Page 19 of Boomer (SEAL Team Tier 1, #7)

Boomer lay flat on his back in his bed, listening to Break’s even breathing. He didn’t think he could hurt like this. Not again, not in such a different way.

He was still reeling, physically, mentally, emotionally. The ache in his chest had everything to do with her .

Taylor had kissed him. Put her hands on him. All over him. He’d let her, not just because it felt so goddamn good, but because she needed to. He understood that impulse. Understood loneliness. Understood her loneliness.

He’d felt it in her hands, in the press of her lips, in the way she sought him out like a lifeline she hadn’t meant to grab.

But the taste of her was still on his mouth. The feel of her against him wouldn’t leave his skin. It was so much he craved, so much that had fallen in his lap, and it scared the hell out of him.

They hadn’t even had time to figure out who they were to each other. Yet…here they were, tangled up in appetite and memory and something that felt like hope and hope was dangerous.

His gut told him to step back. Just a little. Just enough to not let the fire consume the foundation.

That instinct had been with him a long time.

His dad had owned a small garage off a sleepy highway, just two bays, a calendar that hadn’t been flipped in years, and a smell of old rubber and grease that clung to his skin like a second layer.

Boomer grew up under hoods and between pistons, learning not just how to fix things, but how to listen.

Don’t force it, his dad used to say. The machine always tells you what’s wrong if you’re smart enough to shut up and hear it.

That’s what made him a good breacher. Why EOD felt like second nature. He didn’t look for breaks. He listened for pressure. For fracture points. For the sound of tension before it snapped.

Right now, everything in him was humming with a warning. This wasn’t about holding back. It was about holding it together. About not letting what they’d started drown under the weight of how much they already felt.

Taylor was warm. Beautiful in a way that wasn’t just skin-deep. She was grounded like she had roots in a storm.

He’d burned through too much. A marriage he destroyed because he stopped showing up. A transfer he still hadn’t made peace with. A grave he couldn’t bear to visit. The roadblocks slammed into him, hard and fast.

Taylor deserved someone without all this baggage. She was too young. Too smart. Too far out of reach.

He wasn’t under any illusions. He wasn’t sure what they were building. But for once, he didn’t want to be the man who walked away when it got real.

He wanted to get this right.

He rubbed a hand over his face, as if he could scrub the memory away. But it was still there. Last night in the kitchen.

The smell of cinnamon and browned butter, the way she’d looked with flour on her cheek and her hands moving with calm, practiced grace. She’d fed him like it mattered. Let him help , even. Pressed dough, flipped onions, gave him a piece of his Oma back, and he treasured those moments.

God.

No one ever talked about her. Not since she passed. Not since his mom boxed up her apron and cried alone in the pantry. But Taylor had remembered. Not because he made a speech about it but because he’d let the memory slip once, and she caught it.

That hit him harder than the kiss.

Anyone could want his body. But that moment? That meal? That quiet offering ? It was the kind of intimacy you couldn’t fake. Her kindness told him there was something there, something to care about, and he did. He cared so much it almost made him sick with the wanting.

Maybe he’d had a taste of the life he never thought he’d deserve and that was scaring him the most.

“Man, my head hurts from how hard you’re thinking over there,” Breakneck said.

Boomer turned to glare and stared at the kid’s serious face.

“Haven’t you had enough of shepherding me, little sheep dog?”

“No. I’m not blind, Boomer.” He stared at him, and Boomer returned his gaze to the ceiling.

“I know why you were so out of sorts during that black op,” he said casually.

“After it.” He scrubbed a hand down his face.

I’m so fucked. Boomer didn’t answer. Breakneck didn’t back down.

That fucking kid never took the easy way out. “What happened with her?”

Boomer let out a slow breath, jaw tight. “I sent her a text. We agreed to meet here in Lisbon. Then we got yanked on that last-minute black op. I had to stow my phone and had no access to her number. I couldn’t give her a head’s up, and I never showed.”

Breakneck winced, slipping out of bed and crouching down. “Damn. That’s a bad break.” Those deep blue eyes processed like a wise, old hermit. “So, she’s jumpy. Got mixed feelings. A little turned on by the big, bad Boom Boom.” He looked over. “She’s fucked and you’re fucked.”

Boomer stared at him. Then shoved the kid over with one palm to the shoulder. Breakneck hit the ground laughing, rolling to his feet like it was nothing. Boomer looked at the ceiling for deliverance. He was so wrecked. Completely tangled. Yet it had never felt so good to be this screwed.

PT completed, this time in the gym with heavy tires, the bag, and pull-ups until his arms shook, showered and ready for the day, he headed for the kitchen.

He stopped short. Bash was in there with Taylor standing close to her, leaning in, and whatever he said to her made her laugh softly.

His gut twisted. They had history. It was easy to see how she looked at him.

This wasn’t a surprise to him that he’d have competition.

He knew what Taylor was. Not just beautiful.

Not just brilliant. She was rare, a woman who could hold a line, hold her own, and still look like she belonged in a dream.

Any man with breath in his lungs would want her.

Boomer had known that from the first moment he saw her in that humid Colombian ops room with her hair pulled tight and her voice cutting through the static like it belonged on the comms forever.

So yeah. If she chose Bash, smooth, unburdened, quick-witted, and handsome in that effortless, European way, it would be her call to make.

It would gut him, not just because he wanted her. But because he wanted her to want him back .

Bash was her age. Probably didn’t carry ghosts in his chest cavity or regret in his ribs. They shared history. Laughed easily. Fit together in ways Boomer wasn’t sure he could.

The thought that she might drift back toward something familiar instead of risking something new with him? The thought hit like a load of lead, and it hit hard.

He was competing for more than her affection.

It coiled in his diaphragm, hot and breathless, like the body’s way of bracing for impact. If the way she looked at him was any indication, he was in the running. High on the list. Maybe even already in her heart.

But he’d juggled these kinds of stakes before, precious, glass-fragile things in his big hands, and he’d dropped his share. More than his share. He was praying that this time wouldn’t end with another thing he had to bury.

Getting a second chance with her had shifted something in him.

He could feel it, like light sneaking into a locked room.

Snapping at Break in the cages had been the wrong kind of release.

But he’d been pissed. At fate. At timing.

At himself. He told himself he was too mature to entertain jealousy.

That jealousy was weakness. Insecurity, and he wasn’t weak, even if his ribs still ached with the things he never said.

Everyone knew people tended to take things out on the ones they loved.

Brothers. He and Break…the team. They were family, and as quick as Boomer was to snap, Break not only forgave him, he tended to him.

Made him goddamn toast the next morning.

If that wasn’t love, then he was an emotionally bankrupt moron.

He’d had a marriage once, a good one, until he blew it. He knew what love could look like. He knew what he brought to the table. He was stable. Capable. Protective. Loyal to the bone.

But under all that steel-thread certainty was a truth he refused to look at too closely.

If she chose someone else… If she didn’t choose him… It wouldn’t be because he lost.

It would be because he never showed her who he really was. He’d played it safe. Offered her respect. Admiration. Care. All the things he knew how to give. But not himself.

Not the part that mattered.

Could he keep going like that?

Could he be with her, touch her, kiss her, crave her, and still hold back the part of him that was so raw, no healing had ever reached it?

He took a hard breath. What if she saw it? What if she reached in and pulled that pain out of him, laid it bare? Who would he be then? How would he survive that kind of purge?

Would he do what he’d done to Lila? Would he shut Taylor out when it got too real, when she looked at him and saw everything? Would he be able to live with that? With the echo of yet another woman walking away because he wouldn’t let her know him?

The one thing he’d always feared was the thing she might actually want.

Him.

Still, he clung to the idea that if Bash wanted to compete for her, fucking all of her, he’d rise to the occasion.

That’s what he did. That’s what he was .

A breacher. Built for impact. Trained to win.

Even if winning meant never showing how much he was bleeding.

Even if it meant she never saw the man behind the blast door.

The only thing scarier than losing her was letting her open him all the way.

Taylor stepped back. Bash’s cologne was sometimes overpowering.

She couldn’t help thinking how clean and masculine Boomer smelled without anything but soap and water.

Damn, she had tossed and turned all night thinking about him, his body, his skin, his muscles, and that mouth beneath her hands and lips.

“Smells like you cooked last night. Didn’t think you were one to eat alone.”