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While she did, Jonas stood on the edge of the patio with the room at his back, looking over the lights of Santa Barbara far below. He shot off a text to command center in Alaska, looping in the rest of their local team.

Our suite suddenly has eyes on it, he texted.Two rooms so far. Can someone hack that feed?

There was a pause, and then Oz texted back.On it.

Behind him, Jonas heard Bethan come back outside. He had to admire the way she tripped a little bit over her own two feet as if she were tipsy, when he knew she was no such thing. But he braced himself when she came closer, tipping herself against his back and sneaking her arms around his waist.

And he absolutely did not reflect, for even one second, on how good and right it felt to have her there, where she also fit entirely too well.

He held his phone where she could see the screen and kept typing.

Tell me where the feed originates, but don’t cut it yet, he wrote.I want to know what angles they have on this suite.

He let Bethan do her thing, telling himself it was like a trial by fire and he’d passed every one of those yet. With flying colors, thank you. She rocked a little bit with her arms around him, as if she were making him dance with her. As if she were coaxing heralways busy, always on the phonelover to set it aside for a second to pay attention to her. Jonas could envision the scene she was setting all clearly in his head.

Butfeelingit was something else.

And he wanted to rage. He wanted to shove her away from him. Every second she touched him it was worse, and he’d known that for years now, hadn’t he? He’d woken up in Germany wishing he hadn’t. The body he relied on was a mess, and the heart he’d given up on when he was still a kidwas a disaster in his chest, and while he needed the former to do the only thing he was any good at, he wanted no part of the latter. Ever.

He’d thought,No.None of that.

He’d ordered her sent away, having no idea that she would take what had happened to him—withhim—as some kind of calling. He’d forbidden himself to look her up in the intervening years. He’d never so much as asked after her.

No one was more surprised than Jonas when Isaac had flashed her face up on the screen in the lodge for the usual Alaska Force new-member vote.

He’d thought that was as bad as it could get.

He should have known better.

Because he was waiting for Oz to hack into the video feed, aware that the very existence of those cameras indicated that there was a distinct threat. More, it showed that all this pretending at a family wedding had been the right thing to do, no matter how odd and disconnected it had felt these past few days. He was keenly aware of those things, the way he should have been.

But all he could really think about was the soft weight of her breasts against his back. The scent of her that already haunted him, that he couldn’t imagine getting any worse until she made his head spin. But then there was the heat of her. The shape of the impression she made against his back, like he was changing his form to fit hers.

She made him feel like he was drunk, a state he had never experienced and never would. Still, he’d watched enough drunk people to get the idea. He felt the way they’d always looked. As if his head were fuzzy. As if his legs didn’t quite work beneath him.

As if she were leaving her mark on him, so hot and right that it would be visible from space.

The screen of his mobile lit up, and Jonas felt like breaking out into a chorus of hallelujahs.

He did not.

Two feeds, Oz texted.One takes in your living room. The other is focused on the bedroom.

What’s the sight line out the sliding doors in the bedroom?Jonas texted back.

Zero, was the reply.It’s all bed and bathroom and what looks like a walk-in closet.

Jonas could feel Bethan’s body tighten at that, as if she were processing how best they could use it. But another text came in then.

Key point, Oz texted.It’s a local feed. I traced it to the house you’re in.

Jonas’s body shifted, the way it always did, into combat readiness. He felt Bethan do the same. And if he was pathetically grateful that he wasn’t ruined forever byfeelings, he kept that to himself.

En route to perimeter, Rory texted.Backup will be on hand in approximately twenty minutes if needed.

Roger that, Jonas texted back.

He shoved his phone into his pocket and waited for Bethan to let go of him. But she didn’t.