His chest tightened again. “Why?”
“Because you did everything you could to protect my people tonight.” Her hand paused at the edge of a bruise, thumb brushing lightly against his skin. “No one should hurt like this alone.”
His eyes burned for a second. He coughed to hide it.
He had no idea how to respond to that. He didn’t know how to hold that kind of tenderness. It felt like stepping into sunlight after living underground for years, too bright, too warm, too much.
She kept working, patient, methodical, sliding the cream up toward his lower back where the injury marks deepened. His breath faltered again, not from pain but from something deeper. Something frightening.
She stilled for a moment. “You’re shaking.”
“I’m not,” he said, but his voice betrayed him.
Her palms settled over the worst bruise, gentle pressure spreading warmth through the ache.
“Kelly,” she said softly, not Breakneck, not his callsign, but his name. “It’s okay to let someone take care of you.”
He almost flinched. Didn’t know how to hold it without breaking. But he wanted to. God help him, he wanted to.
Her fingers slid along the ridges of his ribs again, and a sound escaped him, low and involuntary, something between relief and surrender.
She didn’t comment, didn’t tease, didn’t stop.
She simply kept going. Slow. Gentle. Present.
Breakneck exhaled a shudder he couldn’t hide, his shoulders dropping despite himself.
For the first time in his life, care didn’t feel like a threat.
It felt like hope.
He stepped away from her. But instead of the relief he expected, her grip on him just tightened.
“I'm not done yet.” She reached for him, and he intercepted her, his fingers closing gently around her wrist. He moved, the kinetic edge tightening in him like he had a target in his sights, even his breathing slowing pulsing with hers.
Her eyes widened, her breath caught, like she was cornered by a dangerous predator. He didn't take any satisfaction in it. He needed her to back off, but the thought of that separation was nothing but pain.
He felt dizzy, everything honed down to a razor edge, chalking it up to dehydration, unable to catch his own breath or steady himself. "In the last twenty-four hours you've had your hands on me twice." He expected backpedaling, coyness, even a lie. But this woman stripped him down to basics.
"Yeah, well, you saved my life twice. I know you're hurting, and I've seen your dedication, selflessness, so too bad. Someone, me, cares. Deal with it."
She coldcocked him right in the solar plexus. Everything seized, his breath, his heart, his fucking bullshit. How was he supposed to deal with this? Nothing worked with her. He doubled down, desperation curling in with the scent of danger…who knew it would be magnolia laced?
"You don't even know me."
She leaned in like he was gravity. "I want to." Fuck, he drew closer, craving something he couldn't name. "Are you uncomfortable with someone caring about you?" she asked, her gaze landing on his mouth, tracing the line of his lips.
His grip tightened on her wrist, losing the ability to let go. He ignored her second question. It was a loaded gun. "No, you don't. Trust me." Her eyes traveled up his throat and he swallowed hard. When those green, so-green eyes collided with his, hunger barely masked, it made him shift, and her words unraveled him completely without effort.
"I do...I have...with my life."
This…this tender care, this devouring beauty. He was enticed closer, the lush promise of her mouth beckoning him like nothing ever had in his life. His body was aching for her, ready to fuck her hard and slow until she was as lost as he was.
No. No fucking way. Not Blair, this sweet, caring, badass warrior. This wasn’t a woman you moved fast with, not for sexual gratification or a quick, empty fuck. No, the threat in her was that she’d want to go slow and explore him…know him. He could see it in her eyes, and the twist of that would be that he would have to find a way to make that possible. No one really knew him. That was the safe bet. Distance, looking at targets through his scope, and the sniper, the warrior, the man had no defenses against a woman who was as brutally honest as Blair.
He didn’t want to trust it. Everything inside him aligned and then rebelled against him. His want, his fear, his mind, his thoughts, his body, his need all tangled and aching and out of his control.
He trembled with something so far out of his reach right now that he was afraid of what he would do.
