Chapter 13
WILD Headquarters, Conference Room, Outskirts of Kamloops, British Columbia.
Blair was losing her battle between common sense and that sharp, traitorous pull toward Breakneck. Her mind told her professionalism was survival. The armor she’d worn for years was the only thing that kept her from mistakes, heartache, and men who disappointed her.
But her blood and body were ganging up on her.
The man who had saved her entire detachment half an hour ago, who had moved through gunfire like the laws of physics bent for him, was now insisting on being part of the op.
Tuned up my torso and tazed my nads.
She winced at the memory. Anger flared, hot, clean, protective. They’d dared to torture him.
They’d dared to hurt a man like that, and hitting him below the belt? She wanted to put a bullet through Ryker herself.
Staying and icing himself was the smarter call. Overwatch meant lying on his bruised torso, stomach, and genitals, hell on earth. How was he even upright? How had he walked into her HQ like that? He had to have been running on pain, adrenaline, and whatever discipline they carved into this warrior.
The truth was, she didn’t know much about Tier 1 or Navy SEALs.
She didn’t know if this kind of brutality was just another Wednesday for them.
She licked her lips and inhaled hard, trying to steady the riot inside her.
She wanted to know it firsthand, hands on, body to body, eyes closed, letting herself feel everything she had spent years refusing.
She had never felt anything like this in her life. Hungry, nervous, jittery, her stomach full of butterflies that did not feel fragile at all. They felt urgent. Alive. Dangerous.
What terrified her most was not the wanting. It was the way he affected her. His intensity drew her into alignment instead of pushing her off-balance. He was chaos to the world, but somehow clarity to her, sharpening every instinct she had instead of clouding them.
She found herself dying to see this man in his element. It pulled at something inside her that had been dormant for years.
What would actually happen if she let go, if she gave herself over to this fierce, bewildering thing rising in her? What would happen if she trusted that clarity instead of running from it?
A hard knock broke her spiral.
“Yes?” she called.
The door opened, and a young woman in immaculate khakis stepped in with crisp confidence. “Master Chief Snow. Sergeant Brown. Petty Officer Ayla Locklear reporting to set up your Tactical Operations Center. Just point us in the right direction.”
Blair turned to Ice. “You guys don’t waste a moment, do you?”
Ice gave one of those rare, razor-thin smiles. “No ma’am. They landed when we did. Waiting for the all clear. I contacted them while you were getting the brief together. Where do you want our joint center?”
Darrow scraped his chair back. “You can’t—”
She cut him a look sharp enough to draw blood. “Watch me.”
Ayla shifted her attention. Her gaze flicked to Breakneck, fast and assessing, the sharp, clinical sweep of someone trained to read damage and endurance at a glance.
Blair saw the moment understanding settled behind her eyes.
Ayla knew exactly what torture looked like, and for a breath she didn’t look like a technician at all.
She looked like a woman caught between alarm and recognition.
Blair nodded toward her. “Follow me. I’ll show you where you can set up.” She glanced at Darrow. “Don’t you have something to supervise?”
He muttered a curse and stomped out.
Satisfaction slid through her, dark, fierce, overdue. She’d never taken as much pleasure in anything as she did in reclaiming control of her own division and watching Darrow finally shut up.
She crossed toward the door and had to slide past Breakneck. He didn’t move, and her body brushed the hard heat of his. He reacted like her touch scorched him, muscles tightening, breath catching, and the shock of it hit her low and fast.
His voice slipped across her skin in a low, ruined whisper, rough from pain and whatever he had survived in that barn, a sound that carried heat and hunger and something she felt far too deep in her body.
His eyes dropped to her mouth, then lifted to hers, storm gray and unguarded, a quiet, deliberate possession in the way he looked at her.
“You have a way of making people move,” he whispered. “But with me…I just want to get in your way.”
Those eyes stole her breath. Controlled. Focused. Steady as a sniper’s sight line. Eyes that made her feel seen rather than cornered.
Damn it. That kind of information only made heat rush through her like a wildfire.
She should have stepped back. She should have created space. Instead, she froze, breath caught high in her chest, because his nearness didn’t throw her off balance. It focused her, sharpened her, pulled her into a strange and alarming clarity.
Most men crowded her. He centered her. His intensity didn’t unnerve her. It grounded her in a way she had no defenses against, a way that felt too intimate for a man she had known less than a day.
It frightened her how much she wanted to lean into it. Into him. Into that steady, quiet gravity that felt nothing like chaos, even though he was built from it.
They stepped out into the corridor and rounded the corner. She grabbed her jacket on the way out, crossing the area toward the rec center, noting the trucks, equipment, and personnel. The Americans never did anything small, and damn if they weren’t fast and efficient, like a well-oiled machine.
Fifteen crazy minutes later, they were up and running.
The newest wing of the WILD Rec Center still smelled faintly of fresh paint and new electronics, the sharp, sterile scent of a space built for wiring and infrastructure, not horses and trail dust. The annex had only been finished two weeks ago, intended for future training overflow or emergency wildfire coordination.
Today, it was a full-blown TOC.
Rows of tables and outfitted consoles filled the vaulted room, screens blinking to life with satellite overlays, drone telemetry, and encrypted comm feeds. A massive digital map glowed across the far wall. Ayla’s station sat dead center, ringed with monitors like the cockpit of a starship.
Off to the right, a small break room had already been adopted by SEALs with Kodiak brewing coffee strong enough to dissolve metal, Boomer dismantling a granola bar wrapper like it owed him money, and Skull sneaking his K9 contraband bacon from his stash.
It wasn’t WILD. It wasn’t Tier 1’s home turf either. It was something new, neutral ground wired for war. It was hers to jointly command.
Gear arrived in stacked duffels and hard cases, the space shifting instantly from clean lines to controlled chaos.
Ayla handled it with startling efficiency, distributing each pack and weapon without hesitation, calling men by name as if she had memorized the entire roster in the time it took to power up the screens.
Breakneck’s kit lay among the rest, heavy with weapons and plates, familiar to him in a way that sent a flicker of something through her.
Breakneck had retreated behind a makeshift changing alcove, nothing more than a curtained-off corner beside the equipment racks, yet Blair could feel him through the fabric.
His quiet movements, the rustle of gear, the uneven catch of his breath when a bruise pulled wrong.
He had refused medical downtime. He had refused to hesitate.
He had walked in here with the same focus she had seen when he stepped into gunfire for her, a kind of stripped-down purpose that slid under her skin and settled there.
He pushed the curtain aside a moment later.
His shirt was already on, dark and clinging to muscle and heat, the fabric stretched across swollen ribs and mottled bruises.
The vest waited on the bench beside him, heavy with ceramic plates and tactical pockets.
Breakneck’s face was pale beneath the bruising, but his eyes were sharp.
He reached for the vest. His hand shook once, just a tremor, almost invisible.
She stepped forward before he could hide it.
“Are you sure about this?” Her voice came out quieter than she intended, rough with something she didn’t want to name.
“There’s no way I’m standing down while I’m breathing.” His gaze locked on hers. “Now, with you and your people in the mix, I’m going. This is what I do. Overwatch, protection, stone-cold precision.”
He tried to swing the vest up, but his ribs tightened, and the motion stalled. Pride kept him silent. She moved in close, fingers brushing his as she took the vest from his hands. He released it without protest, which somehow struck her harder than if he had fought her for it.
She lifted the vest and positioned it over his head, pressed it against his chest. The proximity hit her low in the belly. His breath warmed her cheek. His scent, clean sweat, worn cotton, heat, and the faint metallic trace of blood scrubbed but not forgotten, sent a shiver racing down her spine.
Her fingers worked the Velcro panels with steady precision, tightening, threading, locking the buckles.
He stood motionless beneath her touch, muscles taut, breath measured like he was forcing stillness into his body one controlled inch at a time.
His jaw flexed every time she cinched a strap over a bruise. He didn’t make a sound.
She stepped behind him to pull the side strap through. His back was a sculpted wall of muscle under the thin shirt, skin hot with exertion. A bruising slash of violence marked his neckline, and anger streaked through her again, fierce and sharp.
“You should be icing these, not gearing up to take fire,” she murmured.
“Ice can wait. This can’t.”