Page 16 of Boomer (SEAL Team Tier 1, #7)

She hit the bulkhead hard but not as hard as he did.

Boomer twisted, a massive shield of muscle and heat, raised his weapon, and double-tapped the shooter center mass before the man’s finger had even reset on the trigger.

Taylor’s breath froze in her throat.

The smuggler dropped. Silence followed, deafening after the sharp echo of gunfire.

Boomer stayed in front of her for a heartbeat longer, scanning the corridor, chest rising and falling, his body still angled protectively.

Only then did he turn.

“You good?”

She nodded. Couldn’t quite find her voice.

He didn’t touch her. Didn’t ask her to sit. He just gave her a look, steady, grounding. He had her back, and her wicked mind went there. He could have her front, too. All of her.

Boomer started to step back and give her space.

But something between them had already shifted, and she wound her hand into his tactical vest, halting him. His eyes flashed, dark and glossy in the dim light.

Taylorstopped thinking…stopped breathing as he moved closer. Her gaze locked on his face. Her body was very aware of his nearness, responding to it in ways that were instinctive and fundamentally feminine…warming, melting.

Braced against the bulkhead, caught between an immovable object and an irresistible force, she should have felt trapped. She didn’t know much about Carter “Boomer” Finley, and what she did know was changing her in a way she hadn’t ever anticipated.

This was so not the time or the place, and she had no business touching him, or wanting him to touch her. She should have had better control. But she didn’t.

He leaned into her space, one hand bracing to her side, the other effectively corralling her.

Her fingers brushed his vest. Just enough pressure to feel the heat of him underneath.

Her lips parted, once. Offering. Seducing.

That strange sense of desire and anticipation crept along her nerves.

If she leaned forward, he would kiss her.

She could see the promise in his eyes and felt something wild and reckless and completely foreign to her rise up in answer, pushing her to close the distance, to take the chance.

His eyes dared her, his mouth lured, masculine, sexy lips slightly parted in invitation.

What fear she felt was of herself, of this attraction, this sudden ache.

She shivered at the first touch of his lips, blinking as if the contact had given her a shock.

He held her gaze, his eyes dark and intense, mesmerizing.

Then he settled his mouth over hers and thought ceased.

Her eyes drifted shut, her hand tight around the strap of his vest. Boomer pulled her close, slanting his mouth across hers, taking possession of it.

At the first intrusion of his tongue, she gasped a little, and he took full advantage, thrusting slowly, deeply, his taste honeyed and warm and wholly addicting.

When Iceman called “ all clear,” Taylor’s pulse was still climbing. But then he pulled back, breath brushing hers, their eyes locked at a distance so small it might as well have been inside her skin.

“Later,” he murmured. “When we’re not wearing body armor.”

She couldn’t breathe. Could barely stand.

She was smiling, Gott , smiling like a woman who'd just been undone by a tactical operator and one perfect fucking sentence. Ain’t nothing I can’t get through.

“You okay?”

She could barely hear the question over the blood rushing in her ears.

“Not exactly,” she managed. “Are you?”

His smile was small. Tight.

“Took longer than I wanted.”

She looked around the hold, two unconscious smugglers, several bins of what looked like fentanyl precursors, and the absence of the breached door.

Then she realized he wasn’t talking about the mission. “Felt fast to me,” she said.

Their eyes locked again, and it wasn’t adrenaline making her hands shake.

It was him.

“Boomer?” Ice asked through the comm.

“I thought the talking was supposed to come first,” he said, his voice hoarse, depressing his comm, but his gaze never left hers. “Copy, boss.”

“I’d say that was a form of communication.” Damn she wanted more, harder contact, hours and hours to explore that mouth, that taste.

His look was dumbstruck.

“I need you up here for another locked door.”

“Are you saying that talking is overrated?”

“Right now, I’m a little preoccupied with a man who wields sparks and brute force.” His words came back to her. See, darlin’, you just need the right tools.

“Boomer?”

“So you're coming up with me?”

“Hell, yes,” she whispered, “I’m coming.”

“Goddammit, Boomer!”

“Keep your tactical shorts on, boss. We’re on our way.”

She grinned at Ice’s response. It was too damn true. “Don’t get cute with me.”

“Come on, boss. Be happy. We bagged two live ones and a shitload of precursors.” The time for play peeled away, replaced by something hotter, deeper, an intensity that didn’t flirt, but consumed.

Something like fear gripped Taylor by the throat, and she breathed around it, not sure where this was taking her or what would happen after.

Yet eager for the continuation of this mission they were on, and what might come next.

The op ended in tension, not triumph, two suspects detained, but neither cracked. Taylor ran the interrogation herself, fluent in three of their shared languages and versed in the cultural soft spots, but both men sat mute, their loyalty stitched tight and ugly behind hollow eyes.

It was past midnight by the time she surfaced, her plan to keep at it.

She was only getting started. The team had already debriefed and vanished to their bunks, Boomer included.

She wasn’t sure if he’d showered or crashed face-first, but she’d seen the tight set of his jaw before he disappeared down the hallway.

He hadn’t looked at her, and she knew why.

They did have a job to do and these…overwhelming feelings were complicated in this situation.

But didn’t mean she was going to back down.

Boomer was in her blood, and she wanted him imprinted on the rest of her.

Lust? Not exactly…maybe…but more than sexual, yet she couldn’t wait to get her hands on that body, but it was more of a mental lust to know him.

She shivered hard, paused, and put her hand on the wall.

To know him. To know and understand what she glimpsed behind those green eyes.

Pain, the deep, devastating type…like what she felt about Emil.

About her need to protect Ansel, the fights with her parents getting worse. She took a breath.

It was a good thing he was sleeping. It was damn hard to think around that man and not give him every speck of focus and attention she had.

The hunger hit her like a wall of need so deep, she had to breathe around it.

For a solitary woman, for a woman who'd spent her adult life keeping herself disciplined to avoid, to not want alpha men, the kind she worked with.

It had been all about proving herself, keeping herself pure for the job she ached to do.

Control…she had it once, now it was unraveling.

There was fear, but then again, that kiss melted her all over again, there was Boomer.

She’d already taken her leap when she answered that text.

But when he hadn’t shown up, she got scared all over again because it hurt more than anything.

So, she could have just told him she changed her mind.

Then he blew her out of the water with that confession, and how she had hurt him. That made her ache.

So, she needed quiet. Who wouldn’t when Boomer was in the picture? Something to do with her hands. Something to anchor her spinning thoughts before they spiraled. Something that reminded her she was still her.

She found what she needed in the small compound kitchen.

Apples, flour, butter. A half-decent spice rack someone’s wife had probably mailed over in a morale box.

She peeled in silence, fingers sure, wrists moving in rhythm as cinnamon filled the room.

The sound of a knife against the board, the scent of baked fruit and caramelizing sugar all soothed her.

Recalibrated her. Her mind cataloged every step, every movement.

Unlike people, recipes made sense. They didn’t lie.

Didn’t flinch. Didn’t look at you like you’d stripped them bare without permission.

“You made…streuselkuchen?” His voice was still rough with sleep. Or maybe something else. Shivers cascaded over her.

She glanced back, almost startled but not apologetic.

Barefoot. Drawstring pants riding low on his hips, T-shirt inside out, sleepy-eyed and freshly showered.

Carter Finley looked like he’d been carved out of midnight and memory, and she cursed herself for noticing the way his hair looked like tufted silk.

He paused at the doorway, leaning on the frame like it was the only thing keeping him upright.

Several minutes ago he’d been pulled out of sleep.

He’d woken to the scent first. Warm, golden, spiced.

Familiar in a way that struck straight through the armor he hadn’t realized he was still wearing.

It smelled like Sunday afternoons in Georgia when his Oma visited from Munich.

Like falling asleep on the couch while she baked in his mother’s kitchen.

Like stories in a thick accent and a wooden spoon tapped lightly against his knuckles when he tried to sneak a taste too soon.

Disoriented, he’d pulled on pants, a tee. He didn’t remember falling asleep.

He followed the scent down the corridor barefoot, quiet. The light from the kitchen spilled low and amber against the tile, and there she was.

Hair knotted high. Sleeves rolled to the elbow. A smear of flour across her cheekbone.

“Technically, it's more of a free-form apfelstreusel . The crust’s a little rustic, but the filling is proper.” She tilted her chin at him. “Your grandmother would approve.”