Chapter 17 #3
The scene twisted. The field dissolved into something bloodier, more senseless, Bull Run, maybe Vicksburg. Smoke and slaughter, mud sucking at boots, bodies piled in trenches. Chaos thicker here, shadows fattened on division.
Flash stumbled, rifle in hand, and came face-to-face with another figure. A Confederate. His weapon snapped up by instinct?—
Froze.
Twister .
Dressed in butternut gray, his face sweat streaked, his hands working desperately not to kill but to save, binding a wound on a Union soldier at his knees. Blood soaked the dirt. The enemy at his side, dying, and Twister’s hands steady on him anyway.
Flash’s throat closed. He couldn’t fire. Couldn’t even lift the weapon.
Twister’s gaze cut up, locking with his. His voice came steady, solemn. “A nation divided cannot stand. We stand together. We are the vow. We are the oath.”
The tendril connecting them glowed hot, taut as steel cable. Flash lowered the rifle, chest heaving, realization crashing through him. He could never harm his brother. Not in any war. Not on any side.
The shadows writhed, Chaos howling in frustration.
Flash’s mind blew out, imploded inward, and instead of more lessons, more war, he simply winked out, like the last light of the sun as it disappeared below the horizon.
Emily let herself into the apartment, the key stiff in the lock.
Her advisor’s voice still circled her head, sharp questions that cut at the thin spots in her final section.
Why had Sombra and the cubs deviated so far from her mapped corridor?
Why were her data points sparse in a region once rich with prey?
She had no way to explain it. Not fully.
Not without talking about wreckage, about men with rifles, about the reasons she had been running for her life instead of recording jaguar paths.
Her only answer had been silence. She couldn’t elaborate.
She couldn’t even tell him why she couldn’t.
He'd told her he couldn’t approve a defense with this lack of data.
Her chest was still tight when she pushed the door open.
Two men stood in the kitchen.
Ben, polished in his button-down, sleeves rolled and collar open, the same careful, curated look he’d always worn like armor.
Dark hair trimmed neat, jaw clean-shaven, every line of him sharp with ambition and the tidy precision of a man already halfway out the door to London.
His gym-honed body looked good on paper, lean muscle crafted by mirrors and measured reps.
Once, she’d thought that control was attractive, that predictability meant safety.
But now, staring at him, all she felt was distance.
Then there was Brawler. Her Neanderthal, SEAL, man, brother in a band and in blood.
He filled the room like a force of nature, battle-hardened muscle packed on his frame, the kind that came from carrying weight through mud, from collisions that left bruises instead of bragging rights.
His stance was wide, shoulders squared, every inch of him radiating the quiet menace of a man who’d fought and bled and survived.
Sun-browned skin, stubble roughening his jaw, eyes locked on her with a heat that made her pulse trip, nipples tight, and instantly wet.
Ben looked like the life she had once tried to fit herself into. Brawler looked like he had ruined her for anyone but him.
The breath rushed out of her. “ Christian ,” she whispered. Her bag slid from her shoulder, forgotten, and she ran to him.
He caught her easily as she jumped, her legs locking around his waist, her arms around his neck.
God, the scent of him. Familiar, deliciously male, that warm mix of sweat and steel and something uniquely him.
It clung to her memory, threaded through her dreams, and now it wrapped around her again.
She couldn’t get it out of her mind, out of her nostrils.
Desperate for more, for skin to skin, to have him inside her, surrounding her.
The need was so primal she almost wanted to growl.
His mouth crushed down on hers, rough and desperate, and she kissed him back like she had been holding her breath since the jungle.
All the tension of her defense, the weight of her advisor’s unanswerable questions, melted away under his hands hauling her tight against him.
When she finally broke for air, she turned her head and met Ben’s stunned stare.
“Jesus, Emily.” His voice was a mix of disbelief and bitterness. “Where did you meet this guy? In the fucking jungle? It’s barely been a week since you’ve been gone.”
Sliding down the length of Brawler’s body, Emily landed lightly on her feet. Every nerve still sparked, her gaze dragged back to him as if she couldn’t bear the space. She wanted to consume him. To stay pressed against him.
“Could you give me a couple of minutes?” she asked softly, her eyes never leaving his.
Brawler looked at Ben, then back at her. A muscle jumped in his jaw. “I’ll wait in your bedroom. Don’t make me come looking for you.” His voice was low, steady, but the tone was devastating, threaded with sex and raw desire, and something else that made her heart squeeze hard.
Ben couldn’t miss it. No one could. What was going to happen once she finished with him was written in every word Brawler had left hanging in the air.
For one wild second, she wanted to test it.
Wanted to make him come looking for her just because she loved driving him crazy.
Don’t make me… wasn’t a threat. It was a foregone conclusion.
The thought of him, probably naked and hard, hunting her down with that relentless focus, sent a tremor straight through her. But she wouldn’t put Ben through that.
Ben let out an incredulous breath, raking a hand through his hair. “What the fuck, Emily? You got over me pretty damn fast.”
“I did meet him in the jungle. He’s a Navy SEAL, and he saved my life more than once.”
Ben’s eyes widened. “Fucking, what? Special forces. Jesus, only you, Emily.” Ben’s shoulders sagged, the fight draining out of him. He gave her a long, quiet look. “I wish things had been different, Emily. That we were different people.”
She drew in a soft breath and met his anger with quiet certainty.
“Come on, Ben. We both know what our relationship was about. We both know we weren’t right for each other.
Sometimes you can be with someone for years and think you’re in love.
Then you meet someone and it’s wham , right in the heart.
Fast and furious. Who can explain that? I can’t.
Don’t really want to.” Her voice gentled.
“You go to London and find your future. It’s not going to be with me. It never was.”
“Goodbye, Emily.”
“Bye, Ben. Good luck.”
When the door shut behind him, the apartment fell into silence, the kind that pressed heavy and expectant.
Emily drew in a breath, called out lightly, “Are you hungry? I can make us something. I’m a pretty good cook, especially with a stove.”
Brawler filled the doorway, bare-chested, those sinfully tight jeans slung low on his hips, the denim straining over the impressive outline of his arousal. His gaze raked her like a slow caress.
“Get your shapely ass in here now,” he growled, “unless you want me to come out there and fuck you on the countertop.” Power radiated off him, raw and undeniable.
He lifted his arms over his head, muscles stretching, biceps bulging, chest tightening, every line of him a blatant promise. Then came that smile, voracious, devastating, and Emily’s knees nearly gave out.
She pushed away from the counter, her heart beating like it might burst, and walked to him on unsteady legs. His eyes tracked every step, hungry and unrelenting, until she was right there, close enough to feel the heat radiating off his skin.
“Hello, Mr. Neanderthal. I’ve missed you like hell.”
She didn’t get another word out before he caught her by the hips and hauled her into the room, his mouth slamming down on hers with a growl.
The kiss was fierce, searing, all tongue and teeth and need.
She clung to his heavy shoulders as he walked her backward until the back of her knees hit the bed, then toppled with her, landing above her in a controlled crash of heat and muscle.
His weight pressed her into the mattress, the solid bulk of him caging her in, making her dizzy with how much she wanted him. His scent filled her nose again, sweat, steel, something wild, and it was all she could do not to moan just from breathing him in.
He tore his mouth from hers long enough to rasp, “You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to touch you like this again. How hard it’s been not to want you every second we were in that jungle.” His hand slid under her shirt, callused palm finding bare skin, and she arched into the rough glide.
Emily’s laugh was breathless, shaky. “Pretty sure you duct taped me the first time you touched me.”
His answering grin was dark, feral. “You’ve been under my skin ever since.” He hooked his thumbs under her shirt and yanked it over her head, tossing it aside without looking.
Her bra followed, and then his mouth was on her breasts, licking, sucking, biting just enough to make her gasp, then soothe with his tongue until she was writhing beneath him. His jeans ground into the soft part of her thigh, the hard ridge of him unmistakable.
She dug her nails into his shoulders, her voice breaking on his name. “Christian…”
He froze for half a beat, then lowered his forehead to hers, eyes blazing. “Say it again.”
“ Christian .” A whisper, a plea, a surrender.
He groaned, low and guttural, and shoved his jeans down enough to free himself.
The sight of him, thick, hard, ready, made her whole body clench with want.
He slid her jeans down with rough hands, stripping her bare.
She opened her legs wide as he pressed that hot, velvet erection against her, skin to skin, scorching and overwhelming.