Chapter 9 #2
Her pants were basic dark navy, but on her, they looked anything but standard.
The bright yellow stripe ran down the curve of her leg like a spotlight, guiding his eyes along the powerful line of her thigh down to those polished black boots, heavy leather, the heel clicking against the floor with every sharp, controlled step.
Breakneck had always noticed feet first, footwork showed training, danger, confidence. Blair walked like a woman who’d never once considered she might need permission, and the thought of those legs wrapped around him made him sweat, and hate himself for reacting to her like this, here, now.
Her dark hair was pulled back in a no-nonsense ponytail, but a few strands had slipped free, brushing her cheekbones, framing her face with an effortless sort of beauty that pissed him off because it hit too deep.
Then there were her eyes, those impossible green eyes, flicking over the room, taking in alphas, SEALs, and the carnage like she was assessing terrain.
The vest…geezus.
WILD’s tac vest rode snug against her torso, molded to her shape, no bulk, no unnecessary straps, a field modification she’d done herself. He noticed the custom stitching along the shoulder, the reinforced knife sheath, the second radio clip.
She didn’t just wear gear. She optimized it. She wasn’t a cop. She was a commander.
Breakneck swallowed once, jaw tightening.
She looked like the kind of woman a man didn’t touch unless he meant it. She looked like the kind of woman a man ruined himself over. He was absolutely not going to ruin himself in Canada.
He forced his gaze back to the far wall.
Didn’t help.
Blair Brown in that uniform, navy, yellow, leather, authority, was more dangerous to him than the cartel ever had been, and she didn’t even know it.
He closed his eyes, but the memory of her burned behind his lids.
He swore. He could drop into dreams about her standing up.
His dick stirred. Inconvenient, stupid, hormonal, goddamned involuntary male response.
His spatial awareness flared, and he knew it was her near him.
He swore he could feel the heat of her body, the ghost of every feminine curve of her.
Was she staring at him again? Yeah, he noticed.
How could he miss it? For a split second he thought she was staring at the surface of him, the way everyone always did…
until he saw her eyes sharpen, assessing him, not his face or his body.
Him. It twisted his identity crisis on its head, grounding him for a breath, and made him crave more of it.
He kept his eyes closed. “Haven’t you mapped every damn inch of my body and face yet?” He knew he was being a jerk, but it was the only defense he had that he hoped would counteract this vise hold she was clamping down on him.
“You are good to look at, and you know it,” she said, leaning right into his asshole behavior. “I’m only human.” He sputtered a laugh. Fuck if she wasn’t going to drive even more under his skin. “Are you sure you don’t need medical attention?”
He opened his eyes, praying that the attraction he felt for her would have just disappeared. He fell into her instead, that concern in her voice as clear as the look in those eyes.
“Nope. I’m good.”
She nodded, nudging her chin toward the open Interrogation Two doorway. “You are in many ways, but everyone needs a little TLC, tough guy, eh? Why don’t you indulge me, then?”
Something hard and sweet slammed into his heart at those words, backed up with that husky tone to her voice. Was she trying to kill him, bring him to his knees? Fucking TLC? He’d show her his brand of TLC, and it had nothing to do with first aid.
His dick swelled and barely had anywhere to go in these jeans.
He had no business reacting to a woman.
“Come on. I’m sure even cocky, special operators do too, at least every once in a while.
” Then she had to go and do it. She smiled, and every damn part of his body tightened under that kind of beauty.
It went all the way up to her eyes, then lit them from within.
“Let’s go.” The palm of her hand landed on the side of his shoulder, and she shoved him, crowding him into the room, and he got overwhelmed by her presence.
His chest tightened, his breathing turned ragged, his arms tingled.
What the hell was this?
Panic?
He pushed back instinctively, making her stumble, and catching her against him out of necessity, everything drew tight in him, the unexpected alarm, his craving, his longing, his goddamned vulnerability.
Blair was a seasoned RCMP officer, she recognized the fear response in people because it was her job.
Her face softened, and she went pliant in his arms, her eyes widening.
He let her go like she’d burned him to ashes.
His muscles flexed under her palms where she’d grabbed his shoulders after losing her balance, and her breath caught.
He swallowed, working this inexplicable problem, and at the same time loving her response and hating it.
Interestingly, even when she was stable and standing on her own, she didn’t remove her hands.
“If I don’t, Blair, are you going to cuff me again? That could be fun.”
She was much too shrewd not to get what he was doing, using humor to defuse the situation and putting her on guard.
But Blair was a caliber above any of the women he’d managed by his words and actions.
Her response was too honest, only making it worse.
Fuck, he was in deep trouble here. “Don’t tempt me, Kelly.
I’m guessing it wouldn’t make you any more cooperative. ”
Damn her. She just kept dancing around his asshole behavior, which was frustrating and a definite turn on. He didn’t want her to know how much it wrecked him to feel her push back for his own good. A phase he fucking hated, but with her it took on a whole new meaning.
He reached out and grasped her wrist, removing her hand from his arm, that hot, sweet little palm from his burning, aching skin. “I don’t know, being at your mercy has me intrigued.”
“Exactly. That’s how you move an immovable, invincible American warrior.”
“Huh?”
“Give him a mission.”
He threw his head back and laughed as she walked into the room without a backward glance.
Boomer caught his eye, and he raised a brow with a go-get-her-tiger expression.
He didn’t budge an inch, but inside, everything in him went loose and hot. Geezus, she had no idea what she did to him. No idea he was one breath away from losing every inch of control.
He gave Boomer the finger, and that grounded him in a moment when he needed it. Boomer’s grin anchored him.
When Skull made kissy noises with puckered lips, he gave him both fingers. They laughed hard. He was in for a rough ride going forward with this razzing group of hard asses, as Hazard and GQ noticed, smirking. He gave out more fuck yous just for the hell of it.
When he cleared the threshold, he saw she had a med kit already on the beat-up table someone had righted, a basin, some black fabric, and a white terry towel.
“This really isn’t necessary.”
“Yes, it is. You have blood all over you—”
“It’s not my—”
“Some of it is.” She touched the back of the chair. “Sit.” There was that clipped authority in her tone, and did it make him an idiot that it turned him on even more?
She settled in a chair beside him, reached for the towel, and immersed it.
Gently, she started on his face, wiping at the blood, oh-so-gentle around his bruises.
He closed his eyes, trembling at the feel of her tenderness, aching for more.
She drew it down his neck, her other hand landing on his shoulder to brace the movements, and he could barely stand it.
In the last week, he’d experienced aggression, urgency, sexual attention, weaponized desire, and military efficiency.
He’d been physically battered, emotionally destabilized, raw from his family revelation, terrified of his own reflection.
This moment felt undeserved, too intimate, bypassing his every defense, stirring longing he couldn’t, wouldn’t acknowledge, and doing something he hated, making him vulnerable in ways violence never could.
He wasn’t used to softness. It rattled him more than the beating.
“What happened?” The words were all about gathering information, but her tone told him something else entirely. There was anger, empathy, and.…fuck him…care.
“They jumped me when I was sleeping.” His voice was a rasp. “Dragged me to the barn, hung me by a chain around my wrists, and worked me over.”
“Bastards,” she whispered, her voice seemed far away, like she was as lost as he was. When she reached his chest, dragging the rough terry over his nipples, his erection pulsed, throbbed. He caught his bottom lip in his teeth to keep himself grounded.
Violence he could handle, pain he knew how to survive, torture he could outlast, but this?
Landmines. Blair was the real threat, not the cartel.
Her touch reached him in a place no one had ever been able to access because of his walls, his barriers, his goddamned armor.
He was starving for this…her compassion, again hating his weakness.
This woman was disarming him from the inside out.