Chapter 27
RCMP WILD Headquarters, Blair’s Ballet Room, Outskirts of Kamloops, British Columbia
He’d tested her.
He hadn’t even realized how much until now.
During the raid, she’d had his six without hesitation. When that biker used his bruised body against him, she’d thrown herself into the fray without hesitation.
Afterward, she didn’t use it as leverage. Didn’t demand gratitude. She just kept showing up. Calm. Clear-eyed. Real.
Every tactic that had made other women back off, sarcasm, silence, heat, Blair neutralized with that sassy mouth and that agile, dangerous mind. She didn’t chase him. Didn’t fold. She matched him and refused to play the game.
The truth hit hard.
This restraint he’d wrapped around himself like armor wasn’t about protecting her.
It was about protecting himself.
He wasn’t afraid of the mission. He wasn’t afraid of pain.
He was afraid of staying.
Of giving Blair access to the parts of himself he’d locked down so tightly he barely remembered what they looked like.
The temptation of finding a soft place to land with her was enough to unsteady him. He braced a hand against the wall and forced himself to breathe.
If he wanted her, and he did, he couldn’t hide behind control and tactical silence.
But the problem ran deeper than fear.
His mother’s admission about his real father had detonated something he hadn’t even begun to sort through. He’d buried it, ground his teeth around it, kept moving.
He couldn’t talk about that yet.
But after the way she’d seen him, after the way she’d said it anyway, he couldn’t leave her in silence.
He had to give her something.
Even if it wasn’t everything.
Unable to help himself, he leaned in, brushing his lips across her cheek. Just a breath. Just enough to taste the salt of her skin and the softness she rarely showed.
She leaned into his mouth. Christ, she leaned in.
She was eager for it. For him. For the kiss he craved to give her.
But he couldn’t risk more. Not now when he was so on edge. This woman deserved his care. With how much he wanted her, he wasn’t going to risk what could happen.
Not when everything inside him was still shattered glass and hollow space.
She deserved the truth. She deserved access. It wasn’t that he was afraid of sharing it. He just didn’t want to rush something that had the power to level him.
He admitted that she had that capacity, and he was helpless to deny her.
He pulled back.
To his quiet, wrecked relief… she let him with grace. He didn’t know what to do with that, either.
“Something’s happening between us, Blair,” he said, voice rough. “But I don’t know how to handle it.”
His chest ached. His hands itched to reach for her again. To pull her close and tell her every broken piece of truth he was still trying to make sense of.
But instead, he asked the one thing that could buy them both a little air.
“Why don’t you tell me what you’re doing here?”
Her eyes lingered on his mouth. God, lingered. Then she sighed and tore her gaze away.
“I’m dancing,” she murmured. “It’s my workout.”
“You call that a workout?”
His voice went wry, giving her a skeptical look. Prodding. The edge softened by the war still raging inside him.
The real problem wasn’t her. It never had been.
It was him.
She crossed her arms, still flushed from the workout, eyes hard as cut glass.
Her chin lifted. “You think ballet is easy?”
He arched a brow, the corner of his mouth twitching. She already knew that look. The one that said he was amused and skeptical and probably thinking something inappropriate.
He shrugged, cocking his hip, loving that snapping defiance in her eyes.
“Looks like it’s suitable for a princess.
But let’s be real. I’ve been through the most brutal training on the planet.
A few pliés aren’t going to kill me.” He had to get some respite here before he found himself doing something he would regret.
Not being with her but taking this…thing with her to a level he wasn’t comfortable with.
He sighed. Who the fuck was he kidding? He was so damn comfortable with her, in such a heightened way, it would be easy to fall into her.
But then where would he be? He didn’t understand himself or his feelings.
He was a novice when it came to dealing with his emotions, and he’d never been in a healthy relationship with a woman in his life. Not even his mom.
She crooked her finger. “Come over here.”
He stepped in close, giving her a slow and wary look, like she might throw a punch or a proposition, but he moved anyway. That was the thing about Blair. He moved for her. No fight in it.
“Boots off. Socks too,” she said, already moving toward the speaker in the corner. She bent down, fiddling with the Bluetooth connection and scrolling through tracks on her phone.
He stripped the boots, peeled off the socks. The laces stuck. He gritted through it. His body was still wrecked from the gym, and his muscles hated him. But he complied, peeling off damp socks and flexing his bare feet against the cool floor.
“Less clothes, the better,” she added over her shoulder, tone breezy, like it meant nothing.
But he caught the flick of her gaze as she said it.
Challenge accepted since he preferred to be unencumbered. He gripped the hem of his shirt and dragged it over his head, the sweat making the fabric stick. Next came the sweatpants. He kicked them aside without fanfare, leaving only his black compression shorts, slick, tight, second skin.
Cool air hit his damp skin, but he barely felt it. He felt her. When she turned around, she stopped short. Just stood there. Staring.
Her eyes swept down and up, slow, deliberate, reverent, and when she finally met his gaze, something in her had changed. Her pupils were blown wide. Her lips parted, shoulders, once braced with command, now loosened with something else entirely.
Want. Admiration. Maybe awe. She swallowed hard. “I have a confession,” she said, her voice soft but unsteady.
He grinned, rolling his neck, loosening his arms like he was about to start another set. “Yes?” he drawled. “Talk to me, babe.”
She let out a breath. Not shaky. Wrecked.
“When I saw those photos of you, I went to my staff and took them to task for using RCMP access, and that was legitimate, but an excuse.” She stepped toward him, and he stilled at the feel of her in his personal space, aching in ways that he never thought possible.
She took a soft breath. “Your body is beautiful, Kelly. You have the face of a fallen angel. I’m not telling you anything you’re not aware of, not because there’s any ego involved, but because you’ve dealt with this your whole life.
You have nothing but a healthy response to your looks, no conceit, just an amused quality that I find so very charming.
Any woman would be flustered by you, would enjoy looking.
You’re not just some Pinterest AI rendition.
You’re real, sweet, caring, funny, and so competent in what you do.
At the risk of being hypocritical, I looked,” she said. “Oh God…did I look.”
He chuckled, a low, warm sound from deep in his chest, stepping closer, slow and easy. “No one has ever said that to me in such a concise, matter-of-fact way. You’re like no one I’ve ever met.”
She smirked. “That’s because all of them are trying to get you in the sack.”
He leaned down, feeling as light as air. “Look all you want,” he said, locking eyes with her. “I love your eyes on me.”
“You’re a very dangerous fallen angel,” she said. “But can you dance?”
A dry chuckle slipped out of him.
“You gonna teach me to pirouette, Princess?”
“Point your toe.”
All command, like she was running a range drill.
He tried.
Whatever his toe was doing, it wasn’t what she wanted.
She didn’t laugh, but he caught the flicker in her eyes. That suppressed smile that said he was adorable but trainable.
She walked him through it, pliés, tendus, relevés. Foreign words that sounded like code names, but apparently meant bend, stretch, rise. At first, it felt absurd. He was a sniper. A SEAL. His body was made for combat and speed and precision under fire. This felt like a joke.
Until it wasn’t.
It demanded control. Isolation. Fire through the legs, balance in the core, breath in the right places. It took everything he had not to fall out of form. And she? She didn’t cut him any slack. She corrected him with clipped instructions, her tone sharp, her gaze sharper.
He fucking loved it.
She wasn’t soft here. Wasn’t kind. This was her domain. She owned it, and every movement radiated that quiet, devastating power. She was the calm inside the fight. The sniper’s equivalent in pointe shoes.
Twenty minutes in, he was drenched.
She took her time with her looks. He didn’t miss the way her eyes dropped, just for a second, before she snapped back to task.
The floor beneath him felt slick. His thighs burned. His breath came shallow.
He felt like he’d run five miles in a kit.
“Geezus,” he muttered, wiping the sweat off his forehead. “You do this every day?”
She didn’t answer right away. Just watched him like she was measuring something. Like she’d been waiting for him to see it.
“Every day.” A pause. Calculated. “Still think it’s easy, angel?”
He dropped onto the bench, spreading his arms across the top, letting his chest rise and fall.
He let himself look at her. Really look.
Her shoulders gleamed with sweat, her pulse fluttered in her throat, and her legs, those impossibly strong, lethal legs, held steady like she hadn’t even broken a sweat.
“Nah.” His voice was rough, but the smile came easy. “I think it’s dangerous.” His gaze slid down, slow and deliberate. “Now I know why your legs could kill a man.”
He expected her to roll her eyes. Maybe toss back a quip. But she didn’t. She just stood there, composed, sweat-slicked, goddamned radiant. He sat there, breathless, not from exertion, but from the weight of what he was starting to feel.