Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
He shoved his phone back into his pocket, not wanting to deal with his family right now.
All he could focus on was Harper and how much he’d wanted to kiss her again the moment he set eyes on her in the gym, which was exactly why he’d gone to great lengths to avoid her up until now.
Today had been a test. When he set out this morning, he hadn’t been sure if she’d be at the office. But he told himself if he ran into her there, it was for the best. He needed to know whether or not he could pull off normal and not press her up against a wall and stick his tongue inside her mouth.
He didn’t exactly pass with flying colors because his thoughts had immediately gone dark and dirty upon seeing her.
But, he did manage to control himself and not try to replicate a single one of those fantasies swimming in his head.
It only took him biting down hard on his back teeth and minimal eye contact to do it.
Her smell had been intoxicating, though. Every step she’d taken his way had carried her scent, punctuating the air and hitting him hard.
Being near her and not touching her felt borderline impossible, like he was fighting nature by not drawing nearer.
It was as if Harper stood amid a sea of waving red flags in Pamplona, and he was one of the bulls, pawing the ground and ready to charge straight toward her, only to be told to stand down.
Not that the color red mattered since bulls were colorblind to red, and it was merely the taunting of the flag that riled them up.
How the hell was he going to be able to operate with her now?
The attraction he’d had for her since joining the teams had been contained and managed until that kiss.
Locked up tight. Sure, he’d had moments of temptation before Christmas.
Plenty of moments. But he’d kept the consequences of such temptation front and center in his mind whenever he came close to slipping up.
The moment he’d set eyes on her at Luke and Eva’s, and Owen and Samantha’s double wedding, he’d been enchanted.
That night, the DJ had Harper and Wyatt dance together since she’d caught the bouquet and Wyatt scored the garter belt.
Their friends, Noah and Grace Dalton, had been at the wedding, too, and he’d overheard Grace commenting about some actress she thought Harper loosely resembled.
And then Grace made a joke that maybe Harper would end up with Wyatt.
Roman had about dropped his glass.
First off, fuck that. He had to be with her. Him. No one else.
And second, Grace must have been drunk because Harper was an original.
Her beauty was incomparable. But, if there were ever to be a made-for-TV movie about her life, he supposed the studio needed to find a cross between several actresses to play her part.
Maybe Michelle Borth and Taylor Cole. Roman should know because Luke’s wife was Hollywood royalty, and the guys on the teams had met their fair share of celebrities since he and Eva had gotten married.
Still, Harper was Harper. Irreplaceable in his eyes. Sophisticated. Funny. Gorgeous. Everything a man would ever want or need and multiply that by a hundred.
Roman let go of a deep, sobering breath, remembering the moment he saw Harper catch the bouquet at the wedding in 2019, and he’d made up his mind right then he’d win Harper over. He wouldn’t let their working together stop him, either.
And then his life got flipped upside down a few months later before he had a chance to make a move and declare his feelings. And Harper had officially become off-limits.
She deserved someone stable. Someone safe. A man who could give her a family. Put the star on top of the Christmas tree every year.
Seeing her almost every day, knowing it was beyond the bounds of possibility for them to be together, had been brutal. Even if there were a chance, a glimmer of hope they could be together someday, it’d most likely be too late.
Roman shoved his hands into his jeans pockets as the elevator continued its climb, still not sure why he was chasing after her. Other than to subject himself to round two of the torture of being alone with Harper and not touching her. He had no idea what he would do or say when he faced her.
They’d hung out all the time before that kiss, and he had to find his way back to being around her without craving her.
Harper had asked for drinks or dinner. If he had alcohol in him, he might kiss her again. And the last time they kissed, he was pretty sure he’d been sober. What would alcohol do to him?
He needed to operate again. That’s what he had to do. Focus on a mission or two. They’d settle back into the normal swing of things and become friends again. The kiss behind them.
When he reached the top floor where Bravo and Echo Teams worked, the doors chimed, and he set his thumb to a small control panel to be scanned. This produced a second screen to slide into view, where he moved closer for a retinal scan.
He had his black North Face fleece jacket draped over his arm, so he hung it up on a coat hook in the small open lobby area, then went in search of Harper.
Her office was empty, but her snow boots were sitting by her desk with a light trail of water around them.
Was she padding around the office barefoot? He didn’t want her getting a cold.
No, wait. That was his mother talking. You couldn’t really get sick from getting wet, could you?
He shook free his insane thoughts and went in search of her.
He found her inside a filing closet, which also housed a copy machine he was certain had never been used. Assemble an M4 with his eyes closed, no problem. Work the copier? He’d be clueless.
Harper’s back was to him, and well, at least she wasn’t barefoot.
Bright pink shoes to match her top. Keds? Chucks? Hell if he knew shoe brands.
He knew boots. The kind you wore in different terrains. The kind that kept your toes from freezing off. The type to prevent your feet from getting wet if, God forbid, you had to walk through water.
He thought back to BUD/S and how much he despised wet socks and boots.
He lowered his focus to his palms at the realization his thoughts were going astray, and he hated that.
Therapists had tried to diagnose him as a kid, often slapping conflicting labels on him that his parents rejected.
Throughout school, his teachers had never truly understood him or how he’d tested off-the-charts gifted but didn’t pay attention in class.
Classes had been . . . boring, for lack of a better word.
His mom and dad insisted Roman learned in his own way, and he was a good kid. He just needed to believe the task at hand, whatever it might be, was worth his time and energy. And he had to find a way to organize and collect his thoughts without becoming overly obsessive.
College had never been in the cards for him, though. It wasn’t a box he fit into. Thankfully, his parents encouraged him to follow his dreams, and his dream was to join the military. He believed the discipline would help him. And the cause of serving others instead of oneself was important to him.
At first, taking orders at BUD/S hadn’t been easy. Being pushed to his limits, treated like a nobody, a “boot,” which was slang for “recruit,” had nearly done him in during the first few weeks. But by Hell Week, he’d changed. Never once considered ringing the brass bell on the grinder.
And now, he was a drastically different person than when he enlisted. He’d also like to think he was a better man. Never a weak link on the team. He wore his trident, a rank-less badge, and actually deserved it. He couldn’t believe he was coming up on his twenty-year anniversary with the Navy.
“Harper.” Roman winced when his voice boomed through the small room.
She startled and fumbled the file in her hands, spilling the contents to the floor, then slowly pivoted to face him. They stared at each other for a brief moment before simultaneously crouching to the floor.
Harper quickly shuffled the papers back inside the file before he had a chance to offer an assist.
“What are you doing here?” she asked as they both stood.
He cocked his head and positioned his gaze on the folder clutched to her chest. “Why were you looking at that case?”
“You had like two seconds to see what fell out. How do you know what case I was looking at?” She scrunched her brow, then hurriedly stored the file back in its place.
“Ignore me,” she added with a shake of the head.
“I sometimes forget who you are.” Her tone was a touch more teasing, but it felt as though she made an effort to come across that way.
Technically, Harper hadn’t been with the teams at the time of the case she was just viewing.
She’d still been with the CIA, but the teams had needed help from someone at the Agency they could trust for an op in Monaco in 2018.
Harper had been stationed outside Nice, France, and Jessica had vouched for her.
Regrettably, the help Harper had provided nearly got her killed.
She’d been en route to meet up with Bravo Team but failed to show up at the scheduled time. Luke had sent Liam to search for Harper, and he’d found her left for dead alongside her vehicle.
The former Teamguy they’d trusted—Will Hobbs, their liaison for operations—had betrayed them all.
Will had ordered the hit on Harper in a desperate attempt to save his own ass to prevent anyone from finding out he was being blackmailed by a Turkish criminal for war crimes he’d committed while in the Navy. In Will’s mind, Harper had been a necessary casualty to protect himself.
Will was now sitting in one of the CIA’s black site prisons. Part of Roman wished Luke had done more than shoot Will in the arm before turning him in. Luke should have taken his life considering that he’d so easily tried to steal Harper’s.
“I was just passing time,” Harper answered a few seconds too late.
The CIA may have trained her to evade and easily lie for the sake of a legend—the term for a cover story—but she had a hard time keeping the truth from him.
Her eyes told him a different story. She wasn’t passing time, nor was she okay.
“What is it?” It was as if Roman had reached the summit of Mt. Everest and the air was so thin it was hard to breathe. It must have been the dust. The tight, box-like space.
“Nothing,” she quickly responded, taking a step back.
He frowned, not sure what to do. But she was unhappy, and he hated that he was most likely the reason for those downturned lips.
She attempted to sidestep him to exit the room, but Roman blocked her with his broad frame despite the alarm bells going off in his brain.
The kind of alarm bells that alerted him to check for tripwires in caves and before entering rooms inside houses in Taliban territory.
He always took heed of those warnings, but this time he ignored them.
This time he blasted the alarms to hell, and he stepped forward. “Tell me what’s bothering you,” he whispered.
Taking a deep breath, he inhaled the familiar scent of her perfume.
Viktor & Rolf. Flowerbomb Eau de Parfum.
One day last year, he’d asked what fragrance she wore.
They’d been hanging out one lazy afternoon playing Call of Duty at her place, and the question had popped out when he’d gotten a good whiff of her scent.
She said she bought it because the bottle was shaped like a grenade. That made him like her all that much more.
Like a crazy person, he bought a bottle at Macy’s and had it stored in his apartment, a rental he told himself was necessary for work, but that was bullshit. He’d never had an address in New York until Harper joined the team in 2019.
His New York home was nothing more than a studio—bedroom, living room, and kitchen all in one space. It beat being on a submarine, though. He wasn’t itching to go back on one of those ever again. The epitome of box-like spaces, second only to a prison cell.
And, of course, Harper had to wear a cute T-shirt about liking big trucks today. His Ford F-150 was back in Virginia, where his second rental was located, but he didn’t need a vehicle in Manhattan.
Shit, there went his focus. He had to maintain his control. Resist the urge to pull her into his arms and kiss her again. How many times in the last year had he imagined a moment during a meeting where he’d pin her to the table and fuc—
“Roman. Lost you.” She waved her hand in front of his face, and on instinct, he circled a hand around her petite wrist.
That boulder of a lump in his throat didn’t go down easily this time as he clutched her, feeling her pulse climb beneath his touch. “Please don’t do that,” he murmured darkly.
“Do what?” Her question softly followed an exhale.
Roman drew in a deep breath, one that was intended to clear his head and make him walk away from the edge of the cliff on which he was balancing. To keep him from diving off headfirst.
“Don’t . . .” Don’t look at me like that. Smell so good. Make me want you so much. Don’t be so off-limits for reasons I can’t tell you.
“Kiss me.” Harper’s voice sounded fragile, her words breakable. “Please,” she whispered as if she were actually in physical pain and in need of his kiss.
He kept hold of her. Unwilling to remind himself of the reasons he had to let go.
“Don’t make me beg.” That crack in her voice would be the death of him.
Roman released her wrist, set his hands to her hips, then lifted her and turned to set her on the copy machine. It was about to be used probably for the first damn time.
Guiding her arms over his shoulders, he knew full well he was making a mistake, but he couldn’t find it in him to care at the moment.
All intentions of maintaining his restraint flew out the windowless room.
She surprised him by sliding closer and hooking her ankles behind his back, positioning her center right against the bulge in his jeans.
Had he ever been so hard in his life? So desperate to fill a woman before? Not just any woman. The woman.
He slipped a hand around to her back and pulled her against him, smashing her breasts to his chest, then tipped her chin with his other palm and set a soft, open-mouthed kiss to her lips.
Their tongues met almost immediately in a frenzied dance.
She whimpered.
He growled.
And they made out in that closet like he wasn’t a threat to her safety. Like he wasn’t a danger to her.
And he both loved and regretted every minute of it.
Because when they finally found the strength to stop themselves, and he walked out of that room . . . he knew it couldn’t happen again.