"What I need from a scene is someone who can handle the bastard underneath the VP polish," I continue. "Someone who doesn't need me to be careful or protective or anything other than exactly what I am. Dominant. Demanding. The part of me that's done things civilian law wouldn't forgive and doesn't lose sleep over it."
"And when you find that person?"
"Then I show them what it means to surrender to someone who understands power dynamics aren't about force. They're about trust deployed with precision." I push off the desk, closing the distance between us slightly. "Everything I learned in Delta Force about reading people, anticipating responses, applying exactly the right pressure in exactly the right way—I use all of it. Make someone feel things they didn't know they could handle. Take them apart methodically and put them back together knowing I own every piece."
Silence stretches between us. Any remaining professional distance is collapsing, and neither of us is stopping it.
"I wouldn't expect it to be gentle," she says finally, voice quiet but steady. "Not from someone like you."
The admission hangs in the air between us, changing everything.
I should step back. Should maintain the boundaries that keep investigations clean and professional relationships from becoming complicated. Should send her out of The Forge and back to federal protocol where things make sense.
But I'm done controlling everything alone, and she's looking at me like she understands exactly what I'm offering and wants it.
"You should leave," I say, giving her the option. "If you stay, I'm asking questions you might not be ready to answer."
She holds my gaze, and something shifts in her expression. The federal agent mask drops completely, leaving the woman who spent years undercover pretending to be someone else and might be tired of performing.
"I've been undercover for years," she says. "Tired of performing. Ask."
I circle her slowly, Delta Force operative reading body language and micro-expressions, federal agent meeting someone who sees straight through trained facades. "Are you here as ATF or yourself?"
"Myself."
"Do you know what you're asking for?"
"I know what I need." Her voice stays level, but I hear the undercurrent. "Question is whether you're willing to give it."
Every tactical instinct I have says this is a mistake. You don't get involved with federal agents investigating your operations. You don't blur professional lines when everything you've built is at risk. You don't surrender control to the part of yourself that operates without civilian constraints.
But tactical instincts don't account for how she's looking at me like she actually wants the darkness I keep locked down. Like she's strong enough to take it.
"We negotiate first," I say. "Explicit limits, safe words, exactly what you need and what I'm willing to give. This isn't casual, and it's not soft. You need to know what you're agreeing to before we start."
"Negotiation. Yes." She takes a breath, steadying herself. "What do you need to know?"
"Clean. Recent testing." Direct and clinical, because this conversation requires honesty.
"Clean. Tested after my last assignment ended. Birth control implant, current." She meets my eyes. "You?"
"Clean. Tested regularly. No partners recently enough to matter."
The practical logistics handled, I move to what actually matters. "Safe words. Red means stop immediately, everything ends. Yellow means slow down, adjust intensity. Green means continue. You use them if you need them, and I check in regularly. Understood?"
"Understood."
"Limits. What's off the table completely?"
She considers. "Degradation. Don't call me names or treat me like I'm worth less. Everything else, I trust you to read what I can handle."
She's offering complete trust in my ability to push her exactly as far as she can go without breaking. Most people hedge, set specific limits, control what they're willing to surrender. She's giving me everything except her dignity.
That's dangerous. For her, because it requires absolute faith I won't abuse it. For me, because it's exactly what the dominant part of me has been waiting to find.
"What do you need from this?"
"Control taken, not asked for. Someone who doesn't treat me like I'm fragile or damaged from undercover work. Intensity that matches what I can actually handle, not what people assume I need." She pauses. "Permission to let go completely and trust someone else to hold the control I've been carrying alone."
