What terrified her most was not the wanting. It was the way he affected her. His intensity drew her into alignment instead of pushing her off-balance. He was chaos to the world, but somehow clarity to her, sharpening every instinct she had instead of clouding them.
She found herself dying to see this man in his element. It pulled at something inside her that had been dormant for years.
What would actually happen if she let go, if she gave herself over to this fierce, bewildering thing rising in her? What would happen if she trusted that clarity instead of running from it?
A hard knock broke her spiral.
“Yes?” she called.
The door opened, and a young woman in immaculate khakis stepped in with crisp confidence. “Master Chief Snow. Sergeant Brown. Petty Officer Ayla Locklear reporting to set up your Tactical Operations Center. Just point us in the right direction.”
Blair turned to Ice. “You guys don’t waste a moment, do you?”
Ice gave one of those rare, razor-thin smiles. “No ma’am. They landed when we did. Waiting for the all clear. I contacted them while you were getting the brief together. Where do you want our joint center?”
Darrow scraped his chair back. “You can’t?—”
She cut him a look sharp enough to draw blood. “Watch me.”
Ayla shifted her attention. Her gaze flicked to Breakneck, fast and assessing, the sharp, clinical sweep of someone trained to read damage and endurance at a glance. Blair saw the moment understanding settled behind her eyes. Ayla knew exactly what torture looked like, and for a breath she didn’t look like a technician at all. She looked like a woman caught between alarm and recognition.
Blair nodded toward her. “Follow me. I’ll show you where you can set up.” She glanced at Darrow. “Don’t you have something to supervise?”
He muttered a curse and stomped out.
Satisfaction slid through her, dark, fierce, overdue. She’d never taken as much pleasure in anything as she did in reclaiming control of her own division and watching Darrow finally shut up.
She crossed toward the door and had to slide past Breakneck. He didn’t move, and her body brushed the hard heat of his. He reacted like her touch scorched him, muscles tightening, breath catching, and the shock of it hit her low and fast.
His voice slipped across her skin in a low, ruined whisper, rough from pain and whatever he had survived in that barn, a sound that carried heat and hunger and something she felt far too deep in her body. His eyes dropped to her mouth, then lifted to hers, storm gray and unguarded, a quiet, deliberate possession in the way he looked at her.
“You have a way of making people move,” he whispered. “But with me…I just want to get in your way.”
Those eyes stole her breath. Controlled. Focused. Steady as a sniper’s sight line. Eyes that made her feel seen rather than cornered.
Damn it. That kind of information only made heat rush through her like a wildfire.
She should have stepped back. She should have created space. Instead, she froze, breath caught high in her chest, because his nearness didn’t throw her off balance. It focused her, sharpened her, pulled her into a strange and alarming clarity.
Most men crowded her. He centered her. His intensity didn’t unnerve her. It grounded her in a way she had no defenses against, a way that felt too intimate for a man she had known less than a day.
It frightened her how much she wanted to lean into it. Into him. Into that steady, quiet gravity that felt nothing like chaos, even though he was built from it.
They stepped out into the corridor and rounded the corner. She grabbed her jacket on the way out, crossing the area toward the rec center, noting the trucks, equipment, and personnel. The Americans never did anything small, and damn if they weren’t fast and efficient, like a well-oiled machine.
Fifteen crazy minutes later, they were up and running.
The newest wing of the WILD Rec Center still smelled faintly of fresh paint and new electronics, the sharp, sterile scent of a space built for wiring and infrastructure, not horses and trail dust. The annex had only been finished two weeks ago, intended for future training overflow or emergency wildfire coordination.
Today, it was a full-blown TOC.
Rows of tables and outfitted consoles filled the vaulted room, screens blinking to life with satellite overlays, drone telemetry, and encrypted comm feeds. A massive digital map glowed across the far wall. Ayla’s station sat dead center, ringed with monitors like the cockpit of a starship.
Off to the right, a small break room had already been adopted by SEALs with Kodiak brewing coffee strong enough to dissolve metal, Boomer dismantling a granola bar wrapper like it owed him money, and Skull sneaking his K9 contraband bacon from his stash.
It wasn’t WILD. It wasn’t Tier 1’s home turf either. It was something new, neutral ground wired for war. It was hers to jointly command.
Gear arrived in stacked duffels and hard cases, the space shifting instantly from clean lines to controlled chaos. Ayla handled it with startling efficiency, distributing each pack and weapon without hesitation, calling men by name as if she had memorized the entire roster in the time it took to power up the screens. Breakneck’s kit lay among the rest, heavy with weapons and plates, familiar to him in a way that sent a flicker of something through her.
