Page 169 of Red Marked

“We’ll talk about it tomorrow. It’s late.”

He has his sweats on and nothing else. His shirt is balled up in his fist. His jaw is set, and his eyes are blazing.

They’re locked on me.

Nobody moves.

“Go!” he snaps. “Now. To bed…all of you!”

Brian jumps. Rex grabs the rifle bag, and we all turn for the door.

“Not you, Pearl. I need to have a word with you. The rest of you are dismissed. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Rift squeezes my wrist on her way past. Atlas looks from Flint to me and back again, then follows the others inside. The door swings shut behind them.

“Flint, I⁠—”

“No!” he growls. “Not out here. In my office. Now!” He glances up at the CCTV camera and then back at me.

I nod.

He holds out an arm for me to go in front.

I walk, and he stays one step behind me across the yard, into the admin block, and down the corridor.

I feel him there, like a fire at my back. Neither of us says a word. His breathing is loud and through his nose.

It’s safe to say he’s pissed. I should probably be worried.

The light comes on automatically when I step into his office. He closes the door. The lock snicks.

He tosses his shirt at the chair. It misses.

“What the fuck was that?” He points in the general direction of the jungle. “What the actual fuck?!”

I shrug. “I was sure it was him. I could scent it. I saw it in his eyes. I knew, okay?”

“Not okay. Not even fucking close.”

“Why is it a problem? I knew it was him, Flint.”

“You knew. That makes it all better?” He laughs, and there’s nothing funny in it. “I gave you an order on that pad, in front of the whole team. I gave you another one at the cliff, and you went in anyway. You disobeyed a direct order from your superior.”

“It was Holt. I was right.”

“He could have killed you. He nearly fucking killed you. Do you know how close you came to dying right in front of me? Do you know?”

“He didn’t, though.”

“He could have killed you!” The words bounce off the walls. “He had his teeth at your throat, Star. I stood twenty feet away, and there was fuck-all I could do about it.”

His chest is heaving. There’s cave dust streaked across his ribs and a raw graze on one shoulder from the crevice. The muscles in his arms bulge. His stomach is all ridges, and his sweats hang low enough to show the cut of muscle at each hip.

This is the worst possible time to be thinking it, but he’s so sexy I can’t look anywhere else.

I really should try.

This isn’t the time.