She smoothed her palm over his ass cheek. He did the same to hers, kneading it gently before giving it a light spank that made her breath stop.
They gazed at each other for a heartbeat as she thought about things she wanted to do to his body that she’d never done to any other man. His expression turned serious, cutting her intentions short.
She moved her hand to cup his jaw.
“I get it though. I was determined to not to like anyone. But I couldn’t help it with you.”
She felt something coming even before he began to speak.
“Her name was Melina.”
Ellory’s heart gave a painful squeeze. Whatever he saw on her face made him pause.
“I don’t have to talk about this.”
“No. I want to hear it. Go on please.” She smoothed her thumb over his stubbled jaw.
His nostrils flared as he drew a deep breath and continued in a quiet tone, like saying it too loud might shatter him. “She was a civilian intelligence analyst working with my SEAL team before I became Blackout.”
He shifted back slightly, gaze unfocused on a spot on the far wall.
“She was good at her job. Sharp. The kind of person who noticed patterns nobody else paid attention to. I was leading a task force. We didn’t work side by side every day, but when she brought me intel, I listened.”
A faint breath left him.
“One op, she pulled me aside before we rolled. She showed me movement along the planned route. She said it felt wrong. Too quiet in the wrong places, too active in others. She said nothing was concrete enough to justify scrubbing the mission, but it made her uneasy.”
His jaw flexed.
“I looked at the data with her, and while I could see she might be on to something, there was nothing concrete to go off, like she said. I told her to let it bake a little longer, to give the intel time so we could confirm before we redirected an entire convoy on a gut feeling.”
Ellory’s stomach wobbled as she felt what came next.
His eyes dropped, focusing on nothing.
“She didn’t argue. Just nodded and said she’d keep digging.”
A long breath moved through him, in and out in a swell that made his whole body move with it. “The convoy rolled a couple hours later. Melina was supposed to go in after the territory was secured. But she slipped in and was in the wrong place at the wrong time.” His throat clicked as he swallowed hard. “It was an ambush.”
The air punched from her at the pain flashing across his handsome face.
“They’d mapped our movement better than we realized. Her vehicle took the first hit.”
She wanted to put her arms around him, draw his head down on her shoulder and cradle him through the obvious grief washing through him.
“By the time my team reached them, it was already over. The subsequent investigation cleared everyone, me included. Again, there was no actionable intelligence to support changing the route. They called it unavoidable.” A humorless breath escaped him. “That word did a lot of heavy lifting in the report.”
His fingers rested loosely against her hip as if he needed something to anchor himself in the storm of his memories.
“But she’d seen it coming. Not all of it. Not the exact where or how. But enough to raise the flag. If I’d seen it sooner too, if I’d just listened…”
The quiet after the statement held more weight than the words themselves. She saw the guilt he carried. The pain of the woman he cared for—maybe even loved—dying because he didn’t have enough intel to make the call to change course and avoid the attack.
She waited out the silence even though she wanted to hug him tight and soothe him.
“After that, something shifted in me. I didn’t spiral out of control with my grief. I didn’t get reckless and hurl myself in front of bullets. I went the other direction entirely.” He settled his gaze on her again, steady but full of shadows.
She touched his hand and he laced his fingers with hers, his touch warm and rough.
