Page 15 of Boomer (SEAL Team Tier 1, #7)

Hours later, after she’d gone over to headquarters, consulted with her boss, and looked at all the intel, she returned to the Lisbon House, unsettled and eager to see Boomer.

She bit her lip, marveling at the way she felt about him in the short span of time he’d been here, the anticipation making her shiver.

She entered the secured gear room. The steel-mesh cages clanged softly under her fingers as Taylor snapped her vest into place. The overhead fluorescents buzzed faintly, the air thick with sweat and the sharp tang of CLP, the gun oil they all used to clean their weapons.

This space was utilitarian. Cold. But her pulse was anything but steady.

The SEALs were filtering out one by one, heading to final comms check. She was alone now, tucked into the corner at the edge of her assigned cage, labeled with her name on laminated tape, already nicked from years of use.

The last to pass through was Boomer.

He moved like he always did, efficient, quiet, commanding more presence than noise ever could. She caught sight of his hands adjusting his gloves, the flex of muscle in his forearms, the precision of movement that had nothing to prove.

He didn’t stop. Not right away.

Then he glanced back.

Stopped two cages down from hers. Their eyes locked across open steel. There was nothing romantic in the moment. No lingering gaze, no half-smiles.

Just...stillness.

That alpha-male presence radiated from him like heat, confident, aware of his role, grounded.

She hadn’t thought a man like that could give space.

But Boomer had. Quietly. Generously. Like he knew what it meant for someone like her to breathe on her own first.

That restraint was undoing her in slow, exquisite pieces. Her throat worked around the words she still hadn’t said. “Boomer.”

He turned fully to face her. Helmet under his arm. Quiet eyes watching. Waiting.

Still not pressing.

Just there.

“After this,” she said, voice low. “We talk.”

His brow dipped just slightly. But then he nodded. Once. Solid. The kind of nod a man gave when he meant to be there , no matter what.

“After,” he said, just as low. Then he turned to go.

But after two steps, he stopped, and the stillness in the room grew heavier. His voice came again, quieter. Richer. Deeper. “Thank you…for hearing me. For treating me with respect in there.” Something shifted in her chest, slow, reluctant, real.“For seeing me.”

She didn’t breathe, and all she wanted now was to feel what it meant to let down just a little of her guard. To trust him with what she had to say. Even if it scared her—especially because it scared her.

He didn’t look back as he disappeared through the door, boots silent against the concrete. She stood there a moment longer, her hands fisted at her sides, her heart hammering.

Gott .

He hadn’t demanded anything, again, and that broke her open like nothing ever had.

Interdiction of the Haukland , sixteen nautical miles southwest of the Setúbal coast, 2140 Hours

The ocean rolled black beneath the RHIB, the deck of the derelict fishing trawler rising in and out of shadow like something half-swallowed by the dark. Salt air burned in her nostrils, sharp with rot and oil. The wind bit against her exposed skin, but her breath stayed steady behind her mask.

Taylor shifted her grip on the side rail of the boat as they circled the vessel, qualifying as a ghost ship. No AIS, no comms. But according to thermals, occupied.

The RHIB idled along the side of the trawler. Iceman gave the silent nod. Boomer rose first, scaled the rope ladder without a sound, and vanished over the rail.

She followed him seconds later, her heartbeat thrumming like percussion against her ribs. The deck groaned beneath her boots. Dim emergency lights cast a sickly red wash across rusted metal and netting. The smell was worse up close, chemical, fish, sweat.

Boomer raised a fist. Froze. Listened. Then he moved.

Smooth. Fast. Like water over stone. She followed, staying tight, rifle up, eyes cutting through the dark.

They moved along the outer passageway toward the interior hold.

The intel suggested makeshift labs or cache zones.

Possibly armed smugglers. Possibly worse.

She was fine. She was . She’d cleared buildings in Berlin, breached doors with GSG 9, dealt with men who’d kill her for breathing. But this wasn’t a building, and Boomer was in front of her.

He held up again, tapped twice on the air tank behind him. Mask on. She slid hers down. Felt the soft seal lock against her skin. The rebreather kicked on with a faint hiss.

They approached the hold. Boomer dropped to one knee, examining the latch.

His gloved hands moved quick, evaluating, adjusting, reading the door like Braille.

The corridor was narrow, barely two shoulders wide, and lined with steel plating slick with condensation.

The hatch in front of them was locked tight.

Reinforced. Bulked with layers that didn’t match the specs.

Taylor crouched beside him, in the stack, second position, one hand braced on the wall to stay steady against the slow sway of the ghost ship. Boomer was lead, and she couldn't take her eyes off him.

He was silent. Focused. His shoulders squared under his gear, helmet locked tight, weapon ready. Every movement was practiced. Precise. The epitome of calm in kinetic form.

She’d seen him unguarded. Heard him laugh. This was the version of him the world never saw. The version that wrecked her composure more than his voice ever could.

Boomer examined the reinforced hatch, running his gloved hand along the seam again, head tilted, eyes narrowed behind his goggles.

“Impenetrable?”

He shook his head, flashing her the kind of grin that projected all kinds of confidence. “Ain’t nothing I can’t get through,” he muttered.

“You blowing it?”

“Steel box like this? The blast’d bounce back and gut us.” He prepped the exothermic torch instead. “Clean cut, no boom. Less fire risk with these compounds in the air.”

Taylor’s heart kicked harder. He didn’t just blow doors. He read them. Solved them. Respected them like puzzles that could kill.

“Welded post-entry,” he murmured. “Someone wanted this sealed hard.” She watched him unpack the torch.

Movements smooth. Efficient. Like he could do this with his eyes closed.

“Looks like a brute force cut,” he murmured, voice low and practical.

But to her, it didn’t sound tactical. It sounded intimate. Like an invitation. Like a promise.

His hands were steady as he checked the line, gloved fingers brushing along the seam of the bulkhead with the kind of care that made her breath catch. It was intentional. Methodical.

Sensual, in the way only complete control could be.

Her pulse thudded deep in her core.

Gott, get it together. This is a breach, not a seduction.

But it was him, and everything he did was quiet precision and slow burn.

There was something about watching this man prepare to break through reinforced metal that made her think about her own walls, the ones he was dismantling one gloved inch at a time.

He handed her the thermal goggles. Her fingers brushed his. She felt it everywhere .

He didn’t look up. Just said, “You’ll need to spot while I cut. Watch the stress lines. Call if anything shifts.”

She nodded. Slid the goggles on.

He struck the torch. Sparks screamed to life, a bright, white-hot arc lighting the corridor like a furnace. His arms flexed as he braced the torch with both hands, steady as a machine.

Taylor was not okay.

His focus. His control. The sheer raw force of him, commanding metal and heat like it was nothing .

Gott, help me.

Her mouth went dry.

I need a cold shower and a blast door between us.

He kept cutting, muscles coiling with every shift, sweat starting to dampen the collar of his shirt beneath the armor. She split her focus between stress lines and watching him, praying the process would take longer than expected.

One second he was cutting with precision, and the only stress lines that were active were all hers. It went silent, the door gave with barely a sound.

Boomer surged forward, and the way he moved was like a charged line, tight and efficient, power and purpose fused into every breath.

Taylor followed, swept left.

Inside, chaos. Men shouting. Flashlights cutting through haze. One raised a weapon, and Boomer dropped him with a two-shot rhythm that was almost beautiful in its efficiency.

Another lunged from the side, knife flashing.

Boomer stepped into the attack, not away, into it, disarmed, swept the man’s legs, and drove a knee into his sternum before Taylor even reached them.

He didn’t just fight. He dismantled.

She’d never seen anything like it. Never felt like this inside a mission. Not ever.

Her lungs burned behind the mask. She moved. Covered. But her eyes kept going back to him.

They cleared the hold in under six minutes.

They were halfway through clearing the lower level when it happened.

She pivoted left, scanning a narrow hall choked with gear crates and flickering lights, when?—

A movement. Quick. Shadowed. Wrong.

Before she could process it, Boomer slammed into her side, low and fast, shoving her back against the wall just as a shot cracked past her shoulder.