Page 10 of Boomer (SEAL Team Tier 1, #7)

The city was quiet in that way only Lisbon could be after midnight, breathing slow, humming low, like it knew how to sleep with one eye open. Streetlamps cast long amber cones over the slick cobblestones, and the river beyond the docks whispered against its moorings, carrying secrets out to sea.

The tires hummed against ancient stones, the kind that remembered empires.

Lisbon’s waterfront shimmered to her left, white moonlight rippling across the Tagus, while egrets slept like white feathered silhouettes over the Alcantara docks, motionless at this hour, their shadows thrown long and thin across the ground.

Taylor turned off her headlights two blocks early. Habit. Not protocol.

The compound wasn’t listed on any civilian registry.

Not under MAOC-N, not under any NATO designation.

But the path to it was etched into her muscle memory, veer right past the shuttered fish market, cross the graffiti-tagged pedestrian bridge, then follow the narrow lane that ran like a scar along the base of the Alcantara viaduct.

A dead end for anyone who didn’t know better.

She braked softly in front of the gate. It blended into the stonework like it had been poured in with the foundation of the city itself. The keypad blinked once, scanning her badge, and the camera above it whirred to life with a faint click , its lens catching the shine of her eyes.

After three seconds, the reinforced gate sighed open.

Inside, the Alcantara Compound, or as everyone referred to it, the Lisbon House, was all function over form.

A long two-story structure stretched along the north edge, its facade a dull sand-washed gray, the kind of color that wouldn’t stand out on satellite.

Solar panels glinted faintly along the roof.

Satellite dishes rose like listening ears from a communications bank farther back.

The flags of eight nations hung limp on poles near the main entrance, catching only the faintest wind from the river.

To the left, she caught a glimpse of a gym, windows fogged from inside, music pulsing faintly through cracked ventilation. Beyond that, a squat rec center shared space with a kitchen, and tucked behind it, the pool, where off-duty testosterone often forgot the word “off.”

A breeze swept in through the open window, smelling of diesel, salt, and something older.

She could still hear her brother’s voice on that pier not far from here, asking her on a rare visit if she would always look out for his son.

Her heart contracted. Could still see Ansel’s small hands wrapped around her thumb the day she brought him here as a tribute to her brother.

The compound didn’t care about any of it. The compound wanted results.

Her thoughts hadn’t quieted since Boomer’s apology, and his magnetic, inescapable presence was still there, heavy, distracting. All heat and pull.

She hadn’t responded. Couldn’t. Now the silence between them felt charged with everything she hadn’t let herself feel, guilt, frustration…

not just anger, but something deeper. Something bruised and aching.

She had the unsettling suspicion that this man, with those big, gorgeous hands, could do something about it.

She parked in her assigned spot, still chewing on the space between too much and not enough. She grabbed her radio. “What is your ETA?”

“Ten minutes,” one of the drivers said. She was aware the laden vans had dropped behind her car.

Her badge was clipped somewhere, jacket, maybe her belt, she had lost track, her fingers fumbling in the low light.

The exhaustion hit like a second wave, and she bent slightly to check the floor of the car, brushing at her coat hem.

Before she could make sense of it, her door opened. She startled, just a fraction, then looked up. Boomer stood there, backlit by the floodlights, eyes steady on hers, one hand braced on the door frame, the other casually extended, offering.

Her pulse stuttered.

It wasn’t the gesture itself. It was the ease of it. That unthinking Southern grace. He wasn’t showing off. He wasn’t even trying. It was just…who he was. A man who handled explosives and cleared rooms with tactical precision and still knew how to open a car door for a woman with ingrained manners.

Her gaze flicked to his hands.

Big, beautiful, steady. The same hands that wired breaching charges. That dismantled IEDs. That had once held up a blanket peppered with holes so she had some privacy to dress on a plane full of tough operators.

Gott help her, he was blowing her up all right, straight out of the water.

This just wasn’t fair.

She stepped out, managing a tight nod, and started toward the doors. The badge finally appeared, clipped to her jacket pocket, and she swiped it without looking at him, praying the swipe would distract from the heat rising in her cheeks.

The door clicked open. She stepped forward and his hand touched the small of her back.

A warm press through the thin fabric of her blouse, instinctive, natural, unconscious.

But it hit like a match to dry kindling, grounding, gentle, as if guiding her forward was his default setting.

She inhaled sharply. Her knees nearly buckled. Her entire nervous system lit up like a wire had been stripped bare and suddenly live. He didn’t say a word. She didn’t either. But every cell in her body screamed the truth. She was in major trouble.

Then her body betrayed her. She caught the edge of the doorframe with the toe of her boot and stumbled like a rookie, pitching forward. It wasn’t much, just a quick misstep. But her balance slipped, and she tensed for the inevitable collision with the floor.

Boomer moved faster than she thought a man his size could, reflexive, instinctive. One arm snapped around her waist, the other braced her shoulder, and suddenly she wasn’t falling. She was held. Held against him.

Her chest slammed into his with a quiet, muffled thud. Muscle and heat and something solid enough to shake the breath out of her.

Just like that, she was surrounded. Her breath caught as she looked up and found her face inches from his. All she had to do was rise onto her toes. That was it. One small lift, and her mouth would be on his.

His eyes.

Dark forest green, burnished with gold, framed in lashes that didn’t belong on a man who broke things for a living. Everything inside her felt hot and disoriented. Her fingers had fisted in the fabric of his T-shirt without permission, and she was suddenly aware of everything.

His height. How her frame fit into his like something made for it.

The curve of his hand against her lower back.

The press of his palm, warm, wide, wanting.

The way her heart stuttered at the idea of that hand against her skin.

She inhaled, trying for logic, for oxygen, for anything .

But all she got was him. Heat and gravity and memory and want.

Her mind screamed for composure. Her body whispered don’t move .

“You okay?” he asked, voice low, too close, too careful.

That slow, rough Southern drawl that could read off a shipping manifest and still make her toes curl. How the hell was she supposed to function, focus, day in and day out, with that floating in the air like steam off asphalt?

“I’m…not sure,” she murmured, hating how soft the words came out.

She pulled back, breath catching, and only then did she hear the vans pull up outside the open door, approaching footsteps.

The rest of the teams.

Of course.

She stepped away fast, like it hadn’t happened, like she hadn’t just been cradled against a furnace of muscle and scent. Boomer stepped aside, too, like the gentleman he always was, gracious, unfazed, so respectful it infuriated her .

She turned, posture crisp, chin lifted as the two teams filed in.

“I am sending your room assignments via an app, and it’ll also be your keycard,” she said, forcing her voice to stay even, trying not to let it drop into that husky register that betrayed exactly how close she still was to unraveling. “Follow me.”

They moved into the interior compound. These rooms had to be efficient but well-appointed since diplomats stayed here as well as military types.

Clean, neutral-toned rooms. “Tomorrow, I’ll show you the armory, your cages for your gear, and give you a tour of the facility.

There will be two enlisted to a room.” She stopped at the first set of doors.

“Skull, you’ll be solo with Bones. We removed the second bed to make room for his crate. ”

Skull nodded, then opened the door and went inside.

“Preacher and Kodiak, here.” Then she moved on to the next room.

“Hazard and GQ.” Then the next door down.

“Boomer and Breakneck.” She didn’t look at him as she said it.

She didn’t have to . It was almost a relief when he and the blue-eyed boy wonder went inside.

“Master Chief Snow. You will also be solo as well as Anna.”

Anna smiled and, with a soft sigh, entered her room.

Then Taylor moved on to the Brits, assigning them their quarters with brisk neutrality, no room for chatter, same setup, except Captain Lockhart was solo.

Just as she was wrapping up, her phone buzzed.

She pulled it out, relieved for the distraction until she saw the name on the screen.

Her boss, Comandante Raul Esteves, Maritime Operations Coordinator, Portuguese Navy Liaison to MAOC (N).

She stepped back and answered. “Hoffman.”

“I forgot to mention,” he said casually, like he was asking her to pick up coffee. “You’ll be bunking at the base with the teams. It’ll streamline briefings and deployments. You’ll be fully embedded until further notice.”

Her breath left her in a rush. Of all the things she was prepared for…this was not it.

“Of course,” she said tightly. “I’ll head home, pack a bag, and return.”

“Good. Get the ball rolling. I want the threat to the coast neutralized.”