Page 28 of Boomer

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.

5

She hitthe 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, theireyes 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?”