“No man left behind,” Kodiak said with a wink. “But in this case, I think some dignity might be compromised.” He turned toward the door. “Later, ma’am.”
As they moved, Breakneck lifted his head for just a second.
Blair stood where he’d left her, flushed and sweat-slicked, the room glowing around her like she belonged to every kind of light, and she was looking at him with a sweet, tender, fierce expression.
It was a look that challenged every fear, every scar, every lie he’d ever been told. To be wanted. To be worth it.
Then, still holding that look, she lifted her hand and blew him a kiss.
Something inside him cracked wide open.
Boomer, watching from the side, muttered to no one in particular, “Oh yeah. He’s fucked.”
She stood alone in the practice room long after the laughter had faded down the hall.
The air was still thick with heat and tension, her pulse still a rapid stutter in her neck, her body humming with everything she’d felt, everything she hadn’t acted on. She ran her hand down her ribcage, where his leg had caught her, a solid, unforgiving reminder of just how strong he really was, and let out a slow, unsteady breath.
It wasn’t the pain of impact that rattled her. It was his eyes.
That split second, when he’d looked up at her like she was both salvation and the thing that might break him in half. All that longing, that grief, that tightly leashed hunger pulsing behind his storm-gray eyes. He had been brutally turned on, and just as brutally restrained.
She’d never seen anything like it. Never felt anything like it.
Not even with Darrow.
She rose from the floor, body still overheated from exertion, from him. From the need that had curled low and tight in her belly and hadn’t left. She needed to talk to him. To clear the air. Not just for her own sanity, but because if they were going to operate together, they couldn’t carry this chaos into the field.
There were too many emotions flying between them. Too many consequences she couldn’t afford to ignore. She was falling, and that terrified her more than anything.
Darrow had hurt her. Coldly, clinically. But Kelly Gatlin? He would demolish her.
That man was dangerous. Seductive. Quietly unraveling right in front of her eyes. She could feel it. This was no game to him. No smooth-operator routine. What they’d just shared, without sex, without even a kiss, was the most intimate moment of her life.
She wanted more. She wanted what he kept locked behind those haunted eyes. She wanted to reach in and touch it. Feel the truth of it.
Even if it burned her alive.
She hesitated outside the barracks later that night, hand raised to knock, stomach in knots. She didn’t even know what she’d say. She just…needed to see him. To know he was okay. That he hadn’t fallen too deep into whatever black hole he’d been circling.
Kodiak opened the door before she could knock.
He didn’t look surprised.
“Sleeping,” he said simply, stepping aside. “But you can see for yourself. He’s resting well.”
She nodded, stepping into the dim room.
The other guys were gone. Kodiak just gave her a look that said he knew and left her alone with the sleeping sniper.
Breakneck was on his bunk, shirtless, the sheets twisted low around his hips. His skin was still flushed with exhaustion, his lashes dark against his cheeks. Peaceful. Almost.
But she could still see it, the tension in his jaw. The way his hand twitched occasionally, as if still reaching for a weapon.
She sat beside the bed, quiet, just watching him breathe.
Then his body jerked. A sharp inhale. His hand clenched into a fist, and his head rolled against the pillow.
“No,” he muttered, voice raw, cracked. “Don’t?—”
