"I don't—" My voice breaks. I try again. "I don't know how to do this."
"Do what?"
"This." I gesture between us, at the narrow space, at his hand still cradling my face. "Whatever this is. I'm not good at—I don't know how to?—"
"Evie." He says my name like it means something. He pauses, his eyes flicking instinctively toward the opening of the crevice, checking the perimeter even now. The soldier in him is calculating the risks, the extraction time, the kill zone below. I can see the flicker of professional hesitation in his jaw—the logic that sayskeep your head in the game. "We don't have to do anything. We can just sit here until the cold forces us to move. That's fine. That's more than fine."
But that's not what I want. That's not what my body wants, pressed against his, hyperaware of every point of contact. That's not what the ache in my chest wants, the one that's been building since he walked through my bedroom door and told me to trust my gut.
"What if I don't want to just sit here?"
The words come out before I can stop them. Before I can think about the wisdom of saying them. His breath catches—I feel it, a hitch in the steady rhythm of his chest.
His eyes drop to my mouth, then snap back up to mine. He looks torn—one hand resting on the grip of his holstered weapon, the other tangled in my hair. He’s caught between the mission and the woman who just saved his life on a vertical mile of rock.
"Evie." His voice has dropped. Gone rough at the edges. "We're a hundred feet up a cliff with people trying to kill us. I'm supposed to be protecting you. This is?—"
"Insane. Improbable. The plot of a bad movie." I throw his words back at him, and something sparks in his eyes—the soldier losing ground to the man. "I know all of that. And I still?—"
"Still what?"
"Still want you to kiss me."
The silence stretches. One heartbeat. Two. Three. He looks out at the canyon rim one last time, a brief, sharp professional flicker of the eyes, acknowledging the danger, the protocol, and the sheer stupidity of what he’s about to do.
Then he looks at me, and the mission vanishes.
"If I kiss you." His voice is barely a whisper now, rough and wrecked. "I'm not going to want to stop."
"I know."
"Do you? Because I'm trying very hard to be a gentleman here, and you're making it impossible.”
"What if I don't want a gentleman?"
EIGHT
Unmasked
RIOT
Her words.What if I don't want a gentleman?
Every wall I've ever built cracks down the middle.
She's looking at me like she means it. Like she sees past the jokes, the charm, and the careful distance I keep from everyone. She's not asking for that version of me. She's asking for something rawer. The version I don't let anyone see because it's too hungry, too intense, too much.
The gentleman in me says slow down. She's been through hell. She's vulnerable. But the gentleman didn't see her lead the way up that cliff. She’s not a package to be delivered safely to a destination; she’s a partner who just held my life in her callused hands, and now she’s looking at me like she’s ready to take everything I have to give.
The gentleman can go fuck himself.
I stop thinking.
The moment stretches—too quiet, too charged—and something in me snaps. I grab her, haul her back against me with a sharp pull that knocks the breath from her lungs. Surprise flashes across her face just before I take her mouth.
Hard. Claiming.
No hesitation this time. No careful pacing. Just the heat of her lips under mine, the way she melts into it even as she fists my shirt like she might shove me away or drag me closer—she hasn’t decided which yet.
