Chapter 21
The command center smells like stale coffee, gun oil, and exhaustion.
Blue lighting shifts across the dark room from multiple surveillance monitors, while radios crackle intermittently from the communications desk near the back wall.
Rain hammers steadily against the reinforced embassy windows outside, thunder rumbling in the distance as yet another storm rolls over the city.
Hawk stands near the central operations table, studying travel routes spread across a digital map, while Gunnar reviews perimeter rotations beside him.
Jagger lounges in one of the rolling chairs, his boots kicked onto a nearby cabinet, like this is all somehow deeply entertaining instead of a looming security nightmare. Which, it probably is for him.
The attempted breach of the property and the ambassador’s upcoming travel schedule have turned the last two days into absolute chaos. Chaos that has kept me from spending even a few minutes alone with Mackenzi.
Gunnar nods once. “Sniper positions?”
“Already coordinated with embassy support.”
Jagger spins lazily in his chair. “I still vote we fake the ambassador’s death and save ourselves the paperwork.”
“No one asked,” Hawk replies flatly.
“I’m just saying. Closed-casket funeral. Very dramatic.”
I barely hear half the conversation, because my brain keeps replaying the supply closet. Mackenzi spread wide on the countertop as I feasted on her sweet little pussy. Being mere seconds from having the privilege of sliding my cock inside her. My cock twitches at the thought.
“You’re doing the thing again,” Jagger says suddenly.
I look up sharply. “What thing?”
“The staring-into-space thing when you’re thinking about”—he air quotes with a smirk—“the job.”
“Shut up.”
Jagger grins slowly. “See? Definitely thinking inappropriately about what you'd like to do to the job.”
Hawk glances between us briefly before returning his attention to the map. “Focus.”
“I am focused,” I insist.
“Bullshit,” Gunnar mutters.
Fucking traitors.
Hawk straightens slightly. “The ambassador has asked about having Mackenzi travel with him again.”
“It’s a bad idea.” I shake my head. “He’s a walking target. It doesn’t make any sense to parade her around next to a bullseye.”
“As much as I want to make a joke, of which I have plenty, about him thinking with his little head,” Jagger snickers, “I have to admit, Damon’s right. I wouldn’t be towing my family along if I were receiving death threats.”
Hawk lets out a heavy sigh. “All right, then. Final assignments are locked. Jagger goes with me on the ambassador’s detail. Gunnar oversees perimeter command here.” He pauses, and his eyes shift toward me. “And Damon stays on Mackenzi.”
“Oh, he likes that assignment,” Jagger teases.
“Careful,” I warn.
“Seriously,” he continues, ignoring me completely. “You two at breakfast this morning?” He whistles low. “Subtle as a damn house fire.”
Heat crawls unpleasantly up the back of my neck. “We were eating fucking breakfast in a room full of people.”
“You were eye-fucking each other over pancakes.”
Gunnar coughs into his coffee to hide what’s very obviously a laugh.
“I’m not sleeping with her,” I state flatly, because technically it isn’t a lie. I’ve been as close as you can get, but I haven’t slept with her. Hell, I haven’t touched her since then.
Jagger raises one eyebrow slowly. “Interesting choice of wording.”
“Shut up, Jagger.”
“Oh, you are down bad.”
“I’m going to put your head through fucking drywall if you don’t shut the fuck up.”
“See?” He points at me triumphantly. “Down bad and emotionally unstable.”
Hawk finally looks up from the operations table, his expression hardened. “I need to know this won’t become an issue.”
The humor drains from the room instantly, and I meet his gaze. “An issue?”
“That whatever’s happening between you and Mackenzi won’t affect your ability to do your job.”
Heat flashes through me. It is not exactly anger; more like offense, because protecting her is the job. And nobody in this room understands what I already know deep in my bones. No one will protect that girl as hard as I will.
“Did you ask Jagger that?” I ask calmly.
Jagger straightens slightly. “Hey, leave me out of this.”
Hawk’s expression doesn’t shift. “Blake wasn’t the job.”
I lean back slowly in my chair, my eyes never leaving Hawk’s. “Or you with Reese?”
The room stills instantly, Gunnar looks away first, and Jagger suddenly finds the ceiling fascinating.
Hawk’s eyes narrow slightly, because we all know exactly what I’m talking about.
Another assignment. A job Hawk absolutely should not have fallen for.
Or re-fallen for. Except he did, and now she’s part of our family.
“She was safer with me than anyone,” Hawk replies quietly. “No one else would go to the lengths I would.”
I hold his gaze steadily. “Then there’s your answer.”
Silence settles over the command center as Hawk studies me for a long moment, like he’s trying to decide whether I’ve lost my mind completely. Maybe I have. Because the insane part of all this is that I barely know Mackenzi. Objectively speaking, this entire thing should be impossible.
How much can you really learn about someone in a few weeks, a handful of late-night conversations, shared looks across crowded rooms, and daily walks through the embassy gardens, where she slowly let her guard down around me?
And me around her. It shouldn’t be enough to matter this much, but somehow, it is.
“She is the ambassador’s daughter.”
“I’m aware of that.”
“And if this goes sideways?” His expression hardens slightly. “We all pay for it.”
The weight of that lands heavily, because he isn’t wrong.
Richard Bradenburg would destroy me if he knew that I had already crossed lines that absolutely should not have been crossed.
And if he tries to destroy me, there’s a good chance Aegis would become collateral damage.
Everything we’ve spent years building burned to nothing.
Even knowing what’s at stake, I can’t turn back.
Not with the way Mackenzi looks at me. She trusts me with her safety, vulnerability, and pieces of herself that she hasn’t been ready to hand to anyone else before.
Protecting her isn’t an assignment anymore.
It’s as instinctual as taking my next breath.
“So,” Jagger says casually, breaking the tension because serious conversations give him hives, “hypothetically speaking, when you eventually marry the ambassador’s daughter, will you become my boss?”
I throw a pen at his head. He ducks, roaring with laughter.
Gunnar rubs tiredly at his face. “You’re both fucking exhausting.”
“This conversation never happened.” Hawk exhales sharply before returning his attention to the operations table again.
“Agreed.” I sigh.
Jagger grins. “Oh, I’m definitely bringing it up again later.”
“Jagger.”
“What? I support love.”
Thunder shakes faintly through the embassy windows outside, while Hawk continues reviewing travel logistics, but my attention drifts again despite myself.
Right now, Mackenzi is probably curled up somewhere in one of those oversized sweaters she likes, overthinking herself into anxiety because of where we were forced to leave things a couple days ago.
The thought tightens my chest, because if she had any idea what she’s doing to me or the way I’d burn this entire city to the ground before I let anyone hurt her, she’d probably panic. And maybe she should. This thing between us has become dangerous, frighteningly fast.
It might have been lust, at first, but this isn’t a temporary attraction. This is far scarier; this feels permanent.
“You’re staring into space again,” Gunnar comments dryly.
I blink back into the room.
“Jesus Christ,” Jagger mutters. “He’s gone.”
“I’m sitting right here.”
“Physically,” Jagger says. “Emotionally? You’re upstairs.”
He’s right, and it’s where I should be physically, too. I push my chair back abruptly enough that the wheels scrape sharply across the floor.
Hawk glances up immediately. “Where are you going?”
“I’ve had enough of him.” I tip my head toward Jagger. “I need air.”
Jagger snorts loudly. “Inside the building?”
“Shut up.”
“I’m just saying, if the air upstairs suddenly has long brunette hair and big adoring eyes?—”
I point at him warningly without breaking stride. “Careful.”
He grins wider, with that maddening cocky smirk of his. “That’s not denial.”
I don’t bother answering, because if I stay in this room for another five minutes, pretending I can focus on logistics while Mackenzi is alone upstairs, likely replaying that storage room in her head, I’m liable to lose what little sanity I have left publicly.
The hallway outside the command center feels cooler. The storm has darkened most of the embassy windows, long shadows stretching across polished marble.
My boots echo softly as I move through the east wing.
Anticipation and need grow with every step I take.
I pass two Marines rotating posts near the upper hallway landing, both nod respectfully before continuing without question.
Nobody stops me. Nobody would. I’m supposed to be checking on her.
Every excuse I need to be alone with her already exists.
By the time I reach her door, my pulse is already beating harder than it should.
I stare at the dark wood for one long second before knocking.
The brief silence is followed by a few muffled footsteps and then the soft click of the lock.
The door barely opens three inches before Mackenzi peers out, and every coherent thought immediately leaves my body.
Fuck.
Her hair hangs loose around flushed cheeks, slightly messy like she’s been dragging nervous fingers through it. But it’s her eyes that destroy me. They’re wide and uncertain, looking at me like she can feel the same unbearable tension pulling between us.
“Hi,” she greets softly, with nervousness in it, like she wasn’t sure if I’d ever come.
“Trouble.” I brace one hand against the doorframe, and her throat moves slightly when she swallows, the air between us feeling heavy enough to choke on.
“Are you okay?” Her question catches me completely off guard. She’s the inexperienced one, and I should be asking her. The one I came to ask. But here she is, worried about me.
I exhale steadily through my nose. “No.”
Vulnerability flickers across her expression, and she opens the door wide without another word. The invitation snaps my restraint in half. I step inside quickly, shutting the door behind me before either of us can overthink this.
I close the distance between us in a single stride. Mackenzi gasps softly when my hands find her waist, backing her instinctively against the nearest wall as my mouth crashes into hers. It’s hot and desperate, too many hours of denied need detonating at once.
She melts against me with a shaky mewl that nearly drives me insane.
Fuck. I kiss her harder, one hand sliding into her hair as the other grips her hip firmly enough to pull her flush against me.
The oversized sweater she’s wearing bunches beneath my fingers as she grabs fistfuls of my shirt, needing something solid to hold onto.
Her lips part, and I swallow her warm breath as I deepen the kiss.
She arches instinctively closer like she’s been wanting this just as badly as I have.
I drag my lips from hers long enough to breathe.
“Trouble.” I sound wrecked, and she looks equally ruined, staring up at me with hazy eyes, pink cheeks, and swollen lips.
My hands slide slowly down her sides before settling at her waist again. “You should probably tell me to leave.”
“No.” She shakes her head without hesitation.
I laugh softly under my breath, equal parts disbelief and surrender. “You are unbelievably bad for my self-control.”
A shy smile tugs at her mouth. “You don’t seem very controlled, anyway.”
Cupping her jaw, I kiss the corner of her mouth gently before brushing another softer kiss against her cheek. Her lashes flutter when I pull back just enough to look at her.
“Stay,” she whispers. The lone word nearly caves my willpower in completely.
I rest my forehead on hers again while rain lashes harder against the embassy windows outside, her heartbeat fluttering, rapid and delicate, beneath my palms. My eyes close before I force myself to shake my head. “Not tonight,” I murmur roughly. “Not like this.”
Confusion flickers softly across her face, and I slide my thumb along her cheek slowly.
“You deserve better than rushing because we’re trying not to get caught.” My voice lowers further. “And when it happens… I want to know we’re alone. I want to be able to take my time with you. Worship you the way you deserve.”
The breath leaves her quietly, and crimson floods her cheeks, and somehow, it makes her even more beautiful.
“When I finally have you like that, trouble, I want all your attention on me, not whether someone’s about to knock on the damn door. You deserve a night neither of us has to cut short, because I want to make sure it’s unforgettable for all the right reasons.”