Want. Admiration. Maybe awe. She swallowed hard. “I have a confession,” she said, her voice soft but unsteady.
He grinned, rolling his neck, loosening his arms like he was about to start another set. “Yes?” he drawled. “Talk to me, babe.”
She let out a breath. Not shaky. Wrecked. “When I saw those photos of you, I went to my staff and took them to task for using RCMP access, and that was legitimate, but an excuse.” She stepped toward him, and he stilled at the feel of her in his personal space, aching in ways that he never thought possible. She took a soft breath. “Your body is beautiful, Kelly. You have the face of a fallen angel. I’m not telling you anything you’re not aware of, not because there’s any ego involved, but because you’ve dealt with this your whole life. You have nothing but a healthy response to your looks, no conceit, just an amused quality that I find so very charming. Any woman would be flustered by you, would enjoy looking. You’re not just some Pinterest AI rendition. You’re real, sweet, caring, funny, and so competent in what you do. At the risk of being hypocritical, I looked,” she said. “Oh God…did I look.”
He chuckled, a low, warm sound from deep in his chest, stepping closer, slow and easy. “No one has ever said that to me in such a concise, matter-of-fact way. You’re like no one I’ve ever met.”
She smirked. “That’s because all of them are trying to get you in the sack.”
He leaned down, feeling as light as air. “Look all you want,” he said, locking eyes with her. “I love your eyes on me.”
“You’re a very dangerous fallen angel,” she said. “But can you dance?”
A dry chuckle slipped out of him.
“You gonna teach me to pirouette, Princess?”
“Point your toe.”
All command, like she was running a range drill.
He tried.
Whatever his toe was doing, it wasn’t what she wanted.
She didn’t laugh, but he caught the flicker in her eyes. That suppressed smile that said he was adorable but trainable.
She walked him through it, pliés, tendus, relevés. Foreign words that sounded like code names, but apparently meant bend, stretch, rise. At first, it felt absurd. He was a sniper. A SEAL. His body was made for combat and speed and precision under fire. This felt like a joke.
Until it wasn’t.
It demanded control. Isolation. Fire through the legs, balance in the core, breath in the right places. It took everything he had not to fall out of form. And she? She didn’t cut him any slack. She corrected him with clipped instructions, her tone sharp, her gaze sharper.
He fucking loved it.
She wasn’t soft here. Wasn’t kind. This was her domain. She owned it, and every movement radiated that quiet, devastating power. She was the calm inside the fight. The sniper’s equivalent in pointe shoes.
Twenty minutes in, he was drenched.
She took her time with her looks. He didn’t miss the way her eyes dropped, just for a second, before she snapped back to task.
The floor beneath him felt slick. His thighs burned. His breath came shallow.
He felt like he’d run five miles in a kit.
“Geezus,” he muttered, wiping the sweat off his forehead. “You do this every day?”
She didn’t answer right away. Just watched him like she was measuring something. Like she’d been waiting for him to see it.
“Every day.” A pause. Calculated. “Still think it’s easy, angel?”
He dropped onto the bench, spreading his arms across the top, letting his chest rise and fall. He let himself look at her. Really look. Her shoulders gleamed with sweat, her pulse fluttered in her throat, and her legs, those impossibly strong, lethal legs, held steady like she hadn’t even broken a sweat.
“Nah.” His voice was rough, but the smile came easy. “I think it’s dangerous.” His gaze slid down, slow and deliberate. “Now I know why your legs could kill a man.”
He expected her to roll her eyes. Maybe toss back a quip. But she didn’t. She just stood there, composed, sweat-slicked, goddamned radiant. He sat there, breathless, not from exertion, but from the weight of what he was starting to feel.
“Not bad for a novice, but how is your flexibility?”
