Page 41 of Boomer (SEAL Team Tier 1, #7)

Boomer’s body was still damp from the shower, towel slung low around his hips, steam clinging to his skin like the residue of every unspoken need. He moved through the hallway on autopilot, barefoot, heat-stung, and raw.

The cold water had been a joke. Nothing could cool him now but Taylor Hoffman, badass operator, woman of more than his dreams, and an aunt doing her damnedest to fight for her nephew.

Now…he was invested in the kid. There was no pretending otherwise. He was rooting for him. Hell, he ached for updates on his progress. Somewhere between Saturday and now, that boy had carved out a space in his chest Boomer didn’t even know was empty.

His whole body throbbed, every muscle still buzzing from the heat she’d left behind.

He’d been hard since the second she touched him, since that low, wrecking need in her voice curled into his skin like a live wire, since she stripped him bare without taking a single piece of clothing off.

Her scent still clung to him, linden blossom and steel, like summer air after a storm.

Soft. Charged. Impossible to forget, like voltage, hitting straight through his chest to the place he was trying like hell to keep under control.

Lust was a faint echo of what he felt for her.

This was deeper. Darker. A hunger coiled low in his gut and anchored in something far more dangerous, wanting a future, not just an act.

Honest. Brutal. The kind of need a man didn’t say out loud unless he was ready to be broken open by it… and never put back together the same.

He’d lost himself in absence. In distance.

In the bottom of a bottle. In the steady erosion of his own failings.

He’d never believed there was a way out, no relief, no reprieve.

Just the ache. The guilt. The weight he carried was like a beloved burden.

He used to pray for escape. For numbness.

For silence. Now, he prayed for courage.

She was the kind of risk that demanded a different kind of strength.

He was taking a big step with Taylor, and it wasn’t just his body that was primed for her. His heart, aching and ready to be exposed, was thick with just as much want.

He didn’t make it three steps before the door to Taylor’s quarters flew open and her hand shot out.

“How damn long do you need in the shower?” she snapped, voice sharp, chastising, and hot with irritation.

God, he loved it. “I’ve been stalking you since I got here.

I’d take you dirty and sweaty and straight from battle right now. ”

She grabbed his wrist and without a word, yanked him inside.

The door slammed. No dimmed lights. No music. Just reality and the rush of her scent, musk and arousal, sharp and intoxicating, and the woman who already had him strung out past breaking.

She didn’t wait. Didn’t hesitate. She reached down, gripped his towel, and yanked it off like it had personally offended her. He barely had time to draw breath before she filled his vision, hair loose flame, a deep blue robe clinging to every goddamned curve, her eyes lit with something wild.

Her breath caught. “Oh, Gott .” Her gaze dropped. Traced the length of him, jutting, ready, already thick for her. What was in those eyes? Heat. Hunger. It almost made him come, and now he understood why she’d left the lights on.

She planned this. She wanted to see him.

All of him. It wasn’t just his body she was after.

It was in those deep pools that took him under, drowned him in sensation, and the promise of what she wanted to do to him shadowing those depthless eyes.

But this Nordic blue, deep, glacial, impossible, burned hot enough to melt the polar ice caps.

“I guessed you were this magnificent beneath your tacticals, those tight jeans and those indecent UDT Navy-issued my ass shorts,” she said, voice low and wrecking.

“But this?” She stepped in and wrapped her hand around his cock.

Her palm slid slowly up the thick length, thumb brushing the swollen head. “This is masculine perfection.”

His whole body jerked, the pleasure so deep it knocked sound from his throat. His head fell back, lips parting, pulse roaring. Then her hand was on his chest, and she shoved him.

Hard .

His back hit the wall. He blinked, breath catching.

“I don’t know where to start,” she growled. “You’re the sexiest, most maddening, goddamned bastard. But I know one thing.” She reached for the belt at her waist. Loosened it. Let the robe fall. “I’m taking my time.”

She dropped the robe, and air left his lungs like a detonation.

Taylor stood in front of him, bare, a woman standing in the full glory of herself, every inch of her a declaration.

She was all lean strength and sculpted grace, curves carved by movement and muscle.

Shoulders squared, spine straight, breasts high and full and so fucking real he couldn’t breathe around it.

Her waist dipped into hips that could drop a man to his knees, and her legs, long, firm, toned, looked like they were made to wrap around him and never let go.

Her skin glowed, warm and flushed, brushed with heat in all the places he wanted to touch. Pale gold in the light, with hints of fire at the collarbones, like the sun had tried to mark her and failed.

Her hair… damn . It spilled in a swath of red silk to her shoulders, flaming. Wild. Fierce. Just like the woman it belonged to.

But it was her face that undid him. That cool, calculated beauty, now sharpened by heat. Lips parted. Breath unsteady.

“In the future,” he rasped, “I’ll take combat showers. Or just come to you the second I’m able.”

Her voice was a whisper, low and wicked. “Anywhere…anytime?”

“Yeah,” he growled. “If we can get away with it.”

She stepped into him, pressed every inch of bare, glorious skin to the full length of his body.

Those hips rolled against his cock in a slow, devastating grind, and his whole body seized with restraint.

Then her nipples brushed his chest, tight, scorching points of heat, and he groaned, helpless against the contact.

His hands gripped her waist, sliding up her sides, reading her like blueprints etched in skin and breath. Like she was a breach worth every ounce of precision.

They curved around her ribs, holding her steady as his mouth found the edge of her jaw.

His lips mapped her like terrain made for ruin.

He kissed his way along her throat, then behind her ear, her skin hot against his lips, the soft glide of her pulse under his mouth making him dizzy.

She tasted like heat and salt and something rich he didn’t deserve.

Every inch he touched left him wanting more.

When he found them, pressure points, pleasure spots, the places that made her gasp, he pressed his mouth to each one. Soft. Intentional. Learning her by heart, by hand, and now by lips.

Her soft moans were his undoing. Breath catching. Body trembling. Every sound she gave him carved deeper into his chest.

He reached her breasts, plump, flushed, perfect, and cupped them gently. Then molded. His thumbs dragged over the aching peaks.

She cried out. Arched hard into his hands.

“Boomer,” she gasped, voice trembling with urgency, “I need….”

His voice dropped, low and rough. “Tell me, darlin’. Tell me what you need.”

Her breath hitched. Her eyes met his, wide and glassy with want. “Your mouth,” she whispered. “Where I ache for you.”

“Just keep lookin’ at me like that. I’ll take care of every inch of you.”

God help him, he meant every word. He wanted to meet every need she didn’t dare say out loud, hold every part of her too sharp for other hands to touch. He wanted to know her. All of her. The quiet corners. The steel. The vulnerability she guarded like a loaded weapon.

He wanted to give her everything he’d never been able to give another woman. Not even Lila. Not just heat. Not just devotion. Joy.

She filled something inside him that had been starved for too long, filled it so full he couldn’t breathe around it. He didn’t know what to do with it. With her . With all this beauty. All this goodness . All this hope .

He bent his head, cupping the heavy, perfect weight of her breasts in his hands, filling his mouth with one exquisitely aroused, dark-pink peak, taut, flushed, aching for attention.

He batted it with his tongue. Then lavished it. Slow. Deep.

Her hands ran over his hair to the back of his neck, her touch firm, holding him so sweetly as she arched, gasping, the sound ripping from her throat. “Boomer… Carter …please,” she begged, wrecked.

He bit her lightly, and her hips snapped forward, grinding against him, her slick heat scorching his skin.

His dick throbbed in sync with his heartbeat, deep, demanding, relentless.

He groaned and grabbed her ass, palm wide and strong, holding her tight against him as he ravaged that perfect nipple, sucking her hard, thrusting into all that firm, silken heat like he was already inside her, taking what was his.

God, the feel of her.

The way she shuddered when he used his tongue.

The way her fingers dug into his shoulders like she needed him there.

He got lost in it. In her. In every goddamn sound she made, every twitch of her body, every breath that caught on his name.

He could diffuse anything. Anything.Any goddamned thing .

But she was under his skin, in so deep, he couldn’t figure out how she got into his bones, muscles, blood, but fuck he wanted her there, everywhere.

He had no idea how to disarm his heart. She restlessly moved her hips against his erection, and he never wanted inside a woman as much as he wanted inside her.

He was rigged to explode, and she held all the power.