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He just… looks at me.

And then his gaze dips—barely, but unmistakably—to my mouth.

The air between us shifts. Warms and stretches.

And then, without a word, he slips his glasses back on and turns away. Back to business.

Like the moment didn’t just sucker punch my lady bits.

I exhale, slow and shaky, as the team finishes prepping.

Cool. No big deal. Just maybe don’t exist near him again.

Ever.

The SWAT vehicle breaches first.

Steel, gas, and purpose—six thousand pounds of armored attitude rolling right up the lawn like it owns the place, which, for the next ten minutes, it does. Behind it, half a dozen patrol units stack up in perfect formation, lights spinning like a warning no one has time to listen to.

Seconds.

That’s all it takes.

Battering ram hits the front door.

Screams. Scuffle. Shouting.

By the time the front team breaches, it’s already over. No resistance. No runners. Just a pack of scumbags too high or too stupid to realize this was their final sleepover.

They’re dragged out of the house one by one—some in shirts, some in boxers, one in a towel that I truly hope was not communal—hands zip-tied, faces shoved into dirt.

I watch from the rear of a police van, the back doors open, the left one pulled slightly in front of me like a makeshift shield. Gun in hand. Finger off the trigger.

Not because I expect trouble.

Becauseshe’shere.

Poppy Hartwell, looking like she belongs in a department-store ad for “adorkably overconfident prosecutors who won’t stay in the fucking car.” She’s technically where I told her to be—technically—but every time I glance back, I get the creeping suspicion she’s one spontaneous decision away from swan-diving into an active scene with nothing but a pair of latex gloves and sheer audacity.

This entire op has gone clean. Too clean. No shots fired. No injuries. Suspects detained. Evidence already being logged and bagged by half the department. It should feel like a win.

Instead, I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop. Because I don’t trust this.

“All clear!” someone calls from the front.

And right on cue, there shefuckinggoes.

Strides past the van like she wasn’t specifically told to stay put, gloves already pulled halfway up her wrists, ponytail bouncing like she’s arriving for a spin class and not the aftermath of a felony warrant.

Unbelievable.

I bite back the words I want to shout and watch her cut a clean line across the lawn, duck under the tape, and head straight for the house like she’s been doing this for years.

She doesn’t even look at me as she passes—just adjusts her hat and steps over a pile of evidence like it’s nothing.

She’s infuriating.

Completely reckless.