He looked up.
Gray eyes locked onto hers, the color of winter dawn’s edge, the precise moment starlight surrendered to day. Focused. Razor sharp. They cut through her like a blade sliding against nerve. He struck her as a man balanced between violence and conscience, between discipline and fracture, between night and morning, and damn her if she didn’t want to explore every single aspect.
He raised his brows, just a slight movement, but enough to tell her he’d caught her staring. Hard. Even though he had to be used to it, she felt heat rise under her collar. It was rude. Unprofessional. She had to wonder if he felt the same way. If he recognized that beauty was as much a mask as anything else. That was the part that hit her the hardest. Was he as weary of it as she was of the attention it drew, the expectations it carried, the way it eclipsed everything else a person might be? The aching loneliness of being reduced to surfaces.
Her throat tightened.
She cleared it quietly. “Dylan Cross?”
“You’re all in danger.” His voice was rough, burned down to gravel, deep and low with a rasp that curled through her stomach like a hand. “Headquarters has been targeted. The cartel knows you intercepted their shipment. They’re coming. You need to arm everyone now.” His voice shook, not from fear, but from barely contained urgency. “You have minutes.”
Blair blinked. “How do you know that?”
He held her stare. “It’s classified. I need you to trust me. You have no reason to, but please, I beg you, warn your people now.”
She’d only known him for minutes, but there was something in his voice that was sincere, honest and protective.
She picked up her radio. “Beef, prepare for an assault.”
“What? You listening to the pretty boy bandit?”
“Do it. Pull out the assault rifles, now! If there’s no threat, you’ll have something to bitch to Tyler about. If there is…you’ll stay breathing. You can’t eat donuts if you're dead.” She set down the radio.
His chuckle was his response. The man across from her relaxed for a fraction of a second, amusement lighting up his eyes, like sunlight through fog.
“Classified?” Her fingers tightened on the tablet. “Why?”
He leaned forward, the cuffs forcing his torso into a brutal angle that made the muscles across his back flex. He wasn’t threatening her. Something in the way he moved, the slow power, the coiled precision, sent a ripple across her skin. A woman didn’t react like this to criminals. It was something else. Something lower. Something primal.
He murmured, “My CO once told me it’s easier to ask forgiveness than permission.” His head tilted, tongue brushing that split edge of his mouth. “So, I’m really sorry about this.” There was a soft snick.
Before she could register it, a sharp cracking sound echoed in the distance.
Gunfire.
Blair shot up from her chair, hand flying to the butt of her pistol, but he was there before she even cleared the holster.
Blair’s heart slammed against her ribs.
Her prisoner’s cuffs hit the floor with a metallic clatter.
Her eyes flew wide.
He had somehow freed them. That snick. He’d picked the lock.
His body brushed hers, warm and massive, the heat of his skin shocking through her shirt as he moved with impossible speed. His fingers closed gently, commandingly, over her hand, guiding the weapon out of her grip before she could resist. His wide chest brushed her shoulder. His breath slid along her ear.
Automatic fire rattled again, closer now, vibrating the floor.
A violent kick sent the door open. A man shouldered through, leading with his muzzle. Dylan moved behind her, one hand at her waist, the other guiding her shoulder down as he spun her into a pirouette in front of him, bent over her back, his hips and groin pressed heavily to her ass, and shot the man, two to center mass, and as he fell, one to the head.
Another man replaced him, and he nudged her out of the line of fire like he had rehearsed this for a fight scene. He spun her into the wall, pressing the full length of his hard, half-naked body to her back, shielding her with all that muscle and man. Her heart pounded from the adrenaline and his closeness, his sheer mastery. Heat seeped through her shirt, scoring her back and buttocks. Her nipples tightened, and she wanted to think it was adrenaline, but she knew better. This was a tactical dance with a trained, unapologetically gorgeous killer.
The bullets impacted harmlessly on the opposite wall. Her gun discharged again under his expert marksmanship, the man who was pinning her calm, collected, fierce. Another three bullets in the same pattern. The slide racked, with each pull of the trigger. Drop them fast, end with a finishing shot. That was…special forces. That’s what classified meant.
He was an undercover DEA asset with lethal military skills. She was going to kill Darrow, slowly.
Another attacker. She realized this was targeted. They were hellbent on killing him. Glass shattered. More bullets tore into the room.
