Page 13 of Boomer (SEAL Team Tier 1, #7)

Breakneck entered the showers. Boomer was under the spray, shaking.

He grit his teeth, realizing that their breacher was being breached…

by Taylor, and he was hurting. Something he couldn’t name gripped his gut and heart.

Anger, not something he allowed himself.

He was too volatile to entertain that kind of fury.

He had half a mind to go give that woman a piece of his mind.

What the fuck had just happened? Why was he in Taylor’s room?

Why had she looked at him like that? Now was not the time to drill him.

Oh, fuck him. That was it. She was the reason he was off. Out of sorts. Drinking and carousing and getting into fights.

Skull sauntered into the area, and when he saw Boomer, he walked toward him. Breakneck immediately put his body between Boomer and Skull. Skull’s eyes flashed and narrowed. Breakneck shook his head, slashing his hand across his throat. The guys piled up behind him.

“What’s up?” Hazard asked, his voice low, glancing at Boomer, his blue eyes seeing exactly what Breakneck had seen.

Breakneck walked to the end of the showers where the sinks were. He told them what he’d seen in the hall. Boomer’s face. Taylor’s expression was…devastated.

Suddenly, Iceman’s voice intruded. “No one says a word to him.”

“But—”

Iceman pinned Skull with those pale, chilling eyes. “Just recently, you were driving yourself crazy over a certain Hummingbird.”

Skull made a soft sound and looked away. “She just about killed me. Damn…boss. Boomie?—”

“He has to weather this storm. We’ve all been there.” He looked around the group.

Breakneck swallowed hard. “I haven’t,” he said. “This is hard to watch.” Hard to watch? Fuck, it terrified him. Boomer was older, stronger, more experienced. If he could come apart over what Breakneck was realizing was strong emotion for Taylor. What the fuck would it do to me?

“You’re the exception, but you’re also in a unique position to help, Break.”

“That kid? What can he do that we can't? We can sympathize. He’s wet behind the ears.”

They teased him like he didn’t know the first thing about sex, like he’d never kissed a woman without saying ma’am . But back in high school? He was the reason for three hallway fights, a minor cafeteria riot, and a dress code revision that banned tight jeans for "causing disruptions."

He’d been quiet, polite, and built like a young god by junior year, every teacher’s headache, every guidance counselor’s mystery, and the unintentional center of a very hormonal storm.

The truth was, he hadn’t needed to say much. He never had.

“I’m tired of that. You never even ask me about my past or even see what happens when I’m off-duty. When I was seventeen, there was a full-on fistfight in the cafeteria because two girls saw me in Wranglers.”

Skull narrowed his eyes.

“Principal banned me from wearing tight jeans again. Said it was a distraction.”

“Bullshit. I’m gonna need video evidence.”

“Look it up, Skull. It made news. My mother was horrified. She took me out and bought me baggy pants.”

Hazard laughed softly. “Damn, kid.”

“Mrs. Dalton from senior year English. She was the one that wrote the complaint.” He leaned back against the sink. “After I graduated, she pulled me behind the curtain, propositioned me, and asked me to show up at her house in nothing but those jeans. She was twenty-eight.”

“Fuck. Did you go?”

“Fuck yeah, I went. Fucked her brains out all night long. She still sends me blueberry muffins on deployment.”

“That’s who's sending the treats? I always wondered.”

“I could go out right now to a bar. I’d have several women to choose from before I even got to the fucking bar. I’m a babe magnet, but after a while, sex is empty without something else to hang it on. Now I’m choosier.”

“This man is a menace,” GQ said.

“So shut the fuck up about me and how I don’t know jack about my dick, because I do. Apparently, what it’s connected to is irresistible to the opposite sex. I probably could teach you some moves that would drive Walker crazy. It’s a gift, and I’ve never squandered it.”

Skull just looked at him. “Can I get notes later on?”

“Get in line,” GQ said.

Iceman cleared his throat, and all attention focused back on him. “Sorry, boss, but?—”

He held up his hands. “I never miss a thing, kid. I’ve seen it with my own eyes.

These guys just didn’t notice because they underestimated you.

I don’t underestimate my operators. I had several Master Chiefs come to me, offering plenty for my first pick of Green Team that year.

I laughed in their faces. You were it for a reason.

Your sniper skills alone, and the fact that you really are too young for a Tier 1 operator.

It says a lot that after they interviewed you, they gave you a shot. I have never regretted my decision.”

Breakneck’s throat tightened. Outwardly, he remained unfazed, but inside he was swirling with so much emotion.

He’d never had the luxury of a reputable father to guide him.

His stepfather, Derrick, didn’t count. He was pathetic, had problems with holding down a job, and he liked to blame his mom for everything that was bad in his life.

His mother tried to be both, but if he was being honest, he hadn’t quite trusted her. She never told him the truth. It was maddening. But Ice? He valued him. That was a shot to the solar plexus, and he wasn’t quite sure what to do with it.

“Help him, Kelly. He needs us, and he needs you all,” Iceman said. “Don’t go overboard and stop teasing him. But that can commence tomorrow. He’ll be suspicious if that abruptly ends. But just keep in mind what you all went through before you break him down.”

There was remorse on their faces and Breakneck looked down the long row of showers. The water was still running.

Taylor shut the door to her quarters with more force than necessary. The sound echoed in the private space like judgment. She circled her room. She was shaking. That man was a storm of muscle, and he had just broken open…for her.

From the heat that had flickered in his eyes when he walked away, like he’d let her go… for now.

Goddammit, Carter.

She turned on the tap, splashed water over her face. Her pulse still pounded. She’d faced down cartel leaders, corrupt bureaucrats, a sniper once in Berlin, and yet it was this, this man , who made her feel like she had no idea how to protect herself.

Now she had to work with him. Daily. Closely. For months.

She stared at her reflection, water dripping from her chin.

What the hell was she going to do? He wasn’t trying to make her feel petty.

That was clear from the twist of agony on his face.

He was stating how he felt, and now she had to process all of that.

She braced her hands on the sink, breathing hard.

She wasn’t winded from the run anymore. She was winded from him.

From his voice. From the way he’d said, So, I get this cold shoulder crap. Then, the part that kicked her in the heart. That’s hurting me, Taylor. She closed her eyes. Everything rebelled in her all at once. He was right. If he hadn’t been deployed. If he had shown up…

She clenched her jaw, trying to will away the memory of his voice, the heat of his gaze, the feel of his palm against her back.

Gott.

If he’d made it to Lisbon, she wouldn’t have taken him sightseeing. No, she would’ve been all over him. Climbing him like a K ettergerüst …what do Americans call it? A jungle gym? Yes, within an hour of him landing it would have been all over.

Sightseeing? Fuck that.

There was way too much to see, touch, hear, smell, and taste right there, with him , to waste time on monuments and cobblestones.

She wouldn’t have been thinking about tiled rooftops or historic cafés.

She’d have been thinking about his hands, his mouth, the sound of her name in that voice when he came.

She had to squeeze her thighs together again.

From what she could see in that tent in his terry, he would be more than a mouthful.

She clenched her jaw. Damn, she wanted to taste him

Do. Not. Go. There. You. Idiot .

She hated that she knew it.

Just her, wrapped around him, discovering the geography of skin and heat and want, and Gott , she would’ve loved it. Every glorious second of it.

She hated that she wanted it. There was no denying it now.

She hadn’t just wanted him.

She’d been ready to burn for him.

But sex with him wouldn’t be just physical.

No. What he’d said to her about her being too young, too smart, too damn good…

for him? That made her heart ache to understand where he was coming from.

Did he think he wasn’t what? Worthy? That took a wrecking ball to her heart.

There was so much there, so much she didn’t know, so much she hungered to know.

The only thing holding her back was her professionalism. Right , a little voice said. That’s bullshit. You can try to rationalize it, but it’s nothing but fear.

Taylor had been taught in school, hammered about Germany’s postwar ethos: dignity through restraint.

Power through order. She was raised on precision.

On accountability. On systems that promised justice if you were smart enough to work within them.

She learned how to code-switch, formal when necessary, disarmingly direct when advantageous.

Emotion? Privately managed. Publicly weaponized only when absolutely necessary.

She was rooted in a quiet exactness. Not to shout about it, but to execute with elegance and efficiency.