she didn’t want one.
This man was a straight-up threat, wrapped in mouth-watering, body-hugging gear.
The second-skin shirt fit like it had been built for him, dark and unobtrusive, mapping muscle and movement in hard, delineated planes. The riding pants left very little to the imagination, clinging to the solid muscle of his thighs and ass, highlighting strength and the promise of controlled energy coiled beneath the fabric. Her gaze lingered there, tracing the taut lines before moving to the narrow, encased waist and the broad expanse of his chest. The material stretched across his shoulders, emphasizing their width and the rigid, capable line of his spine.
Then her eyes dropped to his feet.
A soft, involuntary sigh escaped her lips, the sound barely audible in the charged air between them, thickening, growing heavy and warm, pressing against her skin. She reached for Jet’s back, fingers sinking into his coat, grip tightening as her knees went unsteady. Jet shifted closer, lending her his strength. She needed it.
Boots.
Holy fuck.
Sinful black. Nearly knee-high. Worn, broken-in leather polished to a dark sheen a tad below his knees. The Navy boys knew polish. The laces were pulled tight and disciplined, the buckle at the top a bold slash of metal, unapologetic in its intent.
They were heavy, built to anchor, to brace, to take force and give it back. She felt the weight of them in her own body, imagined that mass settling close, steady and unyielding. The way the soles met the packed earth told his story about control, leverage, purpose. Her pulse kicked, sharp and traitorous, heat sliding low before she could stop it.
Edgy. Confident. A detail that made her want to reach out, feel the cool steel beneath her fingertips, know what it would be like to be held steady by someone whose certainty came from within, not from approval.
She dragged her gaze up, jaw tightening as a hunger she’d never known settled somewhere deep and unruly. The image clung, the laces, the buckle, the promise of weight, and her breath refused to fully steady.
They hadn’t spoken since the gear room. The memory of it was a brand on her senses. The sensual trap of his body caging her, the shocking heat of his mouth claiming hers, the possessive weight of his hands on her skin, branding her through the thin cotton of her shirt. And now, he stood here, a predator in sleek black, and the only thing more powerful than the memory was the palpable force of his restraint.
She could see it in the rigid set of his jaw, the way his hands twitched as if they wanted to curl into tight fists, betraying the casual stillness of his posture. He was holding himself back, a coiled spring of raw tension, and that control was more intoxicating than any touch.
The air between them didn’t just feel heavy. It vibrated with a silent, desperate need. A question hung there, unspoken, dangerous, aching.
What if she answered it, throwing away caution and retreat, leaving only her intent? What if she stepped into that gravity and pulled him with her, pushed him toward the place he was already fighting to reach? It would change them. She knew that with a clarity that stole her breath. Oh God, it would change them.
Still, he held himself back.
She’d seen the cost of that restraint. He was hesitating because he knew exactly what it would cost to cross that line.
That knowledge stacked the risk until it made her lightheaded.
She wanted to understand. To see him clearly and be seen in return. To open herself to him in the same unguarded way, to find something like peace together in the wreckage.
What she wanted was more than connection. It was truth.
Her heart pounded, the urge to close that distance tightening low and sharp, not only for him, but for the choice itself. Fear and want braided together, inseparable, as she realized the real danger wasn’t that he might hurt her.
It was that if she reached for him, and he let her, there would be no way back to who either of them had been before.
“Sergeant Brown,” Ice called. “We’re assigning mounts for tomorrow’s backcountry sweep. Figured your horses would prefer a rider who actually knows what he’s doing.” His gaze flicked to Kodiak and GQ, then flicked to Breakneck. “We brought some who qualify.”
